gave a huge harrumph to the First Amendment. On a show appropriately called the "Armchair Expert," Harry declared the First Amendment "bonkers" and expressed frustration about how it protects the media in its "feeding frenzy" over his life. Harry’s criticism of the First Amendment can be dismissed as the unfamiliarity of a royal refugee. However,
those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things...
it is actually far more serious than that.
Harry and his American wife
...unlikable American former starlet married to the formerly likable Prince Harry. Chock full of lefty political opinions, Markle's most important characteristic is that she is Black, even though she doesn't look it. Her mother, y'see, is half black and her father is white, which would make her a quarter Black. Her half brother described her (to her husband, before their marriage) as a jaded, shallow, conceited woman that will make a joke of you and the royal family heritage.Once married, she was too good for the Royals and she and Harry decamped to Beverly Hills, kind of like the Clampetts did, thus making a joke of Harry and the royal family heritage...
have attacked media rights in England and succeeded under the laws of the United Kingdom. They are now joining a growing anti-free speech movement in the United States.
It was a surprise for many to hear Harry lash out at the First Amendment. After all, Harry and Meghan are so woke, they are virtual insomniacs. However,
those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things...
that is the point. The First Amendment no longer holds the inviolate position it once did with the left.
Indeed, the First Amendment is now more often treated as a danger than a guarantee to a fair and just society. Experts have explained how to evade its limitations to silence others. They have found precisely what Harry discussed in the interview when he noted "you can find a loophole in anything."
Democratic leaders now openly call for corporate censorship and the banning of books and authors. Academics join in the canceling of colleagues who express dissenting views of subjects ranging from climate change to gender identification to racial justice. Thus, it is not as risky for the Harry to declare "I’ve got so much I want to say about the First Amendment as I sort of understand it, but it is bonkers." Rather, millions are likely to wait in rapt anticipation to hear more of what Prince Harry will say about correcting our Constitution.
What is missing in the coverage of this controversy is a far more serious context to Harry offering his "armchair expertise."
The United Kingdom has a strikingly different approach to free speech and particularly press rights. The British media are subject to harsh laws giving the government far greater powers to control or punish publications. Fortunately, the government has been largely benign in the use of such laws but there are far greater restrictions placed on British media than their American cousins. (For full disclosure, I was until a few months ago a legal analyst for the BBC.)
One American who seems to have embraced the more restrictive laws on expression and the media is Meghan Markle. Recently, Piers Morgan, the former co-host of ITV’s "Good Morning Britannia," was canned after he committed the unpardonable sin of declaring on air that he didn’t believe a word of what Markle told Oprah in her now famous interview.
Markle and others reported TIV and Morgan to United Kingdom’s "Ofcom," or Office of Communications, for violation of its "harm and offense rules." Ofcom enforces a chilling set of regulations that allows a severe penalties for expressing any views deemed "harmful or offensive" or assertions that could "materially mislead" others.