It’s not often that we sing the praises of a democrat, but credit should be given where it’s due and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) certainly deserves it for standing up for the First Amendment.
Internal Twitter Communications Released
Since taking over Twitter, Elon Musk has been responsible for bringing to light a lot of the past inner workings of the company with regard to unfair censorship. On Friday last week, he allowed journalist Matt Taibbi to release documents that are now being referred to as the “Twitter Files”.
Taibbi’s posts included emails between Twitter staff who were talking about censoring a news article from the New York Post. The article was written during the 2020 elections and was about the Hunter Biden Laptop scandal.
What Else Did Taibbi Reveal?
Taibbi’s posts also revealed an email from Khanna, who expressed that he felt that this decision to censor the story went against the First Amendment. Interestingly enough, Khanna is the only Democrat on record who stood in defense of the First Amendment.
In his email, Khanna states that while he supports Joe Biden and doesn’t believe he has done anything wrong, he is shocked by Twitter’s decision. He went on to quote the New York Times by saying that speech should be free and unrestricted, as well as pointing out that restricting news articles could likely alter the outcome of the election.
32.Khanna tries to reroute the conversation to the First Amendment, mention of which is generally hard to find in the files: pic.twitter.com/Tq6l7VMuQL
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022
Khanna is Candid About the Need for Free Speech
Khanna was interviewed by CNN anchor Erin Burnett on Monday about his email. Khanna made it clear to Burnett that he stands by all that he said in his email and believes that as a liberal Democrat, it is his duty to defend free speech and that this principle should be shared by all.
Burnett and Khanna both expressed their disappointment with the fact that Khanna was the only Democrat who choose to stand up for the First Amendment. He said that it’s his hope that more of his party members would adopt this stance and principle.
Khanna even stated that he would even defend Donald Trump’s right to free speech as the American constitution is exactly what makes America such a great country.
We should all be standing up for First Amendment speech. Twitter is effectively a modern public square. pic.twitter.com/A97u4KzFFh
— Rep. Ro Khanna (@RepRoKhanna) December 6, 2022
What is sad is that it doesn’t appear that many Democrats agree with Khanna with regards to open dialog and the freedom of speech. This is evident when we see just how many of them supported Twitter’s decision to censor the New York Post’s article.
Khanna Defends Constitution
Khanna’s unwavering principle’s and his stance on this matter are commendable and speak volumes of his character, after all, he chose to do the right thing even though no one was seeing him do it.
While many Republican’s may not agree with Khanna on any other talking points or matters, there will be none who would disagree that on this particular matter, he absolutely chose to do what’s right.
