My op-ed about Josh Hawley's book cancellation and the First Amendment

For NBC News THINK, I wrote about Senator Josh Hawley's book cancellation the First Amendment. It's my first op-ed of 2021, but hopefully not the last!

The First Amendment to the Bill of Rights

It might be a good idea to look at this if you're going to call Amazon.com out on infringing someone's "First Amendment" rights.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

It's the same point I was making here. Just as nobody was infringing Jefferson's First Amendment right to free speech, Amazon is also not infringing anyone's right to free speech.

p.s. It's because I think that our right to free speech is so valuable - it's something that not everyone in the world has - that I rush to defend it so ardently. Our country is obviously far, far from perfect, but this is one of the things that makes it so wonderful, so important. We can protest, blog, email, speak, Twitter, whatever. We can. We do. We are. It's really important to remember that, and in my opinion, when people casually toss around the term, when they imply that their actual First Amendment rights are being infringed, they do a disservice to this actual, wonderful right that we have.