On Censorship

If you're reading this, G_d knows how you found me.  I don't show up on any searches.  I'm a politically incorrect, conservative, Trump Republican.  I discontinued this blog for about 2 years, starting in 2018.  While it was discontinued, I was getting about 100 hits a week.  Once I restarted, hits went down to zero and stayed there.
 

The world in general, and the US in particular, has a free speech problem.  The left has decided that it alone is the arbiter of truth.  Any opinions that socialists don't agree with are not only mistaken, they are factually wrong and evil.  Rather than try to argue their points, the left has decided to simply suppress any facts and opinions they don't like.
 

Suppression of free speech, and freedom of the press, is pervasive.  By starting  small, with community standards on social media and slanting news coverage in the media,  the left can now block almost anything, almost anywhere.  True believers can block medical discussion of a pandemic lockdown that caused a large recession.   They can black out a scandal about a major party presidential candidate's son for over 2 weeks before a general election.
 

The motive for suppressing  free speech is mainly political.  The left's arguments are so poor, they need protection from counter arguments.  The left takes for itself a monopoly on "truth" that proclaims dissenters not just possibly mistaken, but willfully evil.  Armed with pseudo religious certainty, the left feels morally justified in rooting out heresy.
 

Even the Wall Street Journal has a "monitoring team" for comments, with no written rules.  I lost about a dozen comments in one evening without warning, no reason ever given.  The censorship was clearly political.  One comment that vanished in 30 seconds was, "As we say in Chicago, what's a little vote fraud among friends?"  That's the entire comment.  The censorship was based on the official position that no vote fraud occurred in 2020.

 

Since I've been openly complaining, the WSJ little red guards have gotten slightly better.

 
If anything deserves resistance, efforts to suppress free speech do.  Please fight this any way you can

Dr. Jill Biden

The Wall Street Journal ran an OpEd on Jill Biden's insistence that she be addressed as "Dr." even though her degree is an Ed. D.  Sarah Parcak, PhD., Professor of Archaeology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, objected in very nasty terms, typically Marxist. 

My comment on this is:

I DEMAND the immediate flipping removal of flipping Prof. Parcak and her flipping Marxist buddies!

After 4 years in college, 4 years in the military, and 2 years in grad school, I can talk like a Marxist academic.

It's typical that Marxists don't want a debate. They just want to silence the opposition.

My demand is non-negotiable, by the way. A few friends and I may occupy the administration building in Birmingham, AL, if my demands are not met.

Earlier on this topic, I mentioned a professor I had in grad school.  He was a famous researcher in Operations Research.  The professor was fond of saying in class, "I mean a real doctor, not a medical doctor."  It was a joke on himself.  The class always laughed. 

Leftists don't have a sense of humor like that. 

Democrats: The Party of Big Brother

 By their actions, Democrats are the Party, in the Orwellian, Big Brother sense. They are rewriting history, with the 1619 project. They are censoring news, like Hunter Biden's laptop, and the fact that all of the vote fraud case losses came on procedural, not evidenciary, grounds. They are stealing elections, then suppressing the Rasmussen poll that showed 47% of likely voters suspect that the election was stolen. Instead of 2 minutes of hate for Emmanuel Goldstein, CNN and MSNBC manage to fill most of a 24 hour day with hate for Trump. Positions Democrats took in 2016, about the legitimacy of the election and #Resistance to "not my president," have gone into the memory hole for 2020.

At 70, I may not remember why I came into the room, but I certainly remember all of the stuff Democrats have been doing to overthrow a duly elected president for the last 4 years. I think insisting on a special counsel to investigate vote fraud is relatively minor in comparison.

Backout Plan

 What makes you think they didn't elect Harris?

Whenever you install new software professionally, you have a backout plan for the case where it doesn't work. If (when?) Biden becomes too big of an embarrassment, the backout plan is that his doctors find he can no longer function as president. Harris takes over. Any criticism of Harris is both racist and sexist. It’s a complete restart, with a new honeymoon period. The media will gush over the first Black woman president for years. Harris can do no wrong. Any wrong she does will be Trump's, or Biden's, fault. QED (Quite Easily Done)

My Wonder at the Party's Control Of US Information

It amazes me that the Party can control the flow of information so tightly without needing any regulatory structure to impose its narrative.  The Party can impose news blackouts, social media censorship and "fact checking" without lifting a finger.  This process of gradually imposing censorship, under the guise of private enterprise,  is boiling the frog nicely.  The end result is going to be a US without free speech and freedom of the press. 

Also, you can forget about defending yourself from "mostly peaceful protesters."  Violent mobs are a standard socialist intimidation technique.  Armed citizens can't be allowed to stop them, so the arms must be removed, by any means necessary.

Luckily , I just turned 70, so I won't have to live with the Party for all that long.  I feel really sorry for my children and grandchildren, especially because most of them are so ignorant of history that they have no idea what they voted for.  When I try to tell them, they think I'm crazy.

What's It Take To Be Indicted?

While we're talking about equal justice, let's not forget the Durham investigation of the 4 Carter Page FISA warrant applications.  Carter Page was a CIA asset, but the FBI took over a year to determine that, and then Clinesmith lied about it in the final FISA warrant application.  All of the people who signed off on the applications said they had exercised due diligence and believed that Carter Page was likely a Russian spy.  They all committed perjury at the very least.  None have been indicted.  Durham's investigation has vanished without a trace.

It would seem that Republicans, like Flynn, can be indicted and prosecuted for nothing, and Democrats, like Comey, McCabe, Brennan, Clapper, Stzrok and Lisa Page, can't be indicted for anything.  It would seem that Durham is too scared of the Swamp to do his job, now that Biden is back in town.  So much for the rule of law in the US. 

Some would argue that Flynn deserved to be indicted because he appeared on Russian TV, criticising Obama.  But was Flynn indicted for appearing on Russian TV?  Nope.  Flynn was indicted for lying to the FBI, something he didn't do.  It was entrapment.  The Russian TV history is immaterial to the legal case.  It just explains Obama's motive for framing Flynn for something Flynn didn't do.  Perhaps we need a new Bastille, so presidents who are leftists in good standing can send people who offend them to prison with a secret letter?

Supreme Court Ruling Stopped Elections From Having Consequences

 It's discouraging that once a Supreme Court rewrites a law for Congress, it's permanent.

Obamacare passed the Senate with a simple majority as a reconcilement bill, claiming it would save, rather than spend money.   After a Republican won a Massachusetts special election by campaigning against Obamacare, Democrats no longer had the votes to break a filibuster.

Roberts bent over backwards to make the penalties into taxes to make the bill Constitutional.  He did that because in 2012 it was clear that sending it back to Congress for a rewrite would mean the bill would be defeated.  Roberts' ruling prevented Congressional elections from having any consequences, and removed the consent of the governed from the bill.

Now Obamacare is the status quo, and it takes 60 Senate votes to get rid of it.  The suit asks the Supreme Court to do the right thing and send the bill back to Congress for a rewrite.  The WSJ EB says they won't, but the ruling will show the need for more originalist judges.

Historical Fact: Gerrymandering Invented by Democrats

 Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814) was a Democrat.  Gerrymandering was first used in Massachussets in 1812 by the Democratic-Republican Governor, Elbridge Gerry to keep the State Senate in his party's control even though Gerry himself lost the 1812 election for governor.  The Democratic-Republican party became the Democratic party.

Obviously, after the Democrats showed how effective gerrymandering is, Republicans began using the tactic too.

Since both sides have used gerrymandering for a very long time, it's unlikely that the system will change.

Democrats Keep the US Safe for Vote Fraud

 The Democrats are very keen to keep America safe for vote fraud of various kinds.  Democrats oppose voter ID requirements because they make voting early and often, Chicago style, harder.  Democrats support longer vote counting periods because it gives them more time to "find" uncounted ballots in car trunks, Minnesota style.  Democrat judges decide all cases based on what they would like the law to say, rather than what the law says, Pennsylvania style.  And people wonder why Republicans expect Democrats to cheat.  History!

Every voter in Chicago deserves to vote, dead or alive.  Clean voter rolls and voter ID requirements are voter suppression plots by Republicans who have trouble selling their programs to the dead.  Polls showing Hillary winning by 5 points should have made voting unnecessary.  Democrats can win with a stuffed animal running for president!  /sarcasm

Supreme Court Appointment: Elections Have Consequences

As President Obama famously said, elections have consequences.  Trump won in 2016 and is president.  The Republicans expanded their majority in the Senate in 2018.  Under the Constitution, the president nominates Justices to the Supreme Court when vacancies occur, and the Senate confirms them by majority vote.

Democrats complaining about Merrick Garland don't seem to have noticed that the Senate was Republican in 2016, and decided not to vote on his nomination.  Again, the 2014 Senate election had consequences.

As we've seen for the last 4 years, Democrats don't like elections to have consequences when they lose.  They expect deference because, in Democrats' minds, they should have won.  Democrats wishes not withstanding, elections always have consequences, whether Democrats like them or not.

Democrats seem to believe that Supreme Court seats are either the personal property of the justice who died, or an entitlement of the party who last filled the seat.  Neither is true.  

Only One Hour of Hate?

 MSNBC and CNN have outdone Orwell's 1984 in one major respect.  In 1984, there is a two minutes of hate program every day directed at Emmanuel Goldstein.  On MSNBC and CNN, there are almost 24 hours of hate directed at Donald Trump every day of the week.  In 1984, the two minutes of hate is used to justify the necessity of the dictatorship of Big Brother, because only with unlimited power can Big Brother protect us from Emmanuel Goldstein.  Similarly, only with unlimited power can Democrats "protect" us from Trump.

Years ago, everything was blamed on El Nino, a weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean.  Later on, everything was blamed on George W. Bush.  Now everything, including bad weather, is blamed on Trump.  MSNBC and CNN are playing their audiences for fools.

What Do Big Deficits Stimulate?

 If big government deficits stimulated the economy, Greece would have passed Germany as an economic powerhouse.  Isn't it time to admit that John Maynard Keynes was wrong, based on the experience of the last 90 years?  Big debts lead to bankruptcy.

Political Censorship Online and Section 230

 

For me, the problem is the political censorship enforced by Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other tech companies, whose business models are based on Section 230 of the Communications Act.  Section 230 allows internet platforms to host 3rd party content without copyright liability under the assumption that the platforms exercise no editorial control of their content.  All social media companies' business models are based on Section 230.

For me the solution is quite simple.  Congress should alter Section 230 so it doesn't allow social media companies to remove content for any reason.  Instead, allow the tech giants to put an "Are you sure?" question on content they disapprove of, warning that the content you are asking for doesn't meet their "community guidelines."  Then let the users click through the question.

Allowing users to opt out of platform content filters, as a condition for allowing companies to hide behind Section 230, is a simple way to minimize the political censorship they now exercise.  It would involve no complex government regulation or anti-trust litigation.

What Your Voting Decision Comes Down To

If voters really cared about the country, they would not subject it to 4 years of shutting down non renewable energy sources, like the 87% of US electricity generation that's not renewable.  They wouldn't support the party that likes to cancel people who express views contrary to their orthodoxy, which gets wackier day by day.  They wouldn't empower the party that thinks defunding the police is fine, even if it doubles violent crime.

The choice is pretty clear.  On the one hand you can pick impulsive tweets, rude manners, judges who rule on what the law is rather than what they would like it to be and respect for law and order.  On the other hand, you can get the Green New Deal, Antifa riots, judges who make up the law to suit their preferences and the party that made California into a third world country with power blackouts and huge forest fires.

I think rude tweets a small price to pay to avoid economic suicide.