{"id":59785,"date":"2026-06-18T13:13:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T21:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=59785"},"modified":"2026-06-18T13:13:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T21:13:10","slug":"senator-rick-scott-is-anti-american","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/18\/senator-rick-scott-is-anti-american\/","title":{"rendered":"Senator Rick Scott Is Anti-American"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As if there were no Congressional business awaiting our elected officials\u2019 attention, Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) set his sights on the very document to which he raised his right hand and swore to defend: the US Constitution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Speaking at the Florida Holocaust Museum, Sen. Scott <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/news\/florida-leaders-jewish-groups-cancel-kanye-west-tampa-concerts-antisemitic-remarks\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/news\/florida-leaders-jewish-groups-cancel-kanye-west-tampa-concerts-antisemitic-remarks\/\">argued<\/a> that a scheduled June concert by musician Kenye (Ye) West must be cancelled and that the entertainer should be barred from future performances at any taxpayer-supported facilities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIf we don\u2019t stop this concert,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SenRickScott\/status\/2066640393966411788\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SenRickScott\/status\/2066640393966411788\">argued Sen. Scott<\/a>, \u201cwe\u2019re telling everyone that anti-semitism is OK\u2026 If they allow this, then what\u2019s the next event?\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-x\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">If we don\u2019t stop this concert, it will be telling everyone that antisemitism is okay. <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s NOT. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/M4Qcyhsp4s\">pic.twitter.com\/M4Qcyhsp4s<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SenRickScott\/status\/2066640393966411788?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 15, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Florida lawmaker gets the Constitution exactly backwards, in a manner that any high school student would likely understand. While a good argument could be made that there should be no taxpayer-supported entertainment venues at all, it is precisely those where public funds are involved that are prohibited from censoring speech they do not like.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A private venue not interested in featuring the kind of music and themes crafted by Kanye West (or anyone else for that matter) should have every right to refuse to host a performance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is not difficult to speculate from Scott\u2019s flimsy understanding of the Constitution that if a privately-owned venue refused the business of a person or organization that Sen. Scott favored, the Senator would bring the weight of the state down on that venue for \u201cdiscrimination..\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Short of actual involvement in violence, Kanye West \u2013 or anyone else \u2013 is free to sing about any damn thing he pleases. True patriots defend the First Amendment even \u2013 or especially \u2013 when it protects that which many find distasteful or repellent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is a simple solution for music you dislike or offensive themes that you find repellent, Sen. Scott: Don\u2019t go to the performance!<\/p>\n<p><em>Reprinted from the <a href=\"https:\/\/ronpaulinstitute.org\">Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"pp-author-boxes-avatar-details\">\n<div class=\"pp-author-boxes-name multiple-authors-name\"><em>Daniel McAdams is Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity and co-Producer\/co-Host, Ron Paul Liberty Report. Daniel served as the foreign affairs, civil liberties, and defense\/intel policy advisor to U.S. Congressman Ron Paul, MD (R-Texas) from 2001 until Dr. Paul\u2019s retirement at the end of 2012. From 1993-1999 he worked as a journalist based in Budapest, Hungary, and traveled through the former communist bloc as a human rights monitor and election observer.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As if there were no Congressional business awaiting our elected officials\u2019 attention, Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) set his sights on the very document to which he raised his right hand and swore to defend: the US Constitution. Speaking at the Florida Holocaust Museum, Sen. Scott argued that a scheduled June concert by musician Kenye [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":241,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_social_image_id":59786,"_social_image_url":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[782],"class_list":["post-59785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"0","custom_donate_message":"","_social_image_id":"59786","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59785"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59792,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59785\/revisions\/59792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59785"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=59785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}