Yesterday, Jeff Bezos announced he was stepping down as CEO of Amazon 27 years after founding the online retail giant.  And one of the issues that has dogged Amazon and other online stores is the unfair advantage they have over brick and mortar outlets.

But that’s not what I came here to talk about.  Today’s topic is the attention and preferential treatment some parts of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution get over others.  At the top of the list of favored children is “freedom of speech.”  Since the insurgent attack on the U.S. Capitol, several social media platforms and publications have taken a second look at the impact of offering their services to purveyors of incendiary messaging.  In response, conservative-leaning officials and commentators have flooded the airwaves crying “cancel culture” and demanding government action against social media and the press.

Yet, last night, Fox News chose not to broadcast President Biden paying respects to Capitol police office Brian Sicknick who was beaten to death by those who invaded the building on January 6th.  Where was the outrage about “cancel culture” by these same people who are so concerned Americans are sheltered from contrarian views.  I will bet the farm Rupert Murdoch would have screamed “we can’t let government control information” if White House press secretary Jenna Psaki had attacked Fox News on First Amendment grounds for not covering the story.

But I digress.  This was not supposed to be about freedom of speech.  So let’s move on to “no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  This is a bit dated, but still worthy of note.  In 2013, Hobby Lobby a company owned by a conservative Christian, was accused of not selling items related to Jewish holidays.  The  controversy reached a peak when a clerk at the store’s Marlboro, New Jersey location told a Jewish customer who asked where he could find Hanukah craft items, “We don’t cater to your people.”

Hobby Lobby president Steve Green apologized for the incident and confirmed the chain did not carry Judaica at that time, stating:

We have previously carried merchandise in our stores related to Jewish holidays. We select the items we sell in our stores based on customer demand. We are working with our buyers to re-evaluate our holiday items and what we will carry in the future.

Green has no obligation to carry Jewish craft items just as I have no obligation to shop at one of his outlets.  More importantly, I would never sue Green or Hobby Lobby for violating my constitutional right to free exercise of religion because it does not apply in this case.  (I do wonder if the section for atheists and agnostics is an aisle with empty shelves.)

Too bad the alt-right does not share that view.  Amazon, post-January 6th, elected to no longer be the website host for Parler, the favorite social media site of many participants in the Capitol attack.  Parler sued Amazon for breach of contract although a significant percentage of Parler users violated Amazon’s content policy which states clients cannot offer goods or services that “promote, incite or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual or religious intolerance or promote organizations with such views.”  The only real issue is why they waited until January 6th to drop Parler as a client.

This double standard also applies to the Second Amendment.  On January 25, 2021, Law Enforcement Today reported the owner of Trigger Firearms and Reloading in Jefferson City, Missouri posted the following message on the store’s Facebook page.  “We don’t have guns or ammo for Biden supporters.  Sorry for the inconvenience.”  Where was the outcry from Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, co-founder of the Senate  Sedition Caucus, who one day before wrote in a New York Post op-ed, “Your ‘conservative’ social platform isn’t worth much when Amazon can shut it down.”

In HawleyWorld it is okay for a private company to deny access to semi-automatic weapons and multi-round magazines based on how you vote, but Twitter or Facebook cannot stop people like him or Marjorie Taylor Green from posting inflammatory lies and conspiracy theories.  And does the phrase “well regulated militia” mean one of the governing criteria for membership in these commando units must be support of Donald Trump?  Senator, can you say, “Hypocrisy.”  I knew you could.

There is one more irony to consider.  Many of these same “conservatives” long ago traded in their pocket-sized editions of the Constitution for a complete set of Ayn Rand novels.  From Rand’s “the virtue of selfishness” to Ronald Reagan’s “government is not the solution; it is the problem,” the right has worshiped at the altar of the “invisible hand.”  Let the free market decide.  That is, until the opposition realized how powerful the market can be.  Until rogues on Reddit outfoxed government protected hedge fund managers.  Until consumers decided they did not want to line the pockets of Publix heiress Julia Jenkins Fancelli who used some of that wealth to finance an insurrection against America democracy.  Until citizens concerned about climate change challenged the future of the oil and gas industry by demanding more electric cars and sustainable sources of energy.

To paraphrase the Gospel, “Give to the Constitution that which is actually governed by the Constitution; otherwise, leave the Constitution out of it and quit your bitching.”

UPDATE FROM THE MIAMI HERALD (2/2/2021)

“On the same day former President Donald Trump’s lawyers argued that his words to the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol were protected by his First Amendment right to free speech, Gov. Ron DeSantis held a hastily called news conference to announce a proposal to penalize social media companies for blocking politicians, even if they incite violence.”

So, according to DeSantis, the state can force a private company to give a platform to a politician, who has called for the assassination of the Speaker of the House.  Where is the “freedom caucus” now?

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP