Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the Federalist,
and your experience shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge. As always,
you can email the show at radio at the Federalist
dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST, make
sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and of
course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Ryan Banger, Senior vice president for
Strategic Initiatives and Special Counsel to the President at Alliance
Defending Freedom. Much to talk about on the liberty front
this afternoon, and Ryan, thank you so much for joining
us in this edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2: Well, Matt, it's my pleasure to be here. I'm a
huge fan of the Federalist, have always enjoyed listening and reading,
and it's a pleasure to be with you.
Speaker 1: Well, the feeling is mutual. As I said before we
started the podcast, you folks have always been busy. It
just seems you're busier than ever these days because there
are so many battles for liberty, there are so many
overreaching arms in the government, and I know that this
is a new era. There has been a check on
a lot of the abuses we had seen for the
four previous years, but the battles do go on eventually.
I later on in the podcast, I want to talk
about what is happening in Europe in the European Union
that should be a red alert for those living in
this brave new world of technology. We'll get to that
in just a bit, but I wanted to talk about
some of the cases you've been working on, and I
think some more of the high profile cases, including the
Babylon B. For those of us, particularly in the conservative
movement in America, we're well aware of the satirical website
the Babylon B and a Hawaii resident are suing the
state of Hawaii after it passed a law that censors
online content, including political satire and parody. You know, this
is one of many stories, Ryan, one of many issues
where we see again the left simply does not have
a sense of humor, and it's a real problem for
the First Amendment, a real salt on First Amendment. What
is the case about and where does it stand today?
Speaker 2: That's right, man, and Hawaii passed this law last year
in twenty twenty four. It's entitled S. Twenty six eighty seven,
and it imposes criminal and civil penalties for posting what
they call digitally modified content that, in the words of
the law, risks harming the reputation or electoral prospects of
a candidate in an election or changing the voting behavior
of citizens in an election. Now think about that for
a minute. Isn't the whole point of a campaign to
harm the electoral prospects of a candidate or to change
the voting behavior or voters in an election.
Speaker 1: Hey, that's my America, buddy, right there. That's that's the
country I live in.
Speaker 2: Yes, like outlawing politics basically. So this this law is
very similar to laws that were passed in California about
the same time that did functionally the same same thing.
And the California laws in this Hawaii law they came
they came about shortly after there were some digitally modified
ads that were parodying Kamala Harris's announcement of her run
for president. And these ads. You know, we've all seen
types of ads like this now where AI is used
to modify the voice of someone to cause them to
say something on a digital image or a digital video
that they just didn't say, And these things are often
very identifiable as parody or satire. It's not difficult to
tease out that this is not serious. And yet the
lawmakers in California and Hawaii are so distrustful of their
own citizens that they decided to pass these laws to
make it unlawful to engage in good faith satire or parody. Now,
there are some ways you can do it, but you
have to place these giant disclaimers on the satire parody,
calling it satire parody, which of course ruins the entire
point of satire and parody, so it functionally makes it
impossible to engage in this sort of time honored exercise
of First Amendment freedom, and in particular in the political
and electioneering contest context, where First Amendment freedoms are absolutely essential.
Speaker 1: Well, how many times have we seen in American politics
that politicians don't need any help ruining their reputation as
they do it all on their own. But this really is,
I mean, and it's again uncharted territory. This stuff has
really popped up over the last couple of years, particularly
with AI technology. What is the argument that folks in
Hawaii and California have for trying to suppress this kind
of political speech.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, the argument is effectively that this kind
of speech amounts to a type of false advertising, false statement,
or even defamation. And their argument is that you're appropriating
these people's images and likenesses to spread effectively false intofammatory content.
Now that is not at all what's happening with satire
and parody. Satire and parody is really it's a time
honored medium. It's something that American journalists, American satirists, humorists
have engaged in throughout the history of our nation. It
is a fundamental aspect of our political tradition. It is
not a type of defamation. It is not a type
of false advertising or false statement. It is intentionally humorous.
It's an intentionally humorous medium that deploys speaks or language
that everyone knows is not accurate to critique, to draw
out contrasts. This is simply the opposite of defamation or
false statement. So it's this is a really dishonest argument.
Was really going on here, quite frankly, is these lawmakers
fear critique, They fear criticism, and they want to stamp
it out wherever they can.
Speaker 1: Is this nanny state stuff too? I mean, I think
about this. This goes way back, many many moons ago.
I was a snot nosed student at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
I remember meeting up with some friends in Madison, Wisconsin,
and that is where the Old Onion was published. It
used to be funny at one time, by the way,
I don't know if you know that, but you know,
satirical newspaper and had some very funny stuff in there,
some stuff that the average person just reading would say,
this is ridiculous. It is obviously satire, obviously parody. But
one of my friends significant others at the time turned
to me while we were at a restaurant reading the
Onion and said, is this for real? And so I
think that there are you know, bureaucrats and politicians, certainly
in California that at least tried to push the notion
that the paternalistic or in their case, maybe I don't know,
the maternalistic notion, whatever the case may be, that they're
trying to protect the voter, the citizen from such harm.
Speaker 2: That's actually quite that's very similar to what was argued
in a piece of litigation, Coles versus Bonte, which is
associated with our case. Very early on when the California
law was passed, it was challenged. It was challenged by
some podcasters, and a district court in California found that
one of the California laws violated the First Amendment. And
I thought what the court said was very telling because
it goes right to what you just said, this notion
that the government needs to protect citizens against, in the
words of the California law, materially deceptive content. What the
court said was, and I'm going to quote from the opinion,
it said that the Supreme Court as issue precedent that
illuminates that while a well founded fear of digitallypulated media
may be justified, this fear does not give legislators unbridled
license to bulldoze over the long standing tradition of critique, parity,
and satire protected by the First Amendment. What the Court
is effectively saying there is the First Amendment provides citizens
with a wide birth to receive, consume, evaluate, read, and
understand content for themselves. We have a we have put
our thumb on the scale here in the United States,
and we put our thumb on the scale of freedom,
individual freedom to consume to evaluate information for ourself. We
don't want the government getting in the way of that process.
And what these bills do is they simply disrupt that
balance in a way that offends the core tenets of
the First Amendment. So, yes, there may be some concerns
about deceptive content. Someone's always going to be fooled. But
in the balance, the First Amendment protects the right of
citizens to make that judgment for themselves, and that's what's
at stake here.
Speaker 1: It really is amazing to me, Ryan, and I know
that this isn't a new point or some groundbreaking perspective here,
but it seems to me that the left in this country,
the left really in the Western world, has turned into
what it accused the right of doing. And I think,
don't you think that the Babylon b case is exactly
representative or demonstrative of that.
Speaker 2: I think it's very much so. And I think you
put your finger on something that has really become true,
and that is, for a long time, the political left
has positioned itself as the guardian of freedom of speech,
always accusing the political right of conservatives being the ones
who want to stamp out free discourse. And those two
positions have changed dramatically. If they ever were true, they're
certainly not true today. The guardians of free speech, the
guardians of free discourse, the champions of the First Amendment
are really on the right. They're conservatives. I mean, look
at what President Trump did when he took office on
January twentieth. Right out of the gate, he issued an
executive order restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship,
calling out federal censors for the pressure that they had
placed on private companies during the course of the Biden
administration to tamp down, eliminate, and throttle speech on issues
as important as COVID nineteen policy or election interference. And
so you see here this is a prime example of
the conservative side of the political ledger standing up and
championing free speech against abuses by the left.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt about it. And you mentioned I mean,
and that is exactly what all of this comes down to.
It should be a wide birth. That's what courts have
continually recognized. I hope they continued. Not all courts, but
most have continued to recognize it that the First Amendment
that Americans practicing in these areas should be given a
wide berth, a wide berth like Larry Craig, a former
politician from Washington, enjoyed and the airplane bathroom stalls.
Speaker 2: I think you have to be a certain age to
capture that joke. But yes, I know of what you speak.
Speaker 1: That was a lot of build up to get to
Larry Craig, wasn't it. I'm sorry, I just I you know.
And again, these podcasts they're you know, they're widely edited,
so this is you get the full mechanism behind it all.
This case in California, by the way, there's supposed to
be a ruling soon, is there not?
Speaker 2: There is. We're looking forward to getting a ruling. We
argued this case on the fifth of August, so about
a week ago, and we're anticipating a ruling from the court, hopefully.
Speaker 1: Sim very good. Where do you think it's all had?
Speaker 2: I think we're going to win. I really do think
that this is an instance where the free speech violation,
the First Amendment violation, is so apparent that it's going
to be very difficult for the court not to spot
it and not to call it out for what it is.
Speaker 1: This is really a Gavin Newsom legacy thing. And now,
obviously it takes the legislature to put this through. But
didn't Newsome really hammer this. Hasn't he hammered this for
the last couple of years he did.
Speaker 2: In fact, these two laws in California that we are challenging,
both of both were laws that he demanded the California
Assembly pass in the wake of the Reagan USA video.
This was the satirical video that Matt Kamala Harris's campaign announcements.
He really put his name and his weight behind these
bills and demanded the Baby Bass.
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Speaker 1: Let's look at the banking in America. ADF has been
on the front lines of that, working with the White
House on the Executive Order on that front, leading the
charge really for years in the States on the banking laws.
But one client in particular, wanted to talk about Indigenous
Advance Ministries was debanked by the Bank of America. Again,
this all stems back to some Obama era policies by
a quasi government agency. I mean that really led all
of this in the name of consumer protection. Ultimately, it
appeared to a lot of us who you know, follow
these things and a lot of us that don't follow
these closely. Hey, they're playing favorites here. And that is
exactly what we see the government working once again with
private businesses or demanding that private businesses do their dirty
work in opposition to the Constitution. Where is that case
and where do you see it all going?
Speaker 2: Right? Well, you're mentioning Indigenous Advanced Ministries. That's a nonprofit
run by a wonderful man named Steve happ in Tennessee,
and they serve literally serve orphans and widows in Kampala Uganda.
I mean this is they're doing the Lord's work in
every sense of the word. And what Steve learned in
twenty twenty three, as he was packing his bags and
about to leave for another trip to Uganda to help
the ministry to serve these people who are in need,
he learned from Bank of America that his bank accounts
have been canceled. They were no longer going to do
business with Indigenous Advance. And what they told him was
they didn't want to do business with a organization of
Indigenous Advance's quote business type and that i AM had
that Indigenous Advance had exceeded the bank's quote risk tolerance.
So apparently it's very risky serving orphans and widows GANDHA
and what we see you mentioned this earlier, these de
banking instances, you never get a straight answer from these banks.
We had a very similar situation arise right before that
with Ambassador Sam Brownback and his group NCRF where they
were de banked by J. P. Morgan Chase under very
similar shady justifications. And what we find is oftentimes these
banks are responding to demands that they engage in an
analysis of what's called reputational risk and Reputational risk is
a factor that federal regulators have asked banks to take
into account when they're doing business with customers. And this
is really anything that could bring public disapproval on the bank,
up to and including public disapproval of the politics or
viewpoints of customers doing business with the banks, So as
an open invitation for banks to engage in censorship, fully
as an urging or prodding to these banks to engage
in censorship based on the viewpoints of their customers. And
it's really a huge problem. And we were very grateful
to President Trump who just last week announced an executive
order calling on federal regulators to stop using this kind
of reputational risk formulation and get back to the business
of doing banking based on the merits, not based on
ideolog iological viewpoints. It's our position at eightyf that there
should be no religious or political test just to open
a bank account. And I think that President Trump as
well in his way to making that a reality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not just your viewpoint. I think that is
the Constitution, isn't it. I mean, isn't that at the
core of a lot of different concepts in the Constitution.
The equal treatment first and foremost, and that you can't
have a litmus test on one business or another if
that business is engaged in legal activities. And I can
think of nothing more legal than helping orphans in something
I'm sure that Zoran Donnie would appreciate.
Speaker 2: As well in New York City.
Speaker 1: In New York City, yes, well, it really is.
Speaker 2: It's really something to behold. And you're right at the
Constitution if it condemns anything in the First Amendment's a
viewpoint discrimination by the government. But this is not the
only example of the government using its regulatory heft to
push banks into engaging and highly questionable behavior. We look
at what happened just last year with the House Selects
Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government at least a report
detailing how Treasury Department officials and federal regulators pressure financial
institutions like Bank of America, which debanked Indigenous Advance, to
surveil American's private financial data. I mean, there were reams
of reams of emails, documents, reports cited by the House
subcommittee showing that these uh, these regulars were leaning on
large banks to surveil customers who were doing such nefarious
things as making purchases from Dick's Sporting Goods or Bass
Pro shops or Cabellas in and around the DC area
around the time of January sixth, and it just a
complete financial dragnet on transactions of venicent Americans simply going
about their lives purchasing things at sporting goods stores. And
yet this is what the Treasury Department was directing these
banks to do. And in fact, the report also detailed
that the Treasury Department shared a report from this group
called the Institute of Strategic Dialogue with ISD, which is
a very left wing group out out of Europe, which
was detailing various nonprofit groups as threats to national security,
one of which was adf our own group, my group,
and telling banks to be wary of transactions involving these groups.
And so it was just really a grotesque abuse of
federal regulatory effort authority to strong arm banks into engaging
in ideological, ideological, political, even faith based discrimination in ways
that abuse the Constitution. So it was really shocking what
was happening. I know a lot of people will say,
at least people on the left will say, this debanking
concern it's really artificial, it's made up well it's not.
All you have to do is read the House Selects
Subcommittee Committee's report on the events that took place around
the financial dragnet around January sixth to find out exactly
what was happening. So this de banking Executive Order is
badly needed, and I think it's kind of be a
relief not just to those who are at risk of
being de banked, it's going to be a relief to
banking institutions who know the policy of the federal government
is no longer to lean on them to engage in
overt discrimination.
Speaker 1: It is absolutely unconscionable what a lot of Americans unfortunately
have gone through in the so called name of consumer
protection or in some cases national security. Our guest today
is Ryan Banger, Senior vice president for Strategic Initiatives and
Special Counsel to the President at Alliance Defending Freedom. And
I guess that Ryan really goes back to the point
for those living under the delusion that this is no
big deal. It's not really hurting anybody. Your clients and
many we know out there had a very difficult time
doing business making a living simply because they were targeted
in these operations.
Speaker 2: Correct, That's exactly right. It was very disruptive for Steve
and Indigenous Advanced Ministries when he lost access to his
bank account and he has several employees and Uganda, these
people don't live paycheck to paycheck. They live meal to
meal and they're waiting to receive their pay so they
can purchase dinner that night. So I mean this was
a substantial disruption to a ministry like Indigenous Advance that
is serving people who are really on the edge, living
on the edge societally in places like Uganda.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and exactly the good work they are doing that
comes to a complete halt. So not only are you
talking about the people who are running these charitable groups,
you're talking about the people who are benefiting from them.
And of course the left will say, well, you know,
you didn't care about that when you were cutting Usaid
and all of these sorts of things. We're talking about
tax payer money going into some pretty suspect organizations. That's
a difference. These folks are a nonprofit that are working
through the donations of people who want to see orphans
and people you know, badly displaced, whatever the case may be.
In a foreign country, Christian ministry trying to help.
Speaker 2: It's a very different thing when the government. On the
one hand, you talked about USA. This is government large
ass being distributed amongst various recipients. But here Indigenous Advanced
Ministries INCRF, Ambassador Sam Brownback, you can even open the
aperture and include other instances where the government has an
attempted to silence people. Think about Jack Phillips a masterpiece
cake shop. I mean, in each of these instances, the
government is using its authority, the power of the state,
to shut down silence, to erase the voice or the
presence of someone whom the government disagrees with. And that
is a gross abuse of government power. It's a tremendous
threat to individual liberty. It is completely anathema to our
constitutional system of government. The government should not be leveraging
its regulatory power simply to oppress those whose viewpoints those
who are running government find offensive or take issue with against.
That is contra our system of government.
Speaker 1: It is, and it is happening all over the place.
I mean, obviously it is most hitting, most damaging when
it occurs in our constitutional republic, going against the very
principles that founded this republic. But now we're seeing it
of course, we've seen it for a long time in
other Western civilizations, and you know, it's the intersection of
technology and so called security and privacy and all of
those sorts of issues. And while they put up the
name or do these things in the name of privacy,
we are seeing more and more the invasion of privacy.
One of the areas that you're working on, you're taking
a look at and at least warning some folks about,
is a proposed in the European Union. Very creepy surveillance
state sort of stuff. First of all in Britain, but
the EU is now seriously considering a proposal that would
essentially end all private encrypted messaging by requiring that all
messages be scanned by the government in the name of safety.
What's going on here and why is this so important
to watch?
Speaker 2: Well? The European Union has certainly become one of the
world's leaders in stepping on citizens' fundamental rights to engage
in free speech. I hate to say that, but it's
really true. And look at what Jade Vance said in
February of this path of this year, when he was
speaking at the Munich Security Conference talking about threats to
the West, threats to Europe and what he said in
his speech I think rings true today, especially in light
of this new development. He said, I worry. What I
worry about in the West is the threat from within,
the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values,
values shared with the United States, including freedom of speech.
And at ADF, we have been representing client after client
whose rights have been violated by European government officials who
are trying to silence their literally silence their speech, even
silent speech. You take the case of Adam Smith Connor
in the UK, who was silently praying on a sidewalk
and accused of violating an ordinance that prohibited sort of
disruptive demonstrations opposing abortion. So you look at the case
of Isabelle Vaughn Spruce, silently praying, arrested and prosecuted for
a thought crime. Look at the case of Olivia Taschi
Bolt who was simply holding a sign in one of
these buffer zones that said here to talk if you want,
didn't say a word, didn't it cost anyone convicted find
twenty thousand pounds, and so over and over again we're
seeing in the UK gross violations. These are these are
easy cases under the First Amendment, and yet here in
the UK we're seeing these prosecutions go forward. And of
course we're still representing after six years Member of Parliament
Priivy Rassen and in Finland who has been prosecuted criminally
simply for sending a social media post urging her church
to be faithful to biblical sexuality. So that brings us
all the way to what you just talked about here
is what some are calling the Chat Control Proposal, very
similar to the Online Safety Bill that I think you
were probably referencing earlier in the UK. But the Chat
Control Proposal, which is coming up for a vote this
October at the European Union, would require the scanning of
private messages, messages sent on apps like Signal or proton mail,
even encrypted messages in the end, encrypted messages, requiring the
scanning of these messages for illegal content. Now it's being
billed right now as an effort to cut track down
on on child sexual abuse material child pornography, which, of
course that's a laudable goal. Everyone should be opposed, vehemently
opposed to the distribution of c SAM and child pornography.
It's it's a scourge in our society. The question that
we're asking here, though, is a different one, and that
is is the methodology that the European Union is using
under this justification? Is it going to be consistent with
the protection of individual rights when every single text message,
every single email is going to be scanned by an
AI tool and there is really no limit on what
the EU can decide to do with that information. I mean,
this is an open invitation if there ever was one,
to censorship, to political retribution, to engaging in the policing
of thoughts of dissent. You know, certainly the people who
are working on this bill, we're going to say no, no,
that will never happen. However, you know, Europe's history on
this front in terms of respecting civil rights has not
been sterling for the past several decades, and I think
we have cause to be suspicious.
Speaker 1: Indeed we do. There's a lot to unpack there, of course.
But again, this idea, this proposal is all brought up,
as you mentioned, you know, in the name of something
very laudable, and that is protecting children. Lord knows we have,
uh you rising crimes against children and it is heartbreaking.
But how how do they propose to walk that line
when they're using it seems like to me a very
big net. And what's the vetting process? Like, have they
discussed that? How do they decide which, you know, text messages,
which which electronic digital communications they decide to use. Is
there some protection at all for the average citizen in
Europe or anywhere sending messages?
Speaker 2: These are all the right questions to ask. Unfortunately we
don't know the answers. I mean, this bill is still
being debated vehemently at the European Union. They haven't even
really agreed on what the text of the bill will be,
much less the implementation details that you're discussing here. But
what you're talking about are the natural questions that everyone
has to ask, and unfortunately the track record in the
EU is not great. Just look at another piece of
legislation that has been on the books there for some time,
the Digital Services Act. The Digital Services Act allows the
European Commission to engage in content moderation at a grand
scale when it comes to large online sites with forty
five million users per month or more. It imposes all
sorts of takedown requirements. It deputizes a large number of
trusted content checkers or content flaggers, many of whom are
members of NGOs that are left leaning in their ideaology
to flag this content for platforms, and platforms have to
comply with these requirements on pain of paying up to
a six percent of global annual revenue fine for violent
This is a huge hammer for these platforms that are
covered under the Digital Services Act. And again what we've
seen from the DSA is they're really there aren't reliable
protections in terms of protecting freedom of speech, free discussion,
free discourse. I mean, look at what's Look at what
happened to Pivey Racinan in Finland, prosecuted for simply sending
out a tweet asking her church to remain faithful. Look
what happened in the UK over the just when the
when the riots of the past year were taking place,
people were being imprisoned and jailed for blog posts, for
social media posts. Keir Starmer has been very adamant that
the UK, the Crown Prosecution Service has the right to
prosecute things being said on the Internet. So there's really
we can't take any comfort in the way that the
European leadership has been enforcing or deploying their existing tools
to date, and this would just give them the ultimate dragnet,
the ability to pry into private conversations on text and email.
Speaker 1: Perhaps this is a naive question, but you know, some
of this stuff doesn't surprise me about some members of
the European Union's even doing this kind of stuff before
the Internet, with all kinds of communications long before that said,
what happened to the United Kingdom. There is definitely been
a turn for the worse when it comes to individual
rights individual liberties in the United Kingdom over the last
couple of decades.
Speaker 2: There really has and I know that this is a
place where we have been focusing at ADF quite a
bit of our attention in the last couple of years.
But you look back to Kere Starmer when he was
working with the Crown Process Accution Service all the way
back in twenty twelve. He argued, there's actually an article
that he was quoted in as stating in response to
complaints that he was policing language online, he said, look,
I'm quoting from him. If an offensive message is taken
down very swiftly and there is remorse, then it may
not be proportionate to have a criminal prosecution of.
Speaker 1: Coorse, you have to range for your communication.
Speaker 2: This is in twenty twelve. This is the person who
is now leading the government in the UK. So it
shouldn't become as any surprise that would come to this
point given that Cure Stormer has always been someone who's
been very favorable toward censorship of speech. Look at what
happened just last year. UK Crown Prosecution Service on its
X handle in the middle of the post right aftermath
said I quote think before you post content that incites
violence or hatred. Isn't just harmful, it can be illegal.
And it also said and remind those close to you
to share responsibly or face the consequences. That's called chilling speech.
Speaker 1: Right there no doubt about it. And I tell you
George Orwell is sitting up in his gravegoing I told you,
I told you this is where we're heading.
Speaker 2: It is, but I'll tell you there is that there
is a real pushback right now in the UK. A
lot of people are standing up and saying this has
gone way too far. If you look at now Faraj,
I mean he he very well could be the next
Prime minister if this continues. I know he's spoken out
forcefully against against this sort of censorship regime. So there
really are some signs of life in the UK, but unfortunately,
the current regime is just not terribly friendly to freedom speech.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we look at that, what we've looked at
what's happened in Great Britain over the last couple of
years in particular, we look at this kind of policy
that the EU is proposing, and we say, in America,
who good thing, We're not over there. I'm just I'm
glad to be an American with this constitution we got,
you know, at the outset of the program, the outside
of the podcast, we've been talking about the abuses by
our own government. So where do you see the the
big government types, the newsoms and others already doing some
of this stuff, adopting similar measures that we see in
the European Union in the suppression of speech.
Speaker 2: And you know, unfortunately we have seen that here in
the US. But I'm very hopeful. I'm very hopeful. Like
you said, we do have the blessing and the good
fortune to live in the nation that, of all the
nations in the world, has the strongest protections for freedom
of speech. We are uniquely blessed to have the First
Amendment to have a strong, multi century body of jurisprudence
that uphold free speech right. So we do have our issues,
we have our problems. We certainly have those who would
love nothing more than to engage in a European style
censorship regime or worse. But we have the First Amendment.
We have a strong and robust tradition of enforcing free
speech rights. So I am I remain very hopeful for
the United States, and I think that our task today
is to catechize and educate our citizenry on the value
and the importance of the First Amendment on the critical
aspects of freedom of speech to our liberty. And for
those who are coming up, they're going to be seasoned
the reigns of the government decades from now to be
fully catechized as believers in the penultimate value of freedom
of speech.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I think it though does bear that. And
perhaps it was apocryphal from Benjamin Franklin. But the comment
at the Constitution Constitutional Convention, Republic, if you can keep
it you talk about the generations have had, We've already
seen what generations coming up are the people who will
be the public leaders in America talking about how they
don't believe free speech should effectively hurt people's feelings or
offend somebody. There is a whole generation of people in
this country who have been taught that free speech is
fine unless it offends certain groups, or this group or
that group. Are you concerned about that.
Speaker 2: Always? I think we have to be concerned because there
will always be those who will make the argument that
freedom of speech just simply isn't worth the cost, and nothing,
no good comes without a cost. And yes, freedom of
speech does come with a cost. And we've made the
decision in the United States when we when our founders
wrote the First Amendment, when we adopted that Amendment and
we have enforced it ever since. We have made the
decision that there are moments where freedom of speech is
going to result and result in hurt feelings, where it's
going to result in difficult relationships, and it's actually it
could even result in instances where their strife and discord.
But that is a better world to live in than
a world where speech is completely squelched, where the government
controls every thought, every word, every communication, where no one
has the freedom to think big thoughts, to dream big dreams,
to engage in robust public conversation. We have made the
decision in the United States that we would rather live
We would rather live in a world where toes can
be stepped on, feelings can be hurt. But at the
end of the day, everyone has the right to enter
the public arena and speak their mind, and to speak
it well, and to pursue with their fellow citizens if
they can, or to fail in the process. So that's
the regime we live in, and I would rather live
in no other place.
Speaker 1: I agree with you one hundred percent. All of that said,
are you concerned that our criticism of the United Kingdom
and its government cure Starmer is putting together an arrest
warrant for us right now?
Speaker 2: Well, there are issues of extra territorial application. But I
certainly hope I didn't offend his feelings. But if I did,
that's the price of free speech.
Speaker 1: Well, mister Starmer, I hope I offended your feelings because
you have acted grotesquely against individual liberties. And it's not
something we hear in the United States. Broke away from
your nation, your powerful nation, some two hundred and fifty
years ago. Respect, that's for sure. So bring them on, buddy,
Bring on your warrants plan to go over there anytime
soon anyway. Thanks to my guest today, Ryan Bangerd, Senior
Vice President forced Strategic Initiatives and Special Counsel to the
President at Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization that does exactly
what its name says, defends freedom. You've been listening to
another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle,
Senior Elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon
with more. Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious
for the Fray.