Freedom Can Die With The Best Of Intentions

Friday, April 24, 2026

It is extremely difficult here in East Tennessee to get people to understand just how nuts California was during covid.  I tell stories and they simply look at me in disbelief.  I keep trying to explain to people that they banned church and it took the Supreme Court to stand them down, but people here think such things somehow impossible.  The worst thing about it was, the powers that be in California thought they were righteous.  They were operating with fine intent – to save lives – but they failed to understand that killing freedom in that fashion would cost far more lives than covid could dream about taking in the long run.  But worst of all, despite massive emigration, severe SCOTUS spankings and a disastrous loss in tax income – they have not learned their lesson.

Here’s the latest:

Strict regulations could be coming as early as this summer as new social media legislation rapidly makes it way through key votes.

The controversial plan would seek to ban children under 16 in California from using social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and more.

Under California Assembly Bill 1709, a bipartisan effort, kids would be legally banned from having accounts on platforms with “addictive features” per the bill’s text.

Features include autoplay videos, infinite scrolling, algorithmic content recommendation, and push notifications.

If passed, AB1709 would force social media companies to verify users’ ages and delete accounts belonging to children under 16.

Now, let me be very clear here.  I don’t think kids under the age of 16 should be allowed anywhere near social media.  Everything I have seen and learned says it is a really, really bad idea to let kids on social media at such tender ages.  But I also think restricting kids in such a fashion is for parents, not the state.

Now, this bill is clearly aimed at the social media companies, not the families or kids.  But honestly, how effective can age verification actually be on line?  I mean I was that age well before “online” even existed and fake ID was pretty easy to come by – as was beer.  And California being California, how long will it be before the self-righteous zealots decide they need to penalize parents that let their kids use social media?  A state that was willing to raid church services and arrest church leaders or that arrested people for paddleboarding – alone – during the pandemic probably would not hesitate to reach into homes on something like this. After all, “it’s about what is best for the kids.”

Here’s the thing though – freedom includes the freedom to be stupid, and to fail.  Freedom includes the opportunity to chase bad ideas as well as good ones.  Freedom allows us to bear the consequences of our bad decisions – it does not try to prevent us from experiencing them.  Is there a social cost we all must bear associated with such freedom?  Yes there is.  But such freedom creates so much more opportunity than it does failure that the cost is well worth it.

Further there are more forces at play to shape behavior than just law.  If my parents keep me off social media and I get better grades, do better in athletics or other extracurriculars, have more real-life friends and generally have more fun – that’s going to create far more incentive for other kids to stay off social media than any law or regulation.

And of course, parents.  They are the ones whose rights are really being trampled upon here.  Situations are not always the same.  There might be a perfectly good reason for a kid age 14 to have a social media account if he or she was particularly precocious and engaged in some activity that would benefit by such an account.  Shouldn’t such a decision be up to the parents, not the state legislature?

California is a special kind of stupid.  Even their pet, the 9th Circuit, had to hand them there head yesterday.  The bums in Sacramento cannot seem to learn that their earnest, well-intentioned concern is insufficient to permit them to step on my freedom and the Constitution.  They are free to be that hard-headed – but the cost keeps mounting.