Tim Walz is spreading misinformation about free speech. He's not fit for office.

Originally published in the Columbus Dispatch, this is a slightly expanded version that goes into more detail. I truly appreciate the Dispatch for their willingness to include contrarian voices and headlines that help to sell newspapers.

“You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater. That’s the test. That’s the Supreme Court test.” So said Minnesota Governor and Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz during his October 1 debate with Republican VP candidate J.D. Vance.

Gov. Walz was wrong. That’s not the test. It never was.

More than a century ago, it was one justice’s non-binding way of describing the “clear and present danger” test for speech that could be criminalized. The Supreme Court overturned that test in 1969, in Brandenburg v. Ohio, replacing it with the test of “imminent lawless action”.

Walz’s distortion of the First Amendment was a direct reply to Vance’s call for “Democrats and Republicans to reject censorship. Let’s persuade one another. Let’s argue about ideas and then come together afterwards.” During that same exchange, Walz, for the second time in two years, suggested that “hate speech” can be censored by government. He was wrong on that too.

He’s spread that falsehood before. During a 2022 MSNBC interview about voting rights, he said “And we’ve been fighting for two years on this massive misinformation campaign, first with Covid and of course since January 6. He later followed up with “There’s no guarantee to free speech for misinformation or hate speech…”

Ironically, that statement itself is misinformation. A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court said hate speech is fully protected by the Constitution. That’s good; because the alternative is far worse.

Walz was almost certainly informed he was wrong two years ago. If so, that makes repeating it a lie. The fact he did so during the debate makes clear his rejection of First Amendment principles.

Someone who wants to be vice president should know that the cherished right to free speech doesn’t shelter hateful and false statements because we like them. It does so because there’s no limiting principle that allows government to proscribe speech the majority might find offensive without also limiting speech that rightly challenges majority view.

A 1927 concurring opinion written by Justice Louis Brandeis established the counter speech doctrine as the preferred remedy for false or hateful speech. Mr. Walz should read it but I’ll save him some time. Brandeis wrote:

"if there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."

Our Constitution secures “the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Its First Amendment was listed first for a reason. It secures the fundamental rights that are the core of our unique experiment in self-government.

Our constitutionally protected freedoms of religion, the press, speech, and assembly ensure that individual liberty — the right to think and act for oneself and to come together by choice rather than by government diktat — is our country’s foundational purpose.

So important are these rights that changing them requires the consent of two thirds of Congress and 75% of state legislatures. The difficulty to alter fundamental freedoms is a feature of our Constitution, not a bug. It keeps freedoms safe from the abuse of simple majorities inclined to rule over the rest of us. Our nation’s founders understood this danger.

Today, while comfortably shielded by our Constitution, those ignorant of history and impatient for change seek to weaken its protections. 

Walz and an overwhelming majority of Democrats clearly fit that description as they also want to abolish the Electoral College and pack the Supreme Court. Though her campaign denies it, even Kamala Harris is “open to the discussion”. They reject the fundamental structure of our nation as a willing federation of semi-sovereign states, hence our name as The United States of America.

The Civil War was our nation’s bloodiest. It was fought not just to end the scourge of slavery but to preserve our union of states. Today’s Democrats, unable to convince sufficient majorities of states to support their policies, are determined instead to ignore the lessons and sacrifices of history to make majority rule — AKA mob rule — the order of the day.

In a nation as well armed as our Second Amendment provides, the majority’s tyranny isn’t likely to come by force but rather by chipping away at ordinary citizens’ rights, means, and willingness to object. Steel structures are strong but, left untended, they will rust and crumble. So too are the girders that protect our liberty being slowly weakened by those who fancy themselves our betters as they incessantly raise the price and difficulty of dissent from their ostensibly well-intentioned orders.

There are few threats to life, liberty, or happiness that would not be better managed by unfettered and robust public discourse. If the evidence of a threat is as strong as its supporters believe, the people will ultimately agree. If they don’t, the problem isn’t the people but the evidence.

Gov. Walz admitted “fighting” against misinformation during Covid. He didn’t mention the pressure the Biden-Harris administration applied to social media companies to censor Americans who dared to disagree with the government’s views. Missouri v Biden (later Murthy v Missouri) revealed the extent of that pressure. The Supreme Court ruling on the case rejected the plaintiffs standing, not the merits of the case, which remain unrefuted.

I detailed the government’s First Amendment abuses Walz views with such affection in a previous column.

 Walz is both ignorant of and views American’s free speech rights with antipathy. His belief that government should be the final arbiter of truth and his desire for pure majority rule isn’t just wrong; it dangerous and seriously questions his fitness for the office of Vice President of the United States.

Democrats incessantly prattle on about Trump and Republicans being a threat to our democracy. The evidence strongly suggests they would benefit from using a mirror to see the real threat.

The Constitution’s blessings of liberty are a priceless gift from the past that can only become our children’s inheritance if we guard it well. They will not easily forgive us if we squander it.