Free Speech, Cancel Culture, and the Court [TEASER]

Peter, I don't know if yours is on.

I feel it.

No, no, it's it is.

Yeah, it's on.

Yeah, it is on.

Hey, everyone, this is Leon from Fiasco and Prologue Projects.

On this Patreon-only episode of 5-4, we're taking you to the People's Parity Project's annual convening, where Peter, Rhianna, and Michael hosted an event about free speech.

They talked about what speech the court protects, what speech the law detests, and who really counts when it comes to the First Amendment.

This is 5-4, 5-4, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks.

We're talking free speech today, and you know, maybe the biggest culture war fixation on the right over the last several years has been the idea of cancel culture and the general belief that the left is wielding its cultural power to inhibit the speech of conservatives.

You see it on the conservative base, you see it in the media, and you're starting to see it sort of trickle up into the federal judiciary.

And so we wanted to chat about it because I think it's reflective of like

a pretty simple idea, which is that conservatives are trying to exert control over spaces where they don't currently have a lot of control.

And that frustration has sort of manifested in various different ways that we're going to talk about.

So we're going to talk about the speech rights that the conservatives have sought to protect, those they have ignored, and where I think they're going next.

And before we get into it, just want to say thanks.

You know, thanks for coming out.

We appreciate it.

And thanks to People's Parody for having us.

Yeah, give it up.

Michael, I think I'll kick it over to you.

Yeah.

All right.

So to get this started, I wanted to zoom out for a second.

We talk a lot on the podcast about the conservative legal movement, but I do think that's a little bit of a misnomer.

And what I mean by that is there is a large reactionary movement that's been going on in this country for decades that is a reaction to the New Deal, to the civil rights movement, to the sexual revolution.

And there is a subset of that movement that works in the legal sphere.

And that's what we call a conservative legal movement, but it almost gives it too much credit.

to call it that because it's only legal in the loosest sense, right?

What's motivating the the stuff we're going to talk about today

is their reactions, right?

Their reactions to women's liberation, to black liberation, and to any effort at, you know, redistributive politics.

So that is going to be the heart of their First Amendment jurisprudence is a dislike of the things they see in culture that make them uncomfortable.

So I want to kick it off talking about a case from this term, Kennedy v.

Bremerton School District, which is about a

JV high school football coach.

JV, emphasize.

JV.

Not even the varsity coach.

No.

So

this guy.

Everybody has, I'm sorry.

Everybody has in their mind the picture of the JV coach at their high school.

And it's like, are you serious?

This dip shit is taking his case to the Supreme Court?

Okay.

Not just emotionally still in high school, but physically still in high school.

That's right.

And it makes sort of the facts of this seem even more ridiculous.

This takes place in Washington State, and it's this JV football coach who has a practice for many years of after each football game, right after the teams sort of shake hands at midfield,

taking a knee at the 50-yard line and leading a prayer.

You know, supposedly this started just for him, but the students quickly joined, you know, shocking that athletes would do what their coach is doing right after a game.

You know, he thinks he's on like Friday Night Lights or some shit, right?

Like, he thinks this is like the most important thing he's ever going to do.

He's taking kids' helmets and he's like holding them up in the air while he just gives these impassioned speeches about Jesus.

And the school district, you know, learns of this and it's like, you got to cut it out.

you are an employee of the government and you are leading students in prayer that is an obvious

you know

concern that we are maybe violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment and establishing a religion and he said no

He said,

fuck that.

I am going to the media and I am raising a stink and I am going to continue to do this.

And he did three more times.

Then he got put on paid leave after there was a whole big thing.

The local news came, people were hopping the fence and rushing the field and knocking over the band to get in on his prayer circle.

The administrators were getting death threats for trying to shut down his prayers.

I'm sorry, that's Texas shit, right?

Like, I'm from Texas.

That feels like a Texas thing.

But the Pacific Northwest is quite surprising to me that this is happening.

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