Reductio Ad Absurdum

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

This timeless truth underpins the text of the first amendment to the United States constitution:

"Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech…"

These words express one of our most fundamental rights, not some privilege granted to us by the government.

In the Free Speech Coalition Inc. v. Paxton ruling, the majority opinion argues that states have a "traditional power to prevent minors from accessing speech that is obscene from their perspective." Obscene speech is speech that is sexy, offensive, and lacks value. This is the premise upon which their argument rests.

The court further argues that "That power necessarily includes the power to require proof of age before an individual can access such speech. It follows that no person–adult or child–has a first amendment right to access speech that is obscene to minors without first submitting proof of age."

They say adults' access to legal speech may be burdened, as long as the speech fits the obscenity definition from the perspective of minors. So, the porn age verification law is allowed. A law that is intended to restrict minors' access to speech, and only "incidentally" burdens adults' access to speech, is apparently constitutional.

Prior to the internet, courts had given themselves permission to restrict minors' access to speech when that speech is obscene for them. Now they are giving themselves permission to also restrict adults' speech, right up until the point when they are proven to be an adult.

Imagine a world where this logic reigns supreme: where every resident is an illegal alien until they show papers to prove their citizenship, every home a meth lab until thoroughly searched by the cops, and every suspect guilty until proven to be innocent.

This is absurd. Freedom of speech is an inalienable right of the people which any government "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" has no legitimate authority to infringe upon. Any contest between a supposed state power and fundamental liberties must be decided in favor of fundamental liberties.

To uphold this self-evident truth, we therefore must reject the premise of the court: the state does NOT have the power to prevent minors' access to speech that is obscene to them. To do so would require making a law that abridges the freedom of speech, which is expressly forbidden.

Of course people will still try to prevent such access, but it must be parents that prevent this access for the benefit of their own specific children, not government power deciding for every family what is and is not appropriate based on nothing but an age indicator. It must be done constitutionally, or not at all.

The current popular impulse to ask the government to use more power to prevent even teenagers from willfully choosing to seek out and access certain forms of content over the internet is, fundamentally, a rejection of the values of liberty upon which our country was founded. This impulse is extremely dangerous, and threatens incredible harm to free speech in our society. It must be firmly condemned.

I call on every American to preserve, protect, and defend the first amendment from these authoritarian assaults, whether they come from your neighbors, your elected officials, or even the Supreme Court itself.

Today the court has told you that you have no right to speech if it conflicts with state power. They ask you to surrender your rights, your precious liberty, to the power of the state. They ask you to purge the desire for freedom from your heart.

We the people must rise up against this tyranny. We must refuse to allow this censorship regime to continue under the false legitimacy of a corrupt court. Read our founding documents, read the court cases, study history, and then stand up and fight for our constitutional rights.