Slippery Slopes!
Do We Only Support Speech/Protests that We Agree With?
CINDY SHEEHAN - Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox News Letter

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
―United Nations,Universal Declaration of Human Rights

'As someone who has been arrested over 20 times for exercising my so-called first amendment rights to peaceably gather for protest, and free speech, I have a few things to say about it.

I went to court for about half of those arrests (in the others, the charges were either dismissed, or I had to pay a fine). Never, ever did a “First Amendment” right to protest, or freedom of speech get us out of the charges. I was only found not guilty one time:

The Dalai Bama was president when the most egregious arrests happened. I crossed an arbitrary line, AND I spend 3 days and two nights in DC Metro jail. At the later trial, with my several co-defendants, I was found not guilty because in the video it seemed like I was pushed over the line, not that I went voluntarily. That was not my defense, but the judge let me off, anyway (it was intentional), but I still had a six-month “stay away” order from the White House, which I would have spent another six-months of jail if I violated. I recognized early that “free speech” was only for the self-proclaimed Gods of Olympus (ever see the architecture in DC?), not for we mere mortals.

Today’s liberal cancel culture has now apparently jumped the shark.

Before Covid, I would have considered myself very leftwing on certain issues: Like body autonomy (ironic). I am in favor of a woman’s right to have reproductive sovereignty over her own body, but when I wanted to claim that right regarding the experimental mRNA injection, I was shouted down by liberal forces and banned by liberal Facebook for months at a time. Many of my rights were trampled on: freedom of speech, freedom of expression, my right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Was I given any awards for my stance? Um, no, I lost my livelihood and many liberals tried to ruin my reputation.

Then there was the Trucker protest in Canada. It is totally irrelevant what I thought about it, or what you thought about it, but after the Gods of Propaganda failed to demonize and undermine it with lies (I think the Gods are sorry they gave us eyes and brains—-even though most of us don’t use them), the Gods of Finance shut down their GoFundMe accounts and even froze the bank accounts of people who donated to support the protest.

Many liberals literally jumped for joy over this, but, me, being the Cassandra of the Left, warned them about slippery slopes—if the Gods of Social Media deplatform truckers, doctors, Alex Jones, and RFK, JR—if they are able to freeze the accounts of mere mortals for supporting human rights, then who would be next?

Well, today, I found out. The fiscal sponsor for Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox (for about 12 years now), Alliance for Global Justice has had our rights trampled upon by the Gods of Finance. This is part of the notice I received from them today:

For the time being, we are unable to process online donations for AfGJ and any fiscally sponsored project that has a donate page set up through AfGJ. Our credit card merchant processor, Card Connect, abruptly ended our contract two days ago. We were made aware of these changes yesterday, January 26th. We are urgently working on securing an alternate merchant processor, working with our lawyer to fight the accusations and Card Connect’s decision to terminate our contract, and notifying our base of this escalated assault from the ultra-right.
Free speech is a human right and human rights should not be demonetized, or deplatformed, nor should the person/group that we may, or may not, disagree with be starved to death.

I guess I am a free speech absolutist because I believe that most of us can come to our own decisions based upon all the information, but when most of that information is demonized, or silenced, choice is being weaponized against us.

If we, as the mere mortals, accept any kind of fascism for the “weirdo-other group,” then we are also accepting it for ourselves. Think about that, for a sec. If we, as mere mortals, accept any kind of fascism for the “weirdo-other” group, then we are also accepting it for ourselves.'