On March 31, the US Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Chiles v. Salazar, a Colorado case centering on the practice of “conversion therapy” for minors.

The court ruled correctly, by eight votes to one, with only associate justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting,  on the main issue in dispute: The free speech rights of Kaley Chiles.

Chiles is a “licensed professional counselor” who uses “talk therapy” to — in accordance with her belief in a version of Christian dogma —  assist non-heterosexual clients who want to become heterosexual (or maybe, if the client is a minor, whose parents want a heterosexual, rather than non-heterosexual, child).

BECAUSE Chiles engages only in “talk therapy” rather than, say, electroconvulsive therapy, drug therapy, aversion/punishment therapy, etc., she’s clearly engaged in conduct that’s protected by the First Amendment. The state of Colorado doesn’t get to decide what people believe or want and whether they’re allowed to talk about it with each other.

As it happens, I’m extremely skeptical of “conversion therapy.” So far as I can tell, sexual orientation isn’t something that can be consciously/intentionally altered using talk or any other kind of “therapy.”

Nor, for that matter, is it a “medical condition” at all. It doesn’t need to be “treated.” It’s just a characteristic (and perhaps an evolving, rather than static/permanent characteristic) that people discover in themselves.

But that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be able to think or say otherwise, or to attempt to “convert” consenting others through speech.

Note the qualifier: “Consenting.”

When a news story mentioned that Jackson’s dissent brings up consent, I was hoping for a thoughtful analysis of what constitutes consent and whose consent should be required for “conversion therapy.”

Unfortunately, the “consent” hooks in Jackson’s opinion are just about “informed” consent — whether “conversion therapy” practitioners adequately warn “patients” of possible risks. And she seems to be fully on board with the idea that the state, rather than patients, should get to decide what constitutes “treatment” (for anything), who may provide that “treatment,” etc.

The question of “patient consent” versus “parental consent” doesn’t seem to show up at all in the justices’ opinions.

As both a legal matter and cultural norm, it’s understood that parents and guardians have broad authority to make medical decisions for children … but there are limits.

I suspect that most people (me included) would oppose a claimed right of parents to “consent” to, say, “sex reassignment” surgery, cosmetic breast implants/reductions, etc., “for” their minor child over that child’s opposition and stated non-consent.

If “conversion therapy” really is “therapy,” it should be held to the same consent standard.  Kaley Chiles should only be talking to “patients” who have consented for themselves, not “patients” whose parents force her on them.

If you disagree, let’s apply your disagreement to a flip-side analogous situation:

One day, Mom and Dad decide their little boy is “really” a girl and needs “gender-affirming” counseling. If the boy says “no, I’m a boy and happy that way,” do the parents have a right to force that “therapy” on him without his consent?

If you say “yes,” well, at least you’re consistent. But wrong.

And if something is only “therapy” when it agrees with your religous or social beliefs, it’s not “therapy,” it’s just attempted brainwashing … and the “patient” should be free to refuse it or walk out on it. Even if the “patient” is your child.

I’m glad SCOTUS got it right on the First Amendment implications of this particular case. I hope they eventually take a case that lets them reach, and correctly handle, the issue of minor vs. parental consent for medically unnecessary “therapies.”

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

At airports across the US, Transportation Security Administration agents have been “working” — that is, impeding, harassing, ogling, and groping air travelers — without pay since Valentine’s Day due to a congressional feud over funding for their parent department.

Well, some of them, anyway. Several hundred have quit; quite a few are calling in sick more often.

On March 27, US president Donald Trump directed the Department of Homeland Security to start paying TSA employees again, using “funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations.” They may start getting paid again as soon as Monday.

They should also STOP getting paid again as soon as possible. Permanently.

The very existence of the TSA has been a costly 25-year mistake. Now, with the DHS funding dispute still in full swing, it’s time to correct that mistake by abolishing the agency, sending its workfare clients back into the productive sector, and returning airport security responsibility to airports and airlines.

Let’s do a quick cost-benefit analysis:

Cost, part 1: While TSA doesn’t have its own budget line — its operating costs are part of the larger DHS appropriation — its estimated costs of operation come to about $9 billion per year.

That’s about $27 per year from every man, woman, and child in the US, whether that man, woman, or child travels by air or not.

Cost, part 2: The government doesn’t offer official statistics on wait times in TSA “security” lines,  but estimates put average wait times at 20-30 minutes, and passenger “screenings” per year at 750-800 million.

That’s somewhere 250-300 million hours spent standing in “security” lines at airports: At the US federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, around $2 billion worth of air travelers’ time wasted.

And I’m low-balling that number, because the actual wait time isn’t the only time travelers waste on TSA. They spend extra time packing in “TSA-friendly” ways. They arrive at airports extra-early just in case the lines are long.

Now, for the benefits:

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TSA doesn’t even pretend its screenings have verifiably stopped so much as a single terrorist attack since its founding in 2001.

Is it possible the existence of TSA has had some kind of undetectable, unmeasurable deterrent effect? Sure, but probably less so than could have been achieved by the prior systems adapting and improving their screening techniques after 9/11.  Nation-wide uniformity makes it easier for terrorists to know what they’re up against; decentralized responsibility and variety makes planning attacks more difficult.

Why was TSA created in the first place? As Rahm Emanuel once said, in a different context, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste …. it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

Authoritarian politicians saw the 9/11 attacks as an opportunity to increase their control over American travelers –and to bill those travelers for the imposition. It was a mistake to let them exploit that opportunity, and now is a great time to tell them to knock it off and restore a measure of freedom and sanity to US air travel.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In 2004, a few years before K.G.M. — a pseudonym, because now you don’t even have to reveal who you are to get taxpayer-funded courts to hear your frivolous lawsuits — was born, three guys gave the world something called “MySpace.”

It wasn’t the first instance of “social media” on the Internet, but it was the first one to get global buy-in, with around 100 million users by 2008.

MySpace kicked off an era in which nearly two out of three humans on the planet use social media platforms to connect with others, share opinions and content, and, yes, sometimes scroll obsessively through everything on offer.

You or I may or may not like social media.

You or I may or may not use social media.

And, even though it’s pretty much the unique distinguishing development of the 21st century (everything else, including perpetual war, is just variation on eternal themes), you and I don’t HAVE to use social media.

Nor was K.G.M. forced to use social media.

But on March 25, a California jury awarded her $6 million in “damages” — half “compensatory” and half punitive —  from Google (which owns YouTube) and Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram), because she allegedly suffers from anxiety and depression and blames social media for those problems.

It’s really all punitive, because there are no “damages” to compensate for.

Google and Meta provided services which K.G.M. was free to use, not use, or use as much or as little, and in whatever ways, she pleased.

The availability of those services neither, as Thomas Jefferson might put it, picked K.G.M.’s pocket nor broke K.G.M.’s leg.

Since I don’t know K.G.M. personally, I can’t say whether she came up with the idea for this frivolous lawsuit or got conned into it by ambulance-chasing lawyers who thought they could mine moral panic for a big payday.

But the lawsuit was, in fact, frivolous and the verdict and “damages” award are, in fact, insane.

That insanity seems likely to become a trend (other such frivolous litigation awaits adjudication already), and the biggest costs won’t come out of the social media platforms’ bank accounts. They’ll come out of your freedom of choice.

Which happens to be EXACTLY what our ruling political class wants.

These platforms have opened the world up to examination and analysis. Not just by a few privileged insiders, by everyone. It’s harder for bad actors in politics, finance, etc. to hide.

These platforms have exposed their audiences to a previously unimaginable diversity of opinion. The heads of broadcast networks and publishers of newspapers no longer get to curate the viewpoints their audiences can hear, consider, and compare.

As platforms race to insulate themselves from liability to frivolous litigation, and politicians race to exploit the moral panic for control rather than mere financial benefit, our world is going to shrink back toward limited knowledge of, and enforced uniformity/conformity of public speech.

Now more than ever, we need decentralized — “ownerless” — social media platforms to make the rest of the 21st century censorship-proof … and judgment-proof.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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