On May 28, US president Donald Trump signed an executive order on “Preventing Online Censorship.” From the title and the document respectively we can draw to two lessons.

First: Never, ever, ever believe the title of a government document. The internal texts of congressional bills and resolutions, as well as executive branch orders, “findings,” intelligence “estimates,” etc. seldom have much, if anything, to do with their titles.

“A Bill to Protect Cats, and for Other Purposes” may or may not even mention cats outside of its opening  justification paragraphs before it mutates into a swamp of of corporate welfare handouts, hidden tax increases, and Orwellian surveillance state provisions. An intelligence “estimate” or presidential “finding” that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction or that the Iranians are trying to build a nuclear weapon … well, you get how that stuff works, right?

Second: Never, ever, ever mention — at least in public — that Donald Trump is a liar. The purpose of the executive order is not to “prevent online censorship.” It’s to punish Twitter for “fact-checking” two of his tweets about voting by mail.

“Trump,” the “fact-check” title notes, “makes unsubstantiated claims that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud.” That’s an incredibly polite way of saying that Trump tells new stories so wildly incompatible with his previous tales that “Trump’s lying again” is the only plausible way to interpret them.

Until a few weeks ago, Trump and his party defended mail contact with voters as the only way to PREVENT voter fraud. Now Trump says “There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent.”

Stripped of its empty self-congratulation and whiny victim-playing, Trump’s executive order is about the opposite of protecting free speech. It’s about “clarifying” — that is, neutering — Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

Section 230 protects online platforms from liability for material created by others: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

Section 230, to put it as simply as possible, allows online platforms to operate without fear of being sued into bankruptcy for the actions of their users. If I libel you on Twitter or Facebook, you can sue me, but if you try to sue them you’ll lose. They’re not responsible for what I write.

Section 230’s protections aren’t dependent on a platform “purport[ing] to provide users a forum for free and open speech,” or on that platform being truthful if it does make such a claim, as the executive order implies. Platforms are free to set their own content policies, to ban users who violate those policies, and to notice and publicly mention that a user is a pathological liar who’s lying yet again, even if that user just happens to be the president of the United States.

If it withstood court challenges (it wouldn’t), Trump’s order would use the rule-making and spending power of the federal bureaucracy to punish, not protect, free speech.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) 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 mid-May, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution authorizing remote voting by proxy. Per the resolution, one congressperson may vote on behalf of up to ten others. In theory,  as few as 40 of the House’s 435 members could show up in Washington for the House to do business.

But Article I, Section 5 of the US Constitution says otherwise: “[A] Majority of each [house of Congress] shall constitute a Quorum to do Business.” That means 218 members must be present for the House to do anything.

As May draws to a close and the House Democratic majority prepares to race its shiny new unconstitutional proxy muscle car around the track, House Republicans are suing.

Their case seems air tight, but that doesn’t mean it will get anywhere. Federal courts, write Melanie Zanona, Heather Caygle, and Sarah Ferris at Politico, “are notoriously reluctant to wade into internal House machinations. …. often citing the Constitution’s language that declares that ‘[e]ach House may determine the rules of its proceedings.'” An obviously inapplicable excuse, true, but an available one.

There are other ways of putting the kibosh on the proxy scheme.

The Senate could simply refuse to  take up any legislation passed by the House without a quorum.

Likewise, President Trump could refuse to sign such legislation even if the Senate also passed it.

Better yet, the Senate and/or the president could decline to even acknowledge such legislation as having been passed by the House at all.

How many legs does a dog have if we call its tail a leg? Four — calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one. Ditto bills supposedly passed by a House with no quorum present and therefore with no authority to pass anything at all.

Don’t count on any of those outcomes any more than on the courts, though. Expecting any branch of government to start obeying the Constitution is, as Samuel Johnson called the second marriage of a man unhappy in his first, “the triumph of hope over experience.”

As is depending on the Constitution itself. As 19th century American anarchist Lysander Spooner wrote of it, “this much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it.”

Neither Congress, nor the courts, nor the presidency, nor the Constitution will secure our rights for us. If we want them, we’re going to have to seize them for ourselves.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) 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