“Shut up and obey, slave of tyranny.”
California Policy Center
Jan 15, 2021
The attack on free expression:
Just as we warned last week, union-backed politicians in California and across the country are exploiting the Capitol riots to try to quash free speech. This week, former union leader, and current California Democratic Party chair, Rusty Hicks repeatedly called the (lower-case “d”) democratic effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom “a coup.”
He claimed, “This recall effort, which really ought to be called the California coup, is led by right-wing conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, anti-vaxxers, and groups who encourage violence on our democratic institutions.”
Social media has recently purged the accounts of countless conservatives. Google and Apple banned Parler from their app stores, then Amazon pulled its hosting, banished it from the internet altogether. The moves have been widely celebrated by the mainstream media, which, ironically, seem to be among today’s worst defenders of free speech.
This week, a Twitter employee leaked audio of CEO Jack Dorsey saying this clampdown is only the beginning. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) suggested creating a federal commission (a Ministry of Truth?) to “rein in our media environment so that you can’t just spew disinformation and misinformation.”
A new legislative effort in California seeks to create Patriot Act-style agencies, ostensibly to root out right-wing extremism. But government grows—that’s an iron law of political science–and Californians rightly wonder how long before such laws will target people like us, men and women who reasonably dissent in the face of policy failures.
For years, progressives have been trying to quash opposition by suggesting that conservatives are “racist.” Now they’re leveling up by calling conservatives “dangerous” and “extremist” to shut down debate — in some cases literally. Doing so allows them to Zamboni the ice to more easily slide their agenda forward.
The clampdown: On the latest episode of National Review’s RadioFree California, CPC President Will Swaim and board member David Bahnsen consider California reactions to the pro-Trump mayhem at the U.S. Capitol, including Trump-free Facebook and Twitter, the electronic shutdown of a nonpartisan policy conference in Sacramento, new legislation to recreate a California Patriot Act, and the California Democratic Party’s attempt to label the Recall Newsom campaign a “California coup.”
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwKkRPFPzQfJKwVrKsHvqzbtPdH