Apple Denies Free Speech to Republican in CA-30

posted at 1:40 am on May 19, 2010 by J.E. Dyer
[ Political Correctness ]   

See what you think, readers.  Congressional candidate Ari David, Republican for California-30, asked Apple to create an iPhone app for his campaign to unseat Henry Waxman in November.  (Check out his website here.)

Ari David and Tony Katz just want to have fun (at Tea Party May 2009)

Apple came back to him with the judgment that the information he wanted to include about Waxman was “defamatory,” and therefore Apple couldn’t accept his business.

But read the story for yourselves.  (Read it if only for the idiotic farming regulations California farmers are already living with, which Waxman wants to impose on the rest of America’s farmers.)

Read it also, however, for the posture assumed by Apple.  Nothing in the proposed app’s content could reasonably be called defamatory.  Some of it is clearly opinion (e.g., the farm regulations are “Soviet-style”).  But when did charging a politician with wanting to “strangle family farms with Soviet-style regulation” become defamatory?  It’s partisan political speech, yes.  But that doesn’t make it defamatory.

Truth about Henry Waxman is..."Defamatory!"

Gateway Pundit, breaking the story, asked if Apple is going to ban conservatives from using their products next.  I suspect there is more here than merely reflexive partisanship at Apple, however.  What I smell is the fear of (a) lawsuit and (b) regulatory retaliation by Waxman.

This is a lovely teachable moment, because it highlights what an overly regulatory, overly litigious state can do to you.  It doesn’t have to come out in the open and make laws against you and your opinions.  All it needs is the category of regulation that might get someone you want to do business with in trouble.  (The lawyers will take care of the rest.)  And it needs unaccountable agencies through which to act.  There are probably three dozen agencies, just at the federal level, that could be used to torture Apple in the back room, far away from any media coverage or recourse with the public.

Does Henry Waxman, who’s been in Congress since January 1975 and chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, have ways to sic the Feds on Apple?  You bet he does.

That’s our America in 2010, folks.  If we want to change it, we couldn’t start with a better move than replacing Henry Waxman with Ari David.  In the meantime, decorating Apple’s face with egg will go a long way.  Pass it on.

Cross-posted at The Optimistic Conservative.

Blowback