Posted on 06/29/2020 5:32:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
While most of us were busy surviving pandemic-fueled civil confinement and Democratic Party–led riots in the street, the shots over Fort Sumter were fired, and the war for freedom of speech began in earnest. Just as the mob outside seeks to control how we think and what we may say, Google, Twitter, and Facebook seek to do the same thing by targeting and discriminating against conservatives for their ideas. That there is now such a strong army of "Americans in name only" who have taken it upon themselves to tell others what they may learn and believe and write without being tormented or threatened by black-clad shock troops breaking windows and fire-bombing businesses or financially ruined by Democrat-aligned corporate oligarchs targeting conservative Americans' livelihoods only serves as jarring proof that we have tolerated these attacks on our freedom and woefully appeased our attackers for entirely too long.
It's not the rise of a charismatic leader in Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here that is hard to imagine. We've read about Julius Caesar and the fall of the Roman Republic, about the French Revolution's Robespierre and Napoleon Bonaparte, about the post-WWI rise to power of Russia's Lenin and Italy's Mussolini. We've seen the film reels of Adolf Hitler gesticulating before crowds of thousands and Hugo Chávez using the power of television to seduce his countrymen with socialist dreams.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Unless Facebook and Google and others need to be broken up first. If they are not then we have already lost this battle. If you say something of your political opinion or any other opinion you will be bankruptcy and ostracized. That is not free speech.
I don’t want to sound like a creep, but I think this issue is more complicated than the article indicates.
The government isn’t restricting anyone’s right to speech.
People are doing this to themselves. Companies fire employees who say the wrong thing. I don’t like that — but companies can do it.
Strictly speaking, the “right to free speech” isn’t threatened. People are speaking and paying the consequences. Again, I’m not thrilled that there are so many damn consequences, but that’s the way it is.
There are some issues of personal safety — I may not always wear a MAGA hat because I’m not looking for physical confrontation. That’s a real thing, but it’s not the central issue. The central issue is that if you are some silly lady in Central Park, with your dog off a leash, and you panic about a black man who is bird watching, then your company might fire you.
That level of fear is unfortunate, but it’s not clear to me how you turn that around.
This Democrat/BLM/Communist insurrection is eerily similar to the Confederates of CW I. They want to secede or destroy our perfect Union of our Constitutional Republic. They are trying to separate the races and demonizing a particular one. White. So they are the ones that are unrighteous and are going against the rule of law.
The government isn’t restricting anyone’s right to speech.
People are doing this to themselves. Companies fire employees who say the wrong thing. I don’t like that — but companies can do it.
Strictly speaking, the “right to free speech” isn’t threatened. People are speaking and paying the consequences. Again, I’m not thrilled that there are so many damn consequences, but that’s the way it is.
Absolutely wrong. Government is outsourcing totalitarianism. We see this with Big Tech in particular which has become an arm of the Democrat party.
We have yet to grasp how truly evil Democrats have become.
But we are about to learn the hard way.
Bump
“without being tormented or threatened by black-clad shock troops breaking windows and fire-bombing businesses or financially ruined by Democrat-aligned corporate oligarchs targeting conservative Americans’ livelihoods only serves as jarring proof that we have tolerated these attacks on our freedom and woefully appeased our attackers for entirely too long.”
Sadly that is what is going to take to regain control of not only these corporation but government institutions and elected officials.
We have to out-torment the opposition. We’re quickly approaching vigilante and militia times given that cops are forbidden to enforce the law against the rioters and looters.
‘But we are about to learn the hard way.’
agreed; I have come to the conclusion that I once foolishly denied; that Joe Biden will be the dem candidate...and unless Joe Biden suffers a stroke or dies, casting the dem candidacy into chaos, he will win the presidency...I suppose some hold out the hope that Trump trounces him in a debate; however, Biden is not Hilary Clinton, and can obfuscate his way through a debate, especially with a sympathetic moderator, with the best of them...
“Americans in name only”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Nimrata Randhawa
‘We’re quickly approaching vigilante and militia times given that cops are forbidden to enforce the law against the rioters and looters.’
do so, and you will quickly find out that cops are actually not forbidden to enforce laws at all, at least not against you...go, and shoot some unarmed black guy that you think is threatening you, and you will then find out what a true threat law and order can actually be...
And we’re gradually moving from a cold war to a much warmer one...
I’m with you. Congress and DOJ could step in, but they aren’t.
I realize that. We have both the left and the cops stacked against us.
FB, Twitter, etc. are public forums. FR, OTOH, is a declared conservative forum with no outside ads inviting people into the website.
FB, Twitter, etc. are using their sites as tools to limit free speech, speech that they disagree with. It is underhanded, sneaky, and very typical of the Left.
I do not believe they should have the right to do that.
“Absolutely wrong”
No, he’s absolutely right. You have a constitutionally protected right to free speech.
This does not come with a right to social media on anyone’s platform, a right to a job, or a right to be heard. Just a right to speak as you choose.
“Strictly speaking, the “right to free speech” isn’t threatened. People are speaking and paying the consequences.”
Not only is it threatened it’s happening. No, the government itself is not a bridging it but corporations and other institutions sure are. The left has found a way of killing free speech by terrorizing anyone or any entity that doesn’t toe it’s line. So the government’s protection of free speech has become totally ineffective.
This is setting up a situation where if our side wants to have it’s voice heard without the “consequences” it will need to adopt the tactics of the left and out-terrorize these corporations and institutions. Either or that, or we get annihilated.
Do you see any other options?
I basically agree. I am distressed by the power of Big Media and Big Tech. I think those entities are doing a lot of damage.
My issue is: How do you stop them? If we can find a law that is being violated, then let's RICO them or shut them down in other ways. If they can be broken apart by anti-monopoly laws, then let's do that. I'm game for whatever works.
But, strictly speaking, I don't think corporations are literally capable of violating your Right to Free Speech. I think only the government can do that. And while I may think that Google is actually the CIA, that is not generally recognized to be true. It's a company. It's not the government.
The problem we wrestle with isn't, I think, a Free Speech problem. I think it's a Big Business problem, and as a pro-free market Conservative, I have concerns about government regulation of business being a "solution". Frankly, I think it is. But I'm nervous about it. Because that stuff doesn't always go well.
That’s really why I am distressed.
The Left is using terror tactics to force us to shut up. And they are clever enough that their terror tactics are often not illegal. So it’s hard to stop their terror tactics.
The solution, as you imply, might be for us to employ legal terror tactics against them. I don’t really seem an alternative solution (except perhaps through anti-monopoly laws which might decentralize the media and tech companies).
If it comes down them terrorizing us so that we shut up and also us terrorizing them so that they shut up or stop terrorizing us, then that’s messy as hell.
You don’t get it. Government has no need to restrict speech if corporations do it for them. Progressives have no need to amend the Constitution when corporations do it for them. Government is absolutely outsourcing tyranny as I type. We’re living in Orwellian times now but obviously virtue signalling libertarians can’t see it.
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