They ran ads saying I shouldn’t smoke. I could either take their advice or not.
I know that we have to go to extremes to make a point… but let us keep in the realm of what is actually happening.
The Government is responding to disinformation around a public health issue.
Before the hyper partisan era, this would not have been seen as a problem… but since we live in hell, it has to be exploited to tingle that fear part of the lizard brain for the culture war.
Advise, even suggest…sure. hell, government can outright proclaim “thou shall not smoke upon the flying aluminum tube”.
Nothing extreme about it, just a simple request.
Again, the government is well within its authority to offer rebuttal to disinformation. It’s when the government starts requesting or demanding to silence it, that is stepping beyond its authority
And I don’t care if it’s Bush, Obama, Trump or Biden making the request or demand…it’s a step too far for my taste.
CRT-ized math classes (in the news in recent months) for elementary aged kids IIRC that sought to find answers by things like consensus, rather than individuals being good at math for their age. Of course exactly WHAT they were doing is up for grabs because the “educators” in that instance apparently hail from the “You want bonkers? Here, hold my beer.” end of things in the culture wars.
Again, see precedent on censorship by proxy, if the government asks, encourages, suggests or demands it be done, they become a state actor and the first is applicable.
You can find numerous precedent cited in the following article.
The Supreme Court held in Norwood v. Harrison (1973) that the government “may not induce, encourage, or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish.”
Norwood v. Harrison was a Supreme Court case about public funding for a private school that wouldn’t admit black people. It has nothing to do with “censorship by proxy”.
I won’t pay for the WSJ, so I can’t read your article. Why don’t you just provide the legal citations to support your claim?