First, Twitter is tightening controls on 'free speech'.
"The social media site, Twitter, has implemented new policies to stem free speech.
In typical fashion the far-left is shrouding censorship in the ambiguous ruse of controlling 'hate speech.'
Hate speech, of course, can be anything.
Given the predatory left's propensity for mendacity — leftist loon Bernie Sanders blames global warming for Islamic terrorism — we can expect the predatory left's use of 'hate speech' to censor any concept it can shroud in the pretext of hate."
This just follows the already-established pattern set by other social media; Facebook, for example. It's exactly why I have avoided Twitter. Of course there is no absolute free speech anywhere, but it's getting to the point that we all have to walk a tightrope to avoid offending against the gods of Political Correctness.
Another article illustrates the situation wherein Islam is not to be criticized lest we face some kind of legal penalties. Audrey Russo writes on Liberty GB:
"First: Following the slaughter of 14 innocent Americans by devout Muslim Jihadists in San Bernardino, California, the U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch made a promise to a Muslim audience, that she would prosecute those she deemed as using "anti-Muslim" language that "edges toward violence". She even urged parents of Muslim children to report any "anti-Muslim bullies" to the Justice Department and the Department of Education."
Could any of us ever envisioned this state of affairs in America, especially after 9/11/2001? I think we would all have been dumbfounded if someone had looked into the future and told us what was to come. It was literally unthinkable for most of us. Yet this is the state of things in 2016.
If I seem to have lost some of the stubborn optimism for this country and for our folk that I used to have, it's not hard to understand.
For myself, it's my religious faith that sustains me; my faith in my fellow Americans is not as strong as it once was, I am sorry to say. Yet I keep hoping that some of the old stubborn pioneer spirit will show itself. But to those that rule over us, that old spirit is exactly what they have worked so very hard to extirpate. They have tried (with some success, sadly) to make us a passive, enervated, bloodless people who are easily distracted and easily manipulated.
I've said that this 'Edifice of Lies' is hard to maintain, because it goes against human nature. We will soon see if human nature is stronger than external forces.
The attacks of September 11, 2001, whatever precise view one has of them, led to or followed from acts of deception by the US government. That includes the Iraq war and their general policy in the Middle East from the PNAC influence.
ReplyDeleteOver time, the repeated deception of the people by the government leads to the government despising the people. From that, they need to destroy us to prove they were right to deceive and despise us.
"This just follows the already-established pattern set by other social media; Facebook, for example. It's exactly why I have avoided Twitter."
ReplyDeleteWhat people (and Americans especially) need to understand is that the biggest threat to freedom of speech comes from corporations. It comes from Big Business, which is overwhelming leftist. The First Amendment no longer provides any realistic protection of freedom of speech. Those responsible for the First Amendment naturally had no way of anticipating the growth of massive media corporations with the ability to stifle freedom.
In practice these corporations control the political debate absolutely.
OA - I am not sure I understand your position fully about 9/11. I believe it's more complicated than we realized, and I am not sure what exactly happened except that there were Moslem terrorists involved. Whether or not the events were ''allowed'' to happen (as with Pearl Harbor) or were engineered, or whether the towers were 'pulled' as many say, I don't know. I do believe Moslems had a part, whether it was all of their doing I don't know.
ReplyDeletedfordoom - Yes, you are right. Business (big business especially) does as much or more to curb our freedoms than government by itself. It seems the two are acting in concert now, corporate interests and government. The Internet is a place where so much information about us is 'harvested' by various businesses and the information is ''shared'' perhaps for money with government, so that they can compile complete profiles of all of us, everything about us if possible.
Libertarians complain only of ''the State'' when they should notice more about the abuses of power by banks and other businesses like the Internet corporate entities who are intruding into our lives and who have increasing power over us. The State and corporate interests seem to be two wings of one bird now.
-VA
"It seems the two are acting in concert now, corporate interests and government."
ReplyDeleteVery much so. Their interests are more or less identical. Governments don't like being seen to be actively infringing our liberties so they're delighted to have corporations doing the job for them.
What we have now is essentially fascism, but without the one good feature of fascism (nationalism). The irony of course is that the people who have created this situation would claim to be virulent anti-fascists!