Green Party Candidate Jill Stein is the Better Candidate

by Ralph Lombreglia

The idea that “misinformation” on the Internet endangers American democracy is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It represents the most profound threat to our democracy, because it threatens the core freedom that all other American freedoms rest on: The right to free speech.

American citizens must recognize that their freedoms don’t come to them neatly packaged. American freedoms require that educated citizens separate speech (in whatever form) from hostile actions, and that expecting the government to protect us from “misinformation” is the start of the slippery slope. 

J.D. Vance made this point near the end of the recent vice presidential debate two weeks ago, and he deserves to be commended for it, even though the ticket he’s running on is every bit as guilty of the “misinformation” lie as its duopoly counterpart. When Tim Walz responded that ”you can’t yell ’fire’ in a crowded theater,” he was also engaging in well-worn empty rhetoric to cover for encroaching censorship. 

This overt censorship phenomenon goes back at least as far as 9/11, but the COVID pandemic wedded it directly to the Internet. Earlier this month, USAToday, in conjunction with PolitiFact, reported that, “Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Congress that the Biden administration had pressured the company to censor some posts. But experts have told PolitiFact such pressure doesn’t amount to censorship, and the Supreme Court ruled in Biden’s favor in a lawsuit on the topic. (The Trump administration similarly asked Twitter to remove some posts.”).

When unidentified “experts” are cited to prove that stifling a given utterance isn’t censorship, and when the pressure to censor comes from both sides of our duopoly, watch out.

Voters of Michigan should be aware that a different and (many Americans believe) far better candidate than either Trump or Harris is on the ballot in this election: Jill Stein of the Green Party. I believe she deserves your vote, but don’t take my (or anyone’s) word for it. Read Jill’s platform, compare it to Harris’s and Trump’s, and decide for yourself. You may well agree that the Green Party’s “People, Planet, Peace” agenda is a breath of fresh air—not just for America but for the whole world.