OPINION: The freedom of lie

The freedom of speech is dead. It has been for a while. If you doubt this, try saying something that is against the progressive woke narrative. The woke social justice Brown Shirts will mercilessly attack you, your employment, your business and your neighbors with the goal of canceling you, driving you from the public square or from gainful employment and even into jail. Openly criticize, or even tell an inconvenient truth about a “protected class,” and life, as you know it, is over. 

These progressive fascists use the East German Stasi methodology of guilt by association, or even proximity. If someone takes a picture of you with the wrong person in the same frame, you are guilty. If you don’t denounce whomever they say you need to denounce when they snap their fingers, you are guilty. If you do accept their narrative and denounce who or what they say, you are guilty.

However, if you conform to their narrative, which is a lie, you can say whatever you want and be praised by the media. The sheer volume of the mendacity seems to provide its own cover. Listing even a fraction of the lies that were stood up as truth is stunning. Here are some reminders.

Trump didn’t tell people to drink bleach. Jan. 6 wasn’t an insurrection. Brett Kavanaugh wasn’t a gang rapist. Israel didn’t bomb the hospital in Gaza. Derek Chauvin didn’t murder George Floyd. Trump did not call white supremacists “fine people.” Jussie Smollett wasn’t the victim of a hate crime. Trump didn’t collude with Russia. Men can’t get pregnant. Hunter’s laptop isn’t Russian disinformation. COVID didn’t originate in a wet market. mRNA vaccines didn’t stop the spread. Putin didn’t blow up his own Nord Stream Pipeline. Climate models can’t predict the future. 

What is remarkable is that not only did the progressive liberal media gaslight the world, but there is a significant fraction of the population that remains convinced of these lies despite them being thoroughly debunked. Once a weak mind has accepted something as “fact,” confirmation bias will reinforce that belief despite significant contrary information. 

While all these lies are harmful, perhaps the most pernicious lie is that the 2020 election was the most honest election ever. A Rasmussen poll conducted on 1,085 likely voters (MOE +-3%) released on Dec. 12 is stunning. 

“Thirty percent (30%) of those surveyed said they voted by absentee or mail-in ballot in the 2020 election. Nineteen percent (19%) of those who cast mail-in votes say a friend or family member filled out their ballot, in part or in full, on their behalf. Furthermore, 17% of mail-in voters say that in the 2020 election, they cast a ballot in a state where they were no longer a permanent resident.” “Seventeen percent (17%) of those who cast mail-in ballots in 2020 say they signed a ballot or ballot envelope on behalf of a friend or family member, with or without their permission. All of these practices are illegal, Heartland Institute officials noted.” “More Biden voters (36%) than Trump voters (23%) say they voted by absentee or mail-in ballot in the 2020 election.” 

Of those in the survey 34% admitted they illegally cast ballots due to residency or fraudulent signature issues. Extrapolating to the 155 million ballots cast, 30% or 46 million were mailed in. Of those, 34% or 15.8 million were cast illegally and of those, 9.6 million supported Biden and 6.1 million supported Trump. Illegal votes likely amounted to 3.5 million extra Biden votes. The margin of error would be greater than the margin of victory.  

The progressive Democrats, and their supporters in the media, haven’t stopped gaslighting. Fake news stories include claims that the Idaho GOP has been taken over by white supremacists, that the Caucus is a power play by Ted Cruz supporters to deny Trump the nomination, and the voter initiative being marketed state wide will “open” the primaries. 

The truth is that the GOP has more grassroots members in leadership than ever before. This irritates the establishment class who correctly see this as a threat to their power monopoly, eliciting accusations of “extremism” and “cabal” from lips formerly calling for “unity” under their rule. 

The Caucus is the Republican Party’s fix for the mess created when the Secretary of State, Legislature and Governor passed a flawed bill that eliminated the March Presidential Primary, disenfranchising all Idaho voters. At our Winter Meeting, all 221 state central committee members passed a resolution and rules begging the legislature to repeal the flawed bill. They did not and so the Republican Party responded with a Caucus plan that would re-enfranchise Idaho Republicans. 

All Idaho voters who are, or have affiliated before the end of 2023 will be qualified to participate in the Caucus. Unfortunately there is no absentee voting because there is no access to Idaho’s voter signature database for signature verification. 

The name “Open Primary” initiative is a lie. If you read the actual ballot language it clearly states “This measure would abolish Idaho’s party primaries.” An accurate name would be “Abolish the Primary” and proponents of that initiative claim that allowing only Republicans to vote for who will represent the Republican Party in the general election is unfair to members of the Democrat, Libertarian and Constitution parties as well as unaffiliated voters. 

Imagine claiming that limiting who can vote in Kootenai County elections to only people who live in Kootenai County is unfair to people who live in Spokane. That would be crazy, right? But that is exactly what the Open…er… Abolish the Primary proponents are saying. 

The initiative would also make lying legal as it would allow anyone to list any party affiliation even if they are not actually affiliated. Here is the exact language from the initiative: 

“Candidates could list any affiliation on the ballot, but would not represent political parties, and not need to be associated with the party they name.” 

They want to legalize lying. Unless we say no to the lies and embrace free speech our republic is doomed.

It’s just common sense

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Brent Regan is chairman of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee.