Replies

I feel strongly both ways.

people have to be able to criticize the government. full stop.

OTOH neither journalism not twitterism can be a title of nobility or an established priesthood which can criticize but be essentially immune from response.

Seems like Twitter, as a platform but not a forum exclusively for its own opinions, enabled Trump to become POTUS.

In the sense that it is explicitly conservative and enforces that via its moderators, FR is not a “platform.”

But in the

O’Sullivan’s First Law

An eternal truth.
By John O’Sullivan  EDITOR’S NOTE: This appeared in the October 27, 1989, issue of National Review.
Robert Michels — as any reader of James Burnham's finest book, The Machiavellians, knows was the author of the Iron Law of Oligarchy. This states that in any organization the permanent officials will gradually obtain such influence that its day-to-day program will increasingly reflect their interests rather than its own stated philosophy. To take a homely example, congressmen from egalitarian parties somehow end up voting for higher pay and generous expenses for congressmen. We can also catch an ironic echo of Michels's law in Stalin's title of General Secretary, as well as in the fact that powerful mandarins in the British government creep about under such deceptive pseudonyms as "Permanent Under-Secretary.” . . .
All of which is by way of introducing a new law of my own . . .

O'Sullivan's First Law: All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.
I cite as supporting evidence the ACLU, the Ford Foundation, and the Episcopal Church. The reason is, of course, that people who staff such bodies tend to be the sort who don't like private profit, business, making money, the current organization of society, and, by extension, the Western world. At which point Michels's Iron Law of Oligarchy takes over — and the rest follows.

sense, there cannot actually be a “pure platform” devoid of politics. Left wing politics will always intrude in any “neutral” platform.