I always have liked Texas.
I was born in the state, even though life whisked me away early. Still, it has a lot going for it — a robust economy, great places, the best barbecue — and out of all the places I’ve lived, it was the state that makes you feel most welcome, at least in my experience.
Every once in a while, though, something happens to sully that view, especially in the realm of politics and government.
Thankfully, I work in an industry that lets me vent my spleen about issues like that, one that has the protection of the U.S. Constitution. Freedom of the press is an amazing right, second only to freedom of speech, in my view.
Except … maybe not.
The Texas House has seen fit to pass a bill that makes political memes — defined by Webster’s as “an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media” — that don’t have a “government-approved disclaimer.”
So anything like an image, a video, an audio file or probably even a sketch that depicts a politician doing something uncharacteristic or “that did not occur in reality” would be, if passed, a crime in the form of a Class A misdemeanor.
Of the representatives for this area, Rep. Trent Ashby, R-Lufkin, voted for the measure; and Rep. Janis Holt, R-Silsbee, was not present for the floor vote.
There’s a lot to be said for accountability for things said or depicted electronically. Anyone with any credibility, common sense or taste wouldn’t try to pass off outright lies or sick parody or anything like that as actual information or even entertainment. Things like that are normally handled by the court of public opinion.
When a government at any level starts to criminalize speech — any form of speech — that starts a city, county, state or country down that proverbial slippery slope toward loss of liberty and ultimately government control of speech and information.
Another issue that is particularly vexing in this comes in the form of megalomania.
The bill directly deals with political advertising, and covers officeholders and candidates, which in essence creates a protected class of elites, namely the legislators, but anyone holding a governmental office, since the definition looks overly broad.
Since there has been elected or appointed, or even monarchal, leaders, there has been parody, name-calling, drawings, cartoons, paintings, etc. Believe it or not, nursery rhymes that we all sang as children were actually poking fun at the problems of the times; “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” was about taxes, and all off the rest, such as “Ring a Ring O’ Roses,” are believed to be about monarchs or, as in the case of “Ring,” an event like the Black Plague.
Elections in the United States have long been subject to the skewering wit and art of cartoonists; even the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, was depicted as an immensely tall man towering over his opponents, even stepping over them in footraces.
There is credible evidence showing that political satire goes back even as far as ancient Greece, with satyrs playing the part of politicians.
Every ad run in Polk County Publishing’s newspapers of a political nature already is required to have a disclaimer, and every ad of a political nature that is broadcast over the airwaves has those disclaimers as well, making this bill superfluous and frankly nonsense.
Any speech — especially the stuff we don’t like — is protected, and there’s boatloads (disclaimer: there really wasn’t boatloads, just a lot) of case law protecting all speech. Anything else is just the toe in the pool just ahead of the cannonball (disclaimer: there were no cannonballs, nor do I own a pool) of censorship.
Tony Farkas is editor of the San Jacinto News-Times and Trinity County News-Standard. He can be reached at tony@polkcountypublishing.com.
