Prof. Miles Smith
Appearances
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
Well, freedom of speech is kind of a tricky thing. We sort of see, forget that the whole, the question of freedom of speech developed. George Washington, for example, had a pretty capacious view. He thought that even if you're criticizing the president, you're allowed to do that. His successor, John Adams, in the Alien Conditions Act, actually passed laws against that.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
So it's never been quite as clean as we want to think. There's been quite a few sort of, you might even call it interpretations of freedom of speech throughout the years. Abraham Lincoln, of course, used the power of the government to suppress newspaper publication during the Civil War. Franklin Roosevelt did too during World War II.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
So our definition of freedom of speech sort of has ebbed and flowed throughout the years. There's not one clean definition that we might want to appeal to.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
Well, so I think that the problem is that the First Amendment doesn't make the government the referee.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
freedom of speech and so for example during kovat the government sort of setting itself up as the referee of what could be published about for example health and medicine and whatnot that's not what the First Amendment did historically the government isn't the referee the government is a participant in a free speech regime and it means that the government is a player and
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
just like all the other players when it comes to speech. The difference is the government carries the power of the sword, carries this coercive power that comes with states. But it's not the referee. And I think that's the mistake that a lot of people made during COVID. They perceive the government to be the referee. It's not the referee.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
The government doesn't get to tell us what's right speech and what isn't when it comes to, say, medicine or what you saw during COVID, Todd.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
Yeah, so I think that, for example, what the president's doing on college campuses, withholding federal money from schools where he perceives, and I think a lot of the American public perceives, to be inappropriate and even illegal protest. He's not actually trying to tell them they can't speak what they want. He's just saying the government's not going to fund you if you do that.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
And so I think what that is, is the president attempting to do what I think is in his heart and turn... all the educational universities and colleges in the United States towards what their actual mission is. Of course, the mission of education is education. It's not protest. And so maybe there's some protests that add to the mission of a college, but the mission of colleges is not protest.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
And so my best guess is that the president kind of perceives that and wants to push back against the idea that colleges are are sort of places where protest is the preeminent value or even the preeminent action that they do.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
But I think that the answer is we're going to find out where the line is. Sort of just how Abraham Lincoln had to find out where the line was on war powers was for the president. I think we're going to find out. And that'll be probably a political engagement between the president, Congress, and the courts. And so the president is sort of figuring it out. He's probably trying to see what works.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
He's going to see what he can get stick and what can't. And so, you know, case law always develops. you know, for this idea of settled law, for example, Roe versus Wade was called settled law for a long time. And it turns out it's not settled. And so I think that things are going to change.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
The president is going to maybe push what people might think of as the settled boundaries of settled law, but it's never quite as settled as we want to think. And so I think the president's sort of finding what's going to work, finding what the courts, the Congress, and he can make stick.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
Yeah, thanks. I do a lot of in the intersection of Christians and how Christians in the United States' history have sort of understood the relationship of their faith and religion and government. I wrote a book called Religion and Republic, and it sort of shows that people think there's a lot more interaction between religion and government than people might have perceived historically.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
We're not a theocracy, but we are a very religious republic. and our republic has religious commitments throughout its institutional history. So that's a lot of what I do. I'm a Christian. I hope Christians will take their history and their government more seriously and take the American republic more seriously.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
It's called Religion and Republic.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
Yeah, well, I think that we always have these discussions on church and state, church and state. And my point is, I'm not really saying that we have a state church or that we should have state churches, but religion is part and parcel of our institutional life here in the United States. You can't really go very far. You can't throw a rock without hitting an institution with religious commitments.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
And the United States' Republican government guarantees the protection of those religious institutions. The government's not indifferent to it. The Constitution's not indifferent to the protection of religion. The government is our protector as religious people, and it protects religious institutions.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
And so the Republic, the President, the Congress, and the courts, their job is not to tell us what our religion should be or shouldn't be, not to tell us what our beliefs should or shouldn't be. It's to protect us as we, Christians, declare what we think of as the truth of the gospel. And the gospel has both sort of very spiritual and political ramifications, too, in various ways.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?
So it's the government's actually job to protect the church's right to say those things in public.