an important post @Winston1 http://reason.com/archives/2017/12/11/the-end-of-free-speech Ah, fall. Students heading off to campus protests, football players kneeling as the national anthem plays, the smell of burning flags. It's the season of free speech madness. Republicans, as is their habit of late, have positioned themselves as the defenders of First Amendment freedoms in a time of runaway political correctness. This plays well on television: Footage of college students shouting down speakers they don't like, staging sit-ins, and brandishing protest placards runs on an endless loop at Fox News while chyrons blare, "Free Speech Under Fire on Campus." And when a demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia, spiraled out of control, it was primarily right-leaning lawmakers and pundits who stood up for the right of white supremacists and Nazis to express their vile opinions about race and Confederate statuary. Meanwhile, signs demanding "No Free Speech for Fascists" cropped up in the hands of lefties at post-Charlottesville rallies around the country. But as the weather cooled, the GOP revealed its true colors. Led by an increasingly vehement and erratic President Donald Trump, the same party that was poised to die on the hill of free speech when it was being threatened by angry progressives was suddenly ready to eliminate First Amendment rights on the football field, revoke citizenship for flag burning, pull broadcast licenses over bad comedy sketches, and expand libel laws to take down annoying members of the media. There are greater threats to speech, it turns out, than a bunch of angry co-eds. In the face of calls for censorship from the left and the right, meanwhile, one of the most important traditional defenders of speech has begun a slow but undeniable retreat. Dealing with internal dissension in the wake of Charlottesville, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) tiptoed away from its proud legacy of free speech absolutism. And poll after poll revealed that Americans of both parties are ready and willing to see speech rights abridged in the service of partisan goals.
The term "fake news" has no meaning at all. It used to mean false news made up by websites that mimicked real news sites and were attempts to deceive by outright lies. Like what the Russians did to influence our election. Now it means "I don't like and disagree with this truth." It means nothing to me when someone tells me, "That's fake news".
Oh no, our President said he personally invented the word, "fake", and the term "fake news". Isn't true, but doesn't matter,..Trump caters to his base, so convincing 33%,.. well, that works for him.
