You know how Cuomo feels about the elderly?
That's how he feels about the Constitution.
It's unclear exactly how big a problem there was with confederate battle flags in New York. I've spent a lot of time in New York including upstate and that never struck me as a problem needing to be solved. It would be like forming a task force to look into the Gambino family's Alabama operations.
And I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to notice the irony of banning expressions of speech because you oppose intolerance. There is so little self-awareness these days I doubt they even see it.
The language in the bill is pretty explicit.
FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS SECTION, THE TERM "SYMBOLS OF HATE" SHALL INCLUDE, BUT NOT BE LIMITED TO, SYMBOLS OF WHITE SUPREMACY, NEO-NAZI IDEOLOGY OR THE BATTLE FLAG OF THE CONFEDERACY.
You'll note some symbols of hate that are conspicuously absent and which represent the creation of arguably far more death and destruction, namely anything to do with communism including China, the Soviet Union, Pol Pot, or for that matter other Marxist-inspired leftist organizations such as Antifa.
They include the wiggle room, "but not be limited to," but the intent is clear. The only hate they see is that associated with the "right" as they define it.
The association of conservative ideology with fascism, particularly Nazism, is itself a fiction, as there is little material difference between fascism and communism. I doubt the victims of Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union cared much why they were being slaughtered. Communism and fascism are just two sides of the same coin.
But here we have a bill in which the state is explicitly carving out speech it does not like and essentially banning it on "state" property, that is, property that belongs to the people.
I have no interest in purchasing a Nazi flag or slapping a Confederate battle flag sticker on my car, but that's exactly the point. You don't need laws to protect speech that is popular, you need them to protect speech that is unpopular. The political mischief that is possible once you get to pick and choose what speech is permitted is endless.
Today it's Nazi symbols. Tomorrow, what? The Gadsden flag? The American flag?
We're on our way already.
The calculation they never seem to make is that political winds change. The laws that protect what they consider to be hate symbols protect them as well. The tools they are using to ban Confederate flags today could be used to ban rainbow flags tomorrow.
Free speech protects everyone, particularly those not in power. That these leaders would try to subvert that, while they have power tells you everything.
Constitutional challenges are expected.
