Limited Freedom

5 Democrats are cosponsors:
Josh Gottheimer - NJ-5
Jared Moskowitz - FLA-23
Joseph Morrell - NY-25
Donald Davis - NC-1
Laura Gillen - NY-4
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/867/all-info
- Dear lord. Why are Dems getting involved in pushing fascism?
  
  There have always been liberal collaborators to fascism, this isn't new.
  
  they dont care about the fascism aspect, they care that it guarantees them their seats, just like %90 of all the politicians.
  
  Same as it ever was
  
  When Israel started full scale genocide in Gaza, Biden started giving them more money for weapons. Genocide and fascism are the Democratic party platform now.
  
  Wer hat uns verraten…? Sozialdemokraten…
- Are they considered Isreali products🤔
  
  Yes. You will be required by law to purchase Josh Gottheimer.
- Prime list of people to oust in the primaries

How do you outlaw a boycott? It's not an act, it's a non-act. An absence of a purchase. How do you distinguish boycott from just not buying something you don't want or need like any other item. Are we going to be required to put so much of our purchases toward Isreal now?
- Ding ding ding.
  This is how they "lawfully" throw "dissidents" into the gulag.
  Remember...most of what Hitler did was technically legal and above-board. Because they controlled the laws and shaped them as they saw fit.
- Wrong think will be punished
- You outlaw a boycott by using violence against those who promote the boycott. It's not even anything new. Many states have already been doing this. Not to mention recent disappearances of anti-genocide activists.
  Violence in service of hegemony is almost the entire purpose of the state.
- the state wants to lock you up, figures out you don't drink coca cola, You're on trial for not buying Coca-Cola, or Nestle, or never tried Sabras hummus... straight to jail.
- Back in the days the Spanish Inquisition would become suspicious of people who seemed to not eat pork.
  In other words, yes, precisely, they're trying to sus out heretics. Don't want to be mistaken for one? Perform the rites publicly, then.
- Not just show your papers, show your recent Israel approved consumer good purchases!
- Twitter sued advertisers who said they were boycotting it, and it worked somehow…
- boycott
  probably using to target groups that are protesting against israel.

This is brilliant, you could have the gestasi inspecting everyone at the checkouts at a supermarket, and if you don't buy a Sodastream cartridge, you get disappeared.
(Sodastream is an Israeli company, and used to manufacture their machines in an industrial park in an Israeli settlement on the West Bank)
- Sodastream is an Israeli company
  I didn't know that. Good thing I've been boycotting their cylinders for years.
  
  Well fuck, I just got one, I just assumed they were a german company since they're so popular there

Didn't CU rule that spending money is free speech? So isn't compelling the spending of money compelling speech? Sounds straight up unconstitutional.(as if that fucking matters these days)
- Rich people spending money is free speech.
  Anti-genocide activists not spending money is terrorism.
  AKA the usual.
- Republicans have been undermining the constitution for decades. Now they straight up wipe their ass with it. The Goal has always been a christofacist dictatorship
- No, Citizens United ruled that corporations are allowed to engage in elections just like citizens. It said nothing about money, protesting, or anything else.
  Still not a good ruling for any reason, but not really relevant here.
- Wait, doesn't your argument support their bill?
  They're agreeing with you; they are suggesting that convincing people of what to do with their money is infringing on their "speech."
  
  My argument is that republicans are never consistent with their policies.
  Spending isn't free speech. The government cannot compell speech. This doesn't not mean that the government can compell spending (I mean, it sorta can with taxes and fines, but it can't compell spending to select businesses, markets or groups.)
  
  Is it saying it's illegal to "convince"(therefore not the consumer) or it's illegal to "participate" (meaning the consumer)

How is this to enforced. Is there to be a Israeli mandated amount of product that you would need to buy.
- Vague laws can be abused easier.
- "Please drink a verification can"
  
  Omg!! This is how we get there, isnt it?! 😳
- You will be expected to wear your Israeli pager at all times
- It's already a law in huge chunks of the state.
  https://www.newsweek.com/pro-palestinian-protest-states-colleges-illegal-bds-1895292

Oh you didn't buy a Soda Stream?
Believe it or not, straight to jail!

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.
- Because republicans care so much about laws they don't agree with.
  
  Or parts of the religions they thump on about.
- And the USSC has definitely ruled that money is equivalent to speech. So boycott activity is logically covered under this Amendment.
  If this law passes, a lot of people are going to have a rough year or two until they can get a case all the way to the Supreme Court.
  
  It will be too late by then the damage will have been done
  
  if this law passes
  First of all, a law has already passed. This is just a bill
  Second, it hasn't even made it to committee, let alone to a vote. But you can (assuming you are an American) Contact your representative and tell them what you think about this bill.
- Yeah trump and maga have been wiping their ass with that document for a while. I don’t think it’s a thing anymore

If you make the 1st Amendment illegal, the rest of the Constitution cannot be far behind.
- if? people have already been blackbagged for their speech. this is just encoding something already in effect.

Hopefully someone makes a list of brands and companies that you aren't allowed to boycot according to usa republicans and then publishes that list online on a user friendly website. After all, without that information, people might be unknowingly breaking the law when they start a personal boycot.
- Genius. Unfortunately, they will most likely target anti-genocide activist, check their phone for any BDS material and charge them with this.
  It is not for the masses it is for the vocal once.
  
  this, i just deleted my BDS apps, will have to rely on manually checking things with a vpn.

Sounds kinda DEI to me
- It's DEI for "white" people from europe so it's ok.

The bill got pulled!
- For now. Let's see what happens when it's budget time again. They'll probably bury it in there because we live in hell.
  
  Yep, how the government works. Keep spamming a bill that the general public doesn't want until it sticks. But then no such efforts to repeal it and we're stuck with the flaming piece of shit.
- Good. Holy 💩

Fuck this shit, this is intentionally vague to be used as a cudgel

First you get people comfortable with defending genocide in another country, then they won't be so resistant when you start doing it in your own country.
- They were russian astroturfs
  
  Who is they?

How tf can u ban a boycott, how is that even possible let alone provable 🤦 Politics aside if I js don't like a brand that endorses or has ties to Israel would I then be subject to charges. How u trynna force people to buy from certain companies, what if I was bruk, would I be breaking the law? 🤡
- This will probably be used to target protestors and organizers of political movements.
  
  Yeah, the boycott itself can't reasonably be prosecuted. But it can be used to suppress discussion (e.g. organization, coordination) of said boycott.
- Excuse me I saw you drinking flat water where is your soda stream ice this one get this one
- it will probably use to target protestors, and groups criticial of israel.

How do I boycott Israel in the first place? Not booking my next vacation there? Do I get 20 years in prison for that?
- https://bdsmovement.net/Act-Now-Against-These-Companies-Profiting-From-Genocide
  Whatever the legal status of officially boycotting Isreal, there's still no law against just incidentally not doing business with the companies.
  Before someone says they can't avoid some of these: OK, then boycott the other ones.
  Whatever sand you have to throw, throw it in the gears of genocide. Don't just do nothing.
  
  The Constitution says there's also no law against actively and loudly not doing business with the companies
- It seems like theatre. How will you ever prove that I chose Burger King over McDonalds for political reasons?
  
  Serious answer, that's not ever what would get prosecuted. What would get you prosecuted in your scenario is e.g. sending a memo to the network of malls you operate saying "do not renew or accept new leases from McDonalds", or to the accounts department of your company saying "do not accept any staff expense claim receipts from McDonalds".
  (I'm not supporting the bill by the way, just answering your question at face value)
  
  I don't eat meat. BK has Impossible burgers and McD's doesn't. Of course they've been coming after synthetic meat too in some places. They're throwing a fit because a single-digit % of the population had the audacity to opt out of eating meat derived from animals.
- They make a surprising amount of things. I noticed a woodworking tool I have was made in Israel. Never expected that.
  
  I have a plastic table I use for woodworking and general carpentry that I later found out might be made in Israel, the brand is Keter. I see they sell lots of outdoor storage solutions locally as well, will avoid that brand in the future. Out of interest, what did you buy so I know what to look out for?
- disoccupied.com
- The best I have managed to do is not buying some hand tools from a company based there. I'm sure they are really missing that $100, lol.

How will they enforce it? Does the government send out Israeli products by mail to Americans and then arrest whomever refuses to pay for the products they didn't ask for? Ordering people to buy specific products can't be even remotely legal. Buy Tesla cars or go to jail, is what this amounts to.
- Here is the bill (it's like two pages)
  I'm not a lawyer so I could be reading this wrong but this law doesn't apply directly to citizens, per se.
  The law that it modifies basically makes it illegal for a company to contractually require you to boycott another company that you disagree with, but one that is allied toward the US.
  For example, imagine you're the CEO of ACME and you want to do business with Aperture Science, Inc. Aperture can't, as a condition of you doing business with them, restrict you from working with Israeli companies.
  That all being said, I do not trust this administration will use the law for it's intended purpose and will instead use it as a club to beat people with.
  
  Thank you. I've been so confused seeing this bill sent around with people saying it's intended to punish any given individual for choosing to not buy from Israel. I could absolutely be wrong (I'm also not an attorney), but it definitely reads like you have to either be pressured or compensated by a foreign nation (or an IGO if this bill passes) to be impacted by this.
  That said, your last point is completely fair...so maybe people are right to worry as though this will get used against them even if they're not boycotting in league with a foreign power. With the folks in this admin, maybe it will 🤷🏻‍♂️
- This is a cudgel to use against leftist activists when they are identified through social media skimming and illegal surveillance. The charge of antisemitic activity will be constructed parallel to their desire to brutalize them.
  And they all get a stack of AIPAC cash to implement this too.
- I guess raising awareness of products origin and why one should boycott becomes the issue.
- Just ask all of the places that have already done this.
  https://www.newsweek.com/pro-palestinian-protest-states-colleges-illegal-bds-1895292

America can't be taken seriously anymore.
It's a good thing Russia gave half of a wakeup call to the rest of the free world to arm the fuck up 3 years ago. We know America can't be relied on for anything anymore.

Hey big shoutout to all the Redditors and Lemmy guys who told me that we can have no restrictions on free speech because if we restrict Nazis they will restrict us if they ever gain power.
Welp, here ya go...like I told you...and many of you blocked and/or banned me for saying it. Ironic.
- 5 bucks says the people who told you that were, in fact, nazis
  
  Hard to say. They mostly seemed like college liberals still living at home
- The bill got pulled. And even if it didn't it's such a blatant and egregious violation of 1A that even Trump's pet judges would have to shoot it down out of fear of the precedent it would set and what would happen if ever they lose power for any length of time.
  That's the conversation I've been having with some people cheering on Trump's immigration moves. I've pointed out the machine the individual bricks seems to be building, and when they support that too because Trump will only use it on the "right sort of people" I point out that Trump won't be in power forever, and ask him what he'd think if someone like Harris or AOC had that same power. That's when they suddenly get it, because the idea that the same machinery could be brought against them is not something they consider.
  The first question you should ask when considering "Should the government have this power?" is "If the people I oppose the very most had this power, what would they do with it?" If you're not OK with the answer to that, then the government shouldn't have that power.
- You'll never easily get through to those people. They hold idealism over material reality in many cases.
  The best way I've found to get even some of them to at least stop and think for a minute is to ask if preventing people from doing things like:
  Screaming slurs next to a preschool
  Publishing deliberately false information to ruin someone's reputation
  Doxxing someone who was mean to you
  ...is justified. If they say yes, then maybe unlimited free speech isn't perfect, and restricting Nazis could be justified. If they say no, then you'll know they're a lost cause.
  
  Is the problem the speech or the people tbat speak it?
- i felt like the trolls on reddits are just RU stoking anger and division.

You remember that first amendment thing we used to have here?
Yeah... neither does our government

Well, if that isn't freedom of speech, I don't know what is. So much freedom, it oozes oil.

How to hack your GDP while ordinary people suffer
Private weapons manufacturers make more weapons than should ever be needed.
Why? Your country gained its wealth by becoming the world's largest weapons manufacturer, making it the greatest financial beneficiary of WW2. That manufacturing infrastructure didn't just disappear overnight.
Large government subsidies to countries like Israel which aren't actually cash, rather they are purchases of these privately manufactured weapons using taxpayer dollars. These are given to Israel and other countries / entities in the world which perpetuate military conflict in order to keep feeding the machine.
There you have it. Production and consumption which keeps your GDP and GDP per capita growing without providing a meaningful benefit to humanity.

Is that legal? It doesn't sound legal. I'm sure they could make it illegal for US government agencies to boycott Israel because that's at least partially a foreign policy decision, but private businesses? What are they gonna do, force you to buy Israeli goods?
- narrator: it didn't sound legal because it wasn't.

Wait you first blame us for not having free speach, because lying about the holocaust is illegal and now you ban boycotting Israel for engaging in a de facto genocide?

Incremental steps into the police state.
- We are in a police state. This is more.

How do you enforce anti boycott, how do you force someone to spend their money?
Dont get me wrong Ill know they will try again, but wow.
- If you’re an American paying taxes you can’t boycott Israel. It doesn’t even need to be a law.
  Seems like they’re trying to turn boycott in to a dirty word.
  
  Yes yes I know where my tax dollars go, thank you. Well, ok actually not entirely, but yes to fund the irl fucking evil empire.
  But boycotts make me think of private citzens not buying a product, or from a store or provider, etc.

Any government that tells you what you can complain about
Is by definition a Totalerian government
- Worse than that - they're trying to tell us what we can spend our money on.
  Which according to the horse shit Citizens United ruling is free speech for corporations. But not the people in em I guess.

Nazi America
Brought to you by millions of fascist fucks, including your own family and friends.
Buy a gun.

The courts won't enforce this right, because of freedom of speech, right?
- Freedom of what? Sounds like something communist to me /s
  
  Freedom of what?
  😆 I dunno why I thought this was so funny lmao.
- It's already law in a huge chunk of land controlled by the regime.
  https://www.newsweek.com/pro-palestinian-protest-states-colleges-illegal-bds-1895292

Well, we now know what death cult is behind the misery of literally the entire world.
- Irony: Nazis are teaching the rest of us who hate Nazis how to hate the Jews

Can someone explain why Israel is so important to them? Aren’t these the same people who are antisemic? Additionally, how does supporting Israel make the us a Christian nation?
- For a lot of evangelicals and orthodox jews, they believe the Third Temple must be built at Temple Mount for the Messiah to return/come. Christians are a death cult and it's part of their eschatology to work towards those ends to bring about the Second Coming and the rise of New Jerusalem/Zion.
  In terms of realpolitik Israel is a strategic foothold in an geographically important area rich with resources and trade routes.
  
  Note that plenty of Christians reject these attempts to bring on judgement day just as many Jews reject the forceful invasion of the Holy Land to bring on a promised Jewish state.
  Abrahamic faith is pretty clear on the decision of when to call judgement day to be solely in the hands of God and noone except God knows.
- Evangelical Christianity is a death cult predicated on Israel's existence and eventual destruction.
  All those Christian "friends of Israel" long to see every Israeli dead. Because that means the end of the world. White Jesus comes back. A horn is blown. World War ending specifically in fire. Not a flood this time cuz God pinky swore not to.
  And everyone except for 144,000 of the most insane Christians is damned to hellfire for all eternity. Jebus rebuilds heaven on Earth.
  That's the whole story. From an Exvangelical who was raised in this snake-fuckingly crazy nonsense.
  
  Lol, imagine someone attacks Israel with a nuke, triggers an entire nuclear armageddon, and the whole world is englufed in "fire and brimstone," and the crazy mother fuckers were right all along.
  
  If they want every Israeli dead, then why are they trying to save Israel? Maybe a better question is, do they want the end of the world now or is it this something they want to look forward to?
  
  Evangelical Christianity is a death cult predicated on Israel’s existence and eventual destruction.
  I.e. simultaneously zionist and antisemitic
- The American economy since WW2 has relied on funding and supplying armed conflict.
  No other entity has supplied more justification for that end.
- Evangelists odd profecies, but mostly lobbying. AIPAC.
- Money, grifting, racism, indoctrination, etc... All the usual reasons that people would support fascism.
  Plus heretics preaching this garbage to several religions.
  https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/qanda-for-every-1-jewish-zionist-there-are-30-christian-zionists-and-netanyahu-exploits-this-15656249

How tf do you ban boycotts? What if I just don't want to consoom all the time?
- Probably that is a threat for anyone spreading boycott movement in social media. So if you post McDonald are shit, bad for the health and do not consume them, you are ok. If you post don't go to McDonald because they support a genocide by Israel, then it is another story.
  And so the fear begins. Its a first step.
- Sorry, we checked your recent bank transactions and you haven't spent enough money at [Insert Corporation]. Please pay the $100 fine or serve one day at [Insert Corporation] as a free laborer.

Gosh I wonder how the democrats will vote on this.

What goods or services does Israel provide that we're "boycotting "
- Apparently we import a ton of legislation.
  
  And also, apparently, Signal forks with security backdoors put in by former Israeli intelligence officers.
- They dont, they boycotting is aim at company that actively participate in the genocide. Microsoft Cloud and AI services for and other Software and Hardware companies for example. Companies that donate money to them or they have headquarter in illegal occupied land. And many others. The BDS movement for example provide a list of companies highlighted by the United Nations to be performing illegal activities in the west bank.
  
  (not to be pedantic)
  but it's both, both boycott Israel companies and products (like hummus illegally farmed in the West Bank. but also companies who participate and engage in Apartheid, like Coca cola that has bottling plants in the west bank as well. or companies that profit from their apartheid, like CAT, or Microsoft/google...
  
  Yeah well they can't make people buy that shit
- Surveillance, military weaponry against civilians, racism, etc.
  Also phony "israeli" hummus.
  
  Aren't we exporting that? Like always?

Law is summarized as:
Prohibited actions include (1) refusing to do business with companies organized under the laws of the boycotted country, if the refusal is pursuant to an agreement with or request from the country or IGO imposing the boycott; (2) refusing to employ any U.S. person on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin; and (3) furnishing information about whether someone is associated with charitable or fraternal organizations that support the boycotted country.
- So it seems like if you decide not to buy a shirt made in Israel because the EU suggests a boycott, you go to jail and/or get fined. Clear violation of the 1st ammendment.
  
  Practically, how do you prosecute someone for not voluntarily consuming a good or service?

I always thought the Israeli would destroy the US is some fashion

I'm going to guess that they're trying to make it seem like boycotts are a serious threat. It's a start but not enough.

how this reminds me russia....

Don't worry guys, this will surely create blowback next election and a liberal can be back in charge
- No no. The "liberal" won't be liberal enough. Gotta wait for the right type of liberal before we vote against Nazi.
  /sarcasm
  
  It really is too early to be gritting my teeth man.
  
  Maybe if they're alpha and lose their woke reputation they won't need those crazies who are demanding them to do something 'meaningful'
  
  Gotta wait for another nazi who's liberal enough.
  Do y'all want genocide? Or do you want liberal genocide? Remember, if you don't vote for genocide, then the genocide is your fault.

This will go down in flames.

Republicans do this shit because it makes people vote against Democrats
Far right zionists vote against Democrats because most Democrats will oppose it
Leftists vote against Democrats because a few of them will support it
Pure win for Republicans.

Lets wait and see what percentage of democrats will vote yes

Isn't there already an anti boycott law on the books?
- Yeah. I worked for a US-headquartered multinational in Asia, and we had to do a whole training about how we had to be scrupulous in not doing anything that could be interpreted as a boycott of Israel otherwise the company would be breaking the law.