CNN host Don Lemon suggested on Tuesday that people should be punished for expressing their opinions on social media, Fox News reported.
According to Lemon, all opinions must be true, and therefore should be grounded in the right facts.
“It should be true … You can have opinions based in fact. OK?” he began, while speaking as a panelist on the network’s New Day.
“So at the very least it should be true. And it should be based in some sort of fact,” Lemon continued. “Beyond that—let’s start at that base level, that baseline right there. And then we can go on with the rest of it.”
In other words, all opinions expressed on social media must be verifiable by the scientific elite and other arbiters of leftist dogma masquerading as truth.
Earlier in the appearance, Lemon also suggested to anchors John Berman and Brianna Keilar that people should face penalties for expressing the ‘wrong’ opinions.
“If we say something on this network that is not true, there are repercussions and ramifications, right? We face the consequences,” Lemon claimed. “If you do that on social media, there are no consequences. It’s a wild, wild West.”
Despite his suggestion that he faces “consequences” for what he says, Lemon has often gotten away with absurd falsehoods and inflammatory rhetoric.
For example, he once insulted Christians by claiming, without evidence, that Jesus was “admittedly not perfect.”
Further, he once called upon Democrats to “blow up the entire system,” suggesting that they should do away with the electoral college and stack the Supreme Court.
He also fantasized about beating up a man who traveled maskless on a New York City subway.
Despite the fact that he has gone unpunished for his extremist commentary, Lemon still believes that he and CNN have been held accountable for their misrepresentation of reality.
Meanwhile, Lemon’s longtime on-air pal, Chris Cuomo, has also gone unpunished despite widespread calls for accountability over a recent sexual-harassment scandal and for ethical violations related to helping his brother—former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo—cover up a series of scandals that ultimately led to his resignation.
