AntiWar

 

Are Strong AntiWar Voices Silenced?

The Progressive Era, 1914-1925, laid the groundwork for many of the ideas that we value today. Most notably in the case of antiwar voices; the emergence of Holmes Famous Dissent, in which the clear and present danger test is used in Scheck v US (1919). This landmark supreme court case tested First Amendment Speech and gave grounds for the United States to introduce the term incitement. Most notably from this, the development of the marketplace of ideas is produced. 

So how does this relate to the presence of antiwar voices? To explore the censorship of antiwar voices we would have to take a look at another landmark supreme court case, Near v Minnesota. This court case tested prior restraints, and established that there are only three exceptions where prior restraints are constitutional. These restraints are as follows, incitement, threat to national security in wartime, and obscenity. 

With this being said, I don't believe that the government is censoring strong antiwar voices as it is unconstitutional. I honestly believe that the issue is the platform that the authors are using. For example, The American Conservative, according to the All Sides Media Bias Chart, leans far to the right. Most of the news sources that are on the far right side of the chart, I tend to shy away from. 

I believe when choosing media sources to trust, most individuals will go for mainstream sources that fall in the middle three columns. In order to remain in the neutral hemisphere of news sources, authors tend to publish more generic/socially acceptable articles. 

On the other hand, sites such as antiwar.com, are not mainstream and honestly difficult to trust. If I were doing a school project or looking for a reputable news source, I would not click on a site that is formatted in the way that the above listed site is. The site comes across as terroristic and outdated. Although, Twitter has now officially been renamed "X," the site still has it listed as "Twitter". The dates are also out of wack on the site. When attempting to look at the regional news tab for the United States, you're greeted with a tab that looks like the one to the right. The top three news articles are for years that have not even occurred, and are not correct when you click on the actual site. One of the articles gave me a 404 error and the other Google would not even let me access, because it sensed that my connection was not private.

Aside from these sources tending to be far out there, I believe that Americans like to live their lives in an uneducated bubble. It is much easier to believe that our government is doing everything to protect us, as opposed to believing that the government would knowingly enter the US into an unnecessary war. As opposed to the government censoring strong antiwar voices, I believe that we as American citizens do it for the government. We choose to paint narratives that we are helping other countries by sending money, weapons, and our military to show that we support countries in need of our help. We choose to believe that we are saving innocent people from mass genocide by showing our support and engaging in war.