I can't think of any person, group, authority, or supposed God I want determining what information I should not be free to ponder. That this proposition is clouded in controversy is a measure of how unfree we remain.
Censors by their very actions expose themselves as the feeble frightened cowards they are, peddling ideas that can't stand up to the light of day.
Feral, I don't think you have had the Administrative State brown shirts hard on your ass before, try it and see what happens. Project Veritas for sure understands that... The new book, American Muckracker, by O'Keefe is out (although some censorship was pondered and discarded probably because there is still just enough law (and even Leftist opinion) they couldn't quite pull that off...yet?) is also a testament. There is truth to your statement that censorship comes from weakness and not strength, but only so far as the strength has not overcome the weakness, and the years that it will take to then undo that, and it's usually not from strength or weakness then, it's from starvation and economic collapse of the Social Marxist system. Just saying... j
NEVER, never, never ever run for government office, Caitlan, you would not last harf an hour before they turfed you and your damn honesty right out on yer behind!! Honesty is certainly NOT what our western societies need, we have done so well, thank you very much, for centuries, what with our Genocides, massive war crimes, world's best terrorism, pillaging Third World nations' wealth, massive lies about countries/governments that are actually doing things right for their citizens.
Some say the term is overused, but the US is currently Orwellian. Yes, the protectors of the status quo continually amplify a flood of filtered, ahistorical, exceptionalist, imperial claptrap. But they also occasionally reverse course and pretend they have always thought thus - obviously weak-minded citizens are misremembering what they heard last month or last year. Looking forward to Anti-vaxxer Hate Week and the newest edition of the Newspeak dictionary!
I suppose I meant that technology has now reached the point where dystopian fiction has become dystopian fact, for the US and other nations. But a fair case can be made that we are the most propagandized population of them all.
Right on. Free speech is under attack globally (I'm in the US). These rights are WORTH OUR LIVES and must be fought NOW. Kick the traitorous globalist scum so hard they retreat in fear for the next century, if they survive at all. We are at war, make no mistake.
It's so easy for our brains to get muddled by all the shrieking voices in our information environment today. You are one of the few who remain calm and clear and remind us what really matters. Never underestimate the value of that and keep up the good work!
A simplified, but meaningful analogy. Just like AZT created many AIDS deaths from administration of AZT, a highly profitable poison for Burroughs Wellcome pharma. now Glaxo, -GSK. Pushed relentlessly by Dr Fauci. Ring any bells? Peace
No, of course not, where's the money in an actual cure? Just poisons developed with profit in mind. Never considered are cheap(generic) drugs that are better than poisons produced by Big Phama with Dr Fauci's blessing and back-door profiteering. Ivermectin is analogous to Remdesivir, just a ton cheaper, more effective, and far less dangerous. I've done careful research and am continuing in areas rarely explored. The corruption is stunning. Some books are prohibitively expensive as they are intentionally kept out of print, and hard to find..
Thought everybody knew both AZT and Remdesevir are poisons. Sure Tony wanted to market a vaccine for AIDS, because there were a lot more people who didn't have AIDS yet than those that did.
Caitlin, bravo! This is an excellent review of the sociological/political reasons why free expression is so important and therefor why corporations must respect first amendment rights. You "get it" that "there exists no institution that can be entrusted with the power to determine who is qualified to criticize the status quo, because they're all inseparably intertwined with it." You even have the humility to understand that what you personally believe may be "misinformation" today regarding Covid-19, you may accept as truth tomorrow when you gather more information through the speech of others. Though, it's not objective reality or Truth that would change, only your individual understanding of it.
I would only suggest that "the free flow of speech lets [individuals in] the collective sort out truth from falsehood and conduct itself [nee, themselves] accordingly." As those individuals are allowed to make reasoned arguments and peaceful demonstrations of dissent, they will gradually affect the overall consensus. It's not the freedom of "the collective" that's important, but of the individuals that make up that collective consciousness. A minor point but one I personally think important.
That's why I'm so adamant about the distinction between corporations and individuals in any political/economic system whether you call it "capitalism" or "socialism," and why I insist on the rights of INDIVIDUALS. Your arguments, valid as they are in sociological/political contexts, provide government with no compelling legal justification for applying first amendment protections to individuals when dealing with corporations. Corporations are created by GOVERNMENTs through the chartering process. They are therefor part of the government. Indeed, in today's environment they ARE the "de facto" government as evident from Time magazine's boast that the 2020 election were "fortified". That's why it's so important for corporate speech platforms to be restricted from censorship in EXACTLY the same way as government. On the other hand, the private owner of a bakery must not be COMPELLED to a specific expression on a wedding cake, though he can and should be compelled to provide service to a couple with whom he may have a philosophical or religions disagreement.
The "service" would be creating a wedding cake. It the customer insists on expression that conflicts with the baker's convictions, he should have every right to refuse that expression.
Only by so narrowly defining service are we to arrive at your conclusion. I forget what the exact results were in this case. Do you happen to remember?
No, don't remember. I do remember I initially sympathized with the plaintiffs but later concluded they likely contracted with that bakery precisely because they knew of the owner's views.
One can say and believe anything one wants to, in one's own mind, that is. Trouble is when one wants to express it 'out' into general discourse. Who owns the platform? Who controls the owner(s). Does the govt control the owners, or vice versa? The slope is slippery indeed. What if a vaunted pundit of trust is exposed as a fraud and a liar? What if the liar is protected by a multi-billion dollar industry whose interest is in making money by continual lying? What then? i.e. War? Pharmaceuticals? Prisons? The unequal justice system?, et al. "Freedom of Speech" as taught in school is only a pipe-dream, and always has been. The 'net opened up vast spaces of discourse and now the "owners" want to regain control. It was fun while it lasted. Peace, the Ol' Hippy
What we're censoring is not information about the vaccine but about Federal agency corruption. It's important for us to call it by its correct name so that we shift the debate.
I think it's broader than that. Corruption, yes, but ANY voice which is contrary to "official" narratives is what is being quelled. They want state-run media but with the illusion of freedom, so crimson turds like Blinken can still mumble their hollow absurdities for the masses.
I agree. What I talk about in my YT on Digging Into the Data is that Federal agencies don't just enable corruption, defined as prioritizing personal gain over the public good. They don't allow an honest person to function within them, who isn't prioritizing personal gain. That's why people like Caitlin can't exist in MSM.
I have a few quibbles: not sure private platforms are really beyond the reach of the Constitution when they act as an arm of the government, and think the first of the three ACLU reasons deserves a little more respect, but overall this essay is quite splendid and needed right now.
The best environment is a free speech environment. And in countries like the US where the gov't is prohibited from restricting speech, the INTERNET is a free speech platform. Apps that ride on the internet are NOT the internet. The Internet is the public utility. Apps are private property.
Apps are privately built, privately owned, and privately run. If an app is not designed to be a free speech zone (facebook, twitter), doesn't want to be a free speech zone, no sign it ever wants to be, it doesn't have to be. If the owner of that app wants to allow others to use it, then they need to spell out in their Terms of Service what's allowed and what's not. Read it. Really. Clicking YES means you've agreed to be censored at their discretion. Don't like it? Easy. Don't click yes, and don't use it.
All things equal, speech that is free is better than speech that is not. But just because you "have come to rely on" (author's words) an app, doesn't change a thing.
In the US, other than in a few specific court-tested situations, there should be no expectation of free speech on private property.
We aren't an ecosystem, that is disinformation included in your last sentence. We are humans who in America, have a constitution that has been torn asunder and has to be restored, and it can be and will be. Then, and only then will actual free speech be restored again. As to free speech, we know what it used to mean in America before the New Deal. Those who are down the Social Marxist drain too far, which includes almost all in our current Government, at the moment, except for MTG and Gaetz and a very few others, have to go. It can all be reversed and should be, because that is the root of the problem. The Administrative State has to go, they control free speech, as we have seen...but, they are not really-really the 'experts', understand that, they are those without 'reason' applied to complex problems that science alone cannot solve and was never meant to solve and they work with the global corporate mob. No worries, we alone have the will to undo all of this constant and re-directional 'chatter'. j
This piece can only be described as rousing.
I can't think of any person, group, authority, or supposed God I want determining what information I should not be free to ponder. That this proposition is clouded in controversy is a measure of how unfree we remain.
Censors by their very actions expose themselves as the feeble frightened cowards they are, peddling ideas that can't stand up to the light of day.
Including people that self-censor because to do otherwise would be career suicide. It happens all the time. IOW, totalitarianism. Peace
The best and most effective censorship is when people censor themselves.
In fact, the establishment's increasing reliance upon overt censorship and overt force are signs of weakness and not strength.
Feral, I don't think you have had the Administrative State brown shirts hard on your ass before, try it and see what happens. Project Veritas for sure understands that... The new book, American Muckracker, by O'Keefe is out (although some censorship was pondered and discarded probably because there is still just enough law (and even Leftist opinion) they couldn't quite pull that off...yet?) is also a testament. There is truth to your statement that censorship comes from weakness and not strength, but only so far as the strength has not overcome the weakness, and the years that it will take to then undo that, and it's usually not from strength or weakness then, it's from starvation and economic collapse of the Social Marxist system. Just saying... j
Yes and now apply similar logic to mandates which are equally divisive.
orthodoxy and censorship has been rampant for good reasons.
NEVER, never, never ever run for government office, Caitlan, you would not last harf an hour before they turfed you and your damn honesty right out on yer behind!! Honesty is certainly NOT what our western societies need, we have done so well, thank you very much, for centuries, what with our Genocides, massive war crimes, world's best terrorism, pillaging Third World nations' wealth, massive lies about countries/governments that are actually doing things right for their citizens.
Some say the term is overused, but the US is currently Orwellian. Yes, the protectors of the status quo continually amplify a flood of filtered, ahistorical, exceptionalist, imperial claptrap. But they also occasionally reverse course and pretend they have always thought thus - obviously weak-minded citizens are misremembering what they heard last month or last year. Looking forward to Anti-vaxxer Hate Week and the newest edition of the Newspeak dictionary!
When hasn't the usa been Orwellian, Keith?
I suppose I meant that technology has now reached the point where dystopian fiction has become dystopian fact, for the US and other nations. But a fair case can be made that we are the most propagandized population of them all.
Right on. Free speech is under attack globally (I'm in the US). These rights are WORTH OUR LIVES and must be fought NOW. Kick the traitorous globalist scum so hard they retreat in fear for the next century, if they survive at all. We are at war, make no mistake.
I love it when Caitlin takes a step and we all move forward AND upward. ❤️
It's so easy for our brains to get muddled by all the shrieking voices in our information environment today. You are one of the few who remain calm and clear and remind us what really matters. Never underestimate the value of that and keep up the good work!
Hundreds of young, fit, now dead athletes last year alone implies that there is something wrong with mRNA technology. Please make that obvious leap.
What's wrong is that the mRNA instructs the body's cells to make a pathogenic protein, in effect forcing the human body to poison itself.
A simplified, but meaningful analogy. Just like AZT created many AIDS deaths from administration of AZT, a highly profitable poison for Burroughs Wellcome pharma. now Glaxo, -GSK. Pushed relentlessly by Dr Fauci. Ring any bells? Peace
The analogy to AZT is Remdesevir from which Gilead profits. A vaccine for AIDS was never developed.
No, of course not, where's the money in an actual cure? Just poisons developed with profit in mind. Never considered are cheap(generic) drugs that are better than poisons produced by Big Phama with Dr Fauci's blessing and back-door profiteering. Ivermectin is analogous to Remdesivir, just a ton cheaper, more effective, and far less dangerous. I've done careful research and am continuing in areas rarely explored. The corruption is stunning. Some books are prohibitively expensive as they are intentionally kept out of print, and hard to find..
Thought everybody knew both AZT and Remdesevir are poisons. Sure Tony wanted to market a vaccine for AIDS, because there were a lot more people who didn't have AIDS yet than those that did.
Caitlin, bravo! This is an excellent review of the sociological/political reasons why free expression is so important and therefor why corporations must respect first amendment rights. You "get it" that "there exists no institution that can be entrusted with the power to determine who is qualified to criticize the status quo, because they're all inseparably intertwined with it." You even have the humility to understand that what you personally believe may be "misinformation" today regarding Covid-19, you may accept as truth tomorrow when you gather more information through the speech of others. Though, it's not objective reality or Truth that would change, only your individual understanding of it.
I would only suggest that "the free flow of speech lets [individuals in] the collective sort out truth from falsehood and conduct itself [nee, themselves] accordingly." As those individuals are allowed to make reasoned arguments and peaceful demonstrations of dissent, they will gradually affect the overall consensus. It's not the freedom of "the collective" that's important, but of the individuals that make up that collective consciousness. A minor point but one I personally think important.
That's why I'm so adamant about the distinction between corporations and individuals in any political/economic system whether you call it "capitalism" or "socialism," and why I insist on the rights of INDIVIDUALS. Your arguments, valid as they are in sociological/political contexts, provide government with no compelling legal justification for applying first amendment protections to individuals when dealing with corporations. Corporations are created by GOVERNMENTs through the chartering process. They are therefor part of the government. Indeed, in today's environment they ARE the "de facto" government as evident from Time magazine's boast that the 2020 election were "fortified". That's why it's so important for corporate speech platforms to be restricted from censorship in EXACTLY the same way as government. On the other hand, the private owner of a bakery must not be COMPELLED to a specific expression on a wedding cake, though he can and should be compelled to provide service to a couple with whom he may have a philosophical or religions disagreement.
Is not the message on the wedding cake the exact "service" the customers are paying for?
The "service" would be creating a wedding cake. It the customer insists on expression that conflicts with the baker's convictions, he should have every right to refuse that expression.
Only by so narrowly defining service are we to arrive at your conclusion. I forget what the exact results were in this case. Do you happen to remember?
No, don't remember. I do remember I initially sympathized with the plaintiffs but later concluded they likely contracted with that bakery precisely because they knew of the owner's views.
One can say and believe anything one wants to, in one's own mind, that is. Trouble is when one wants to express it 'out' into general discourse. Who owns the platform? Who controls the owner(s). Does the govt control the owners, or vice versa? The slope is slippery indeed. What if a vaunted pundit of trust is exposed as a fraud and a liar? What if the liar is protected by a multi-billion dollar industry whose interest is in making money by continual lying? What then? i.e. War? Pharmaceuticals? Prisons? The unequal justice system?, et al. "Freedom of Speech" as taught in school is only a pipe-dream, and always has been. The 'net opened up vast spaces of discourse and now the "owners" want to regain control. It was fun while it lasted. Peace, the Ol' Hippy
Clear, direct and accessible reasoning that exposes bigotry thoroughly.
What we're censoring is not information about the vaccine but about Federal agency corruption. It's important for us to call it by its correct name so that we shift the debate.
I think it's broader than that. Corruption, yes, but ANY voice which is contrary to "official" narratives is what is being quelled. They want state-run media but with the illusion of freedom, so crimson turds like Blinken can still mumble their hollow absurdities for the masses.
I agree. What I talk about in my YT on Digging Into the Data is that Federal agencies don't just enable corruption, defined as prioritizing personal gain over the public good. They don't allow an honest person to function within them, who isn't prioritizing personal gain. That's why people like Caitlin can't exist in MSM.
https://youtu.be/CsA5cf04t40
Vaccine misinformation indeed. The latest science shows the jab wasn't so great, even from the very beginning: https://okaythennews.substack.com/p/science-summary-covid-19-vaccines
I have a few quibbles: not sure private platforms are really beyond the reach of the Constitution when they act as an arm of the government, and think the first of the three ACLU reasons deserves a little more respect, but overall this essay is quite splendid and needed right now.
Disagree.
The best environment is a free speech environment. And in countries like the US where the gov't is prohibited from restricting speech, the INTERNET is a free speech platform. Apps that ride on the internet are NOT the internet. The Internet is the public utility. Apps are private property.
Apps are privately built, privately owned, and privately run. If an app is not designed to be a free speech zone (facebook, twitter), doesn't want to be a free speech zone, no sign it ever wants to be, it doesn't have to be. If the owner of that app wants to allow others to use it, then they need to spell out in their Terms of Service what's allowed and what's not. Read it. Really. Clicking YES means you've agreed to be censored at their discretion. Don't like it? Easy. Don't click yes, and don't use it.
All things equal, speech that is free is better than speech that is not. But just because you "have come to rely on" (author's words) an app, doesn't change a thing.
In the US, other than in a few specific court-tested situations, there should be no expectation of free speech on private property.
We aren't an ecosystem, that is disinformation included in your last sentence. We are humans who in America, have a constitution that has been torn asunder and has to be restored, and it can be and will be. Then, and only then will actual free speech be restored again. As to free speech, we know what it used to mean in America before the New Deal. Those who are down the Social Marxist drain too far, which includes almost all in our current Government, at the moment, except for MTG and Gaetz and a very few others, have to go. It can all be reversed and should be, because that is the root of the problem. The Administrative State has to go, they control free speech, as we have seen...but, they are not really-really the 'experts', understand that, they are those without 'reason' applied to complex problems that science alone cannot solve and was never meant to solve and they work with the global corporate mob. No worries, we alone have the will to undo all of this constant and re-directional 'chatter'. j