Saturday on Fox News Channel’s “Justice,” host Jeanine Pirro opened her program with a condemnation of the actions that occurred at the U.S. Capitol days earlier but also warned of what could come as Big Tech takes a more proactive role in policing speech.
Transcript as follows:
PIRRO: I want to be clear. The actions at the United States Capitol three days ago were deplorable, reprehensible, and outright criminal. These frightening and repulsive actions represent the most significant breach on our Capitol in over 200 years, and I don’t care what happened in the past or whether those who didn’t think the election was stolen. That is not justification.
Seventy-five million of us are still angry about the election, but we don’t storm the Capitol and stop looking for other people to blame, including those dirtbag terrorists, Antifa. To those of you who did this, you did it of your own will and you will be held accountable.
Take the veil of politics off. Be totally objective. Anyone watching this must condemn it.
And in the end, what was the point? What did you get out of it? Was there even a plan when you got in there? Besides looking like a bunch of freaks, breaking windows, carrying off a podium, sitting at Nancy Pelosi’s desk, leaving a love note with fingerprints behind, identifying yourselves with selfies, stealing, damaging property, trespassing, looting?
Five people are dead in your wake: a police officer, an Air Force veteran, not to mention countless injured, including a young police officer on video screaming as he is being crushed, blood coming out of his mouth.
Did anyone stop to think that with this foolhardy effort to disrupt the congressional hearing, you have smeared 75 million of us because of what you did? Did anyone change their vote? No.
You have tarnished all the good that’s been done over the last four years because of this senseless lunacy. And worst of all, you have yielded the moral high ground to those who have repeatedly and consistently taken away our freedoms: our freedom of speech, religion, our right to be with our family, celebrate Holidays, even go to work as you prance around like a bunch of idiots in the Capitol.
We are a proud populist movement of millions of Americans who support a man who struck a chord with us, people who never voted before, forgotten men and women, people who didn’t think their vote mattered came out in droves, and for four years, we watched President Trump deliver on his promises.
He championed law and order. He supported the military, and he fought to fund it like no other President in our lifetime. And he fought for police while the left called to defund the police. Unless, of course, they are needed and the Capitol.
Query: is the suggestion that the life of someone in the inner city is not as deserving of police protection? Less valuable than a Member of Congress? People are frustrated, especially when they hear comments like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: That have had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, there wouldn’t have been — they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PIRRO: Really? They got away with police being told to stand down and prosecutors not filing charges when they created CHAZ and CHOP and burnt neighborhoods, businesses and got away with it.
Now, I have long believed that there are two systems of justice; one for the rich and one for the poor. I even wrote a book about it, “He Killed Them All,” how the rich get away with crimes, and the poor don’t have the ability to mount a defense or influence public opinion.
Today, I still believe that there are two systems of justice, two systems of outrage, but today, there’s one for the left and one for the right.
It seems the rules are applied unequally and we have lived under incredible tension on top of that for the last year, and as predictable as day after night, Big Tech has followed up on what they gave us a taste of, pre-election, last night when Twitter said it would permanently ban President Trump from his platform of 88 million followers, the slide down the slippery slope began.
Censorship in the United States is the biggest threat to our freedom right now. Social media is the broadcast medium of our generation. It’s how we communicate. It’s how we get news. It’s how we share our thoughts, persuade, dissuade, argue, it’s how we laugh, emote.
There is a reason freedom of speech is in the First Amendment. It is the essence of our American way. And suddenly, Silicon Valley, Jack Dorsey and company, they get to decide what speech is acceptable, anointing themselves as arbiters of whether what the right says is allowed to be heard.
The amazing part is that the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that even hate speech is protected speech, that it cannot be regulated because it’s part of our fundamental right of free speech under the First Amendment.
Now, I don’t like it when Kamala Harris goes on Twitter to raise money for criminals who come out and commit crimes again. But I would fight for her right to say it under the Constitution.
And amazingly, even the ACLU has joined to criticize the move by Twitter. And now, Apple is threatening conservative-leaning, Parler, with removal from its platform. When you are removed, censored, canceled from these platforms, you are then the subject of attack, assault, derision, even dismissal from your job.
If you’re on the left, however, you’re rewarded with a job or you become the head of a department at a university.
But the idea of censorship of speech in the United States is destructive to our free and open society. How can anyone possibly believe this is good? Forget fair, the idea that people get to decide whose speech is oppressed, and whose isn’t is totally outside our constitutional framework.
Social media is the marketplace where we share ideas. As Big Tech continues to suppress conservative speech, the inability of Americans to get the facts will be even more dire, drawing a politically influenced distinction between the truth and a lie, which will create even more chaos.
Fiction remember, often drives people over the edge.
Whenever the media takes side in a movement, historic anger and frustration results. We need a media that gives us the truth, they have not, which has prompted many of us to go online. And now Big Tech is as much as admitting they don’t like what people on the right have to say and they can argue that their law enforcement with an obligation to seek out and root out criminal behavior is not their job.
So Big Tech must be regulated. They can no longer have the immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The shame is they do what they do because no one in Congress has told them they can’t.
The monopolies must end, yet they continue because no one in Congress has said that they can’t.
It’s past time to peel back their immunity. The claim that they’re taking down dangerous speech is absurd. The Ayatollah is on Twitter, but the President of the United States is not?
George Orwell was right. The thought police come next to punish thought crime, personal and political thoughts that are unapproved by the government.
Be very, very scared.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.