Tag Archives: Freedom of Speech

How long before BZ is de-platformed? How long before YOU?

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The cancel culture is reaching into people and places like never before.

It began as a form of shunning or ostracizing people on Leftist campuses across America. It has now transitioned from a point of disagreement to an operational, weaponized tool of destruction, where people are actively seeking to ruin the lives of others, removing them from employment, removing their free speech, even removing their ability to conduct their normal lives.

Cancel culture is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – either online on social media, in the real world, or both. Those who are subject to this ostracism are said to be “canceled.” It’s used by Leftists, in almost every every instance I can think of, against Conservatives, Republicans, people who voted for or support President Trump, people who support free speech, the Second Amendment, and these days those who support the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

That is to say, everyone who doesn’t actively support everything advocated by Leftists.

The transition has been accomplished, as I’ve written numerous times before, in this fashion, from

  • Tolerance, to
  • Acceptance, to
  • Advocacy

Today, if you are no longer an active advocate of ________, you are subject to being labeled any form of an ___ist and, further, subject to doxxing (revealing your address, place of employment, family members names, schools attending, their addresses, your date of birth, private information in public) so that you can be targeted at home, at work, for public harassment, protests, hacking, and worse.

The point is not just to “embarrass” you, it’s to ruin you or, in some cases, ensure you are the subject of targeted violence.

Recently, Brandon Straka was removed, actually banned from an email provider — a fucking email provider — because they didn’t care for the CONTENT of his emails. Which means any number of things:

1 They’re reading and monitoring his private emails, something that would require a warrant for law enforcement to accomplish;
2. Members of the company know of him and hate his politics;
3. Complaints have been made in order to cancel his speech;

This is not just an attempt but a successful means of ensuring that, much less put thoughts into the PUBLIC, Brandon Straka can’t even communicate on a personal level with others.

How long before YOU are removed from an email provider because they don’t like YOUR politics. Or what you say. Because they read your emails. Prove they don’t. Or, from their end: prove we do.

On November 9th, Brandon Straka was told he must leave the email provider Mailchimp, self-billed as a “top email service provider.”

On that date they wrote (see above photo of email):

“Hello Brandon,

Mailchimp is not able to serve as the email provider for your account with the username brandonstraka, because the content associated with your industry conflicts with our Acceptable Use Policy (mailchimp.com/legal/acceptable_use) or presents a significant risk to our deliverability.”

Clearly a Leftist organization. But a few logical questions:

What is the “content” associated with his “industry”? We all know to what they’re referring. Brandon Straka is now a major “influencer” in politics having started the entire “#WalkAway” movement. He’s getting too much power. He met President Trump. He was invited to Trump rallies. He’s hosted and started any number of conferences, marches and the like. Therefore he must be throttled and crushed.

It’s too easy for him to communicate his message.

What “industry”? Now that’s a good question. I suppose addressing the issues of bravery, not having a hive mind, thinking for oneself, realizing who the Demorats really are — and having the temerity to actually talk about it — that’s an “industry.”

To what specific “content” are they referring?

How does his “content” conflict unless they are READING and MONITORING his emails?

And what does a “significant risk to our deliverability” mean?

I speak Leftist. Allow me to translate. That means they could themselves be potentially subject to doxxing or the cancel culture if they were to continue hosting his emails. Clearly someone squealed from within or complained from without.

Yet, they take the coward’s way out — like every other free-speech-hating bit of social media extant — with absolute unspecificity. They refuse to tell you exactly which bit you violated, simply throwing a litany of generic topics on the wall to see what sticks.

Well hell; they don’t care. As far as they’re concerned, everything sticks.

To continue their CVS (Corporate Virtue Signaling), they had to sever ties with a gay man. Think about that for a moment.

Yeah. That’s where we are in 2020.

Remember:

If you’re on Mailchimp, you should realize that they’re reading your emails and discriminating against gays. You do as you will about that.

Brandon Straka was becoming too powerful for the LDAMM. It’s clear that now a certain website — not a point on Twitter, not a point on Facebook, but an actual website — became too powerful to suit Leftists.

Google already has throttled Breaitbart.com damned near into the ground. But at least they can be seen. If you know where to go.

Election Interference: Google Purges Breitbart from Search Results

by Allum Bokhari, 7-28-20

A few days after the 2016 election, at an internal meeting later leaked to Breitbart News, top Google executives, including Sundar Pichai, Sergey Brin, and Kent Walker, lamented President Trump’s victory, comparing Trump voters to “extremists” and discussing their desire to make Trump’s election and the populist movement a “blip” in history.

They learned from 2016.

True to their word, four years later, Google is deliberately working to interfere with the reelection of Trump in 2020.

There are several ways in which Google is interfering in the 2020 election, but this article will focus primarily on one of them: political search bias.

Search visibility is a key industry measure of how findable a publisher’s content is in Google search. New data shows that Google has suppressed Breitbart’s search visibility by 99.7 percent since 2016.

On April 4, 2016, Breitbart ranked in the top ten search positions (i.e., on the first page of Google search results) for 355 key search terms; but now, as of July 20, 2020, Breitbart ranks in the top ten search positions for only one search term. And, on April 4, 2016, Breitbart ranked in the top 100 search positions for 16,820 key search terms; but now, as of July 20, 2020, Breitbart ranks in the top 100 search positions for only 55 search terms.

Google controls it all.

So when in doubt, simply remove all the speech you don’t like.

Those damned uppity Conservatives, with their bitter clinging to their God and their guns .  .  .

.  .  . and their stupid Constitution and its ridiculous Bill of Rights. Sad thing is, there are likely some Conservatives in the Leftist woodpile here and there. Horrendous! There should be NO mixing of the thoughts! Heil Zuck! Heil Brin! Heil Dorsey! Heil Bezos! Heil Soros! Click those cleated metal heels, dammit!

Then there was this — a new direction and goal from the LDAMM — as written here.

The Treehouse is Deplatformed…

by Sundance, 11-15-20

Most CTH readers are likely aware of the term “deplatforming.”  Unfortunately, the big tech control mechanism to shut down speech & assembly has now arrived on our doorstep.

One week after the 2020 presidential election, The Conservative Treehouse received the following notification:

…”given the incompatibility between your site’s content and our terms, you need to find a new hosting provider and must migrate the site by Wednesday, December 2nd.

And who made this decision? WordPress.

What does this mean?  It means CTH is being kicked-off the WordPress website hosting platform because the content of our research and discussion does not align with the ideology of those who define what is acceptable speech and what is not.

What was our violation?  After ten years of brutally honest discussion, opinion, deep research and crowdsourcing work -with undeniable citations on the events we outline- there is no cited violation of any term of service because CTH has never violated one.

Let me repeat, for those of you from the Department of Redundancy Dept:

“There is no cited violation of any term of service because CTH has never violated one.”

Conclusions, anyone? Bueller?

The WordPress company is not explaining the reason for deplatforming because there is no justifiable reason for it.  At the same time, they are bold in their position. Perhaps this is the most alarming part; and everyone should pay attention. They don’t care.

THEY.    DON’T.    CARE.

Because they don’t have to. Yet.

Truthful assembly is now the risk.  CTH is now too big; with a site reach of 500,000 to a million unique readers each day; and with well over 200,000 subscribers; our assembly is too large, too influential, and presents a risk… we guard the flickering flame.

I guard the flickering flame. You guard the flickering flame.

Accepting -at its core- this move is all about politics, this is yet another reference point in the tenuous nature of where we stand.   There’s no hate-speech on this website; there’s no graphic, violent, foul or abusive speech here.  The ‘content‘ of the Treehouse is the same discussion that happens around your kitchen table or back porch discussion with friends.  We would never cheapen or insult that conversation with vulgarity because that’s not who we are… because that’s not who our nation is. 

As they write, this is the point:

The ‘content’ is not compatible with WordPress, the world’s largest website and blog hosting service.  The content within the largest blog on that global platform is what has become troublesome.  “The content”.

I cannot see how this does not become “normalized” under a Biden (read: Harris/Leftist) administration.

So do what BZ calls “The Logical Extension.”

Here’s what Conservatives need — and it would take millions if not billions of dollars. But it’s how you’d have to begin.

First, a massively-wealthy Conservative would have to buy land and build massive server farms for a new search engine.

That would have to lead to Conservative email and other communications sites. Perhaps even a dedicated satellite.

That would then extend to a new video hosting site, web hosting site, and then a series of new social media sites. Everything self-hosted. Self-funded. Something that can’t be de-platformed because, well, the server farms would be absolutely independent of everything else. An independent search engine. Independent sites. In dependent hosting.

That, folks, is a lot of damned money. But that’s what it would take.

Finally: you, may or may not realize, thusly, that BZ‘s host is WordPress. At one point, from roughly 2006 to 2009, it wasn’t uncommon for me to get 100 hits per minute. Now, a small fraction of that.

What if, in today’s environment, I was getting 100 to 200 hits per minute or more? If I were widely read, quoted and had something close to the readership and efficacy of Conservative Treehouse?

Right. I’d be gone too. The only difference? I don’t reach nearly as many people. I’m a flea.

These are your freedoms being removed, folks, right in front of your face. And simultaneously you’re being gaslighted, told this isn’t really happening, that you’re a raving conspiracist, that you can’t believe your lying eyes.

If you haven’t clued in yet, Leftists and many Demorats don’t want you around. They want you gone, eliminated or, like the Borg, assimilated.

Many Leftists are finally speaking and writing in the clear, suggesting that you should be not just removed from society, but killed. Oh, and police too, of course.

Let me remind you, again, of this bit of insight from Pastor Martin Niemoller during the rise of Adolf Hitler.

You might want to pass it on to your oblivious friends.

There are far too man of them.

And you know who they are.

BZ

 

 

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Is free speech moribund?

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Cheap Trick sang of the Dream Police. We now have the Speech Police. Given technology it’s not unclear that we won’t, at some time in the near future, have the Thought Police.

From the Express.Co.UK:

PC GONE MAD: Criticising migration could become CRIMINAL offence under new plan

by Thomas Hunt

A leading MEP has warned EU citizens that they could be “jailed” for criticising migration policies if a new United Nations agreement is acted upon.

The United Nations Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration seeks to make immigration a universal human right. MEP Marcel de Graaff said: “I would like to say some words on the global compact on migration. On the 10th and 11th of December there will be an international congress in Marrakesh Morocco. The participating countries are set to sign this agreement and although this joint agreement is not binding it is still meant to be the legal framework on which the participating countries commit themselves to build new legislation.

What does this mean?

I will let MEP (Member of European Parliament, from the Netherlands) Marcel de Graaff speak for himself.

This is not a joke.

“One basic element of this new agreement is the extension of the definition of hate speech.

“The agreement wants to criminalise migration speech. Criticism of migration will become a criminal offence.

“Media outlets that give room to criticism of migration can be shut down.”

I repeat, at the risk of proffering something from the Department of Redundancy Dept: this is not a joke. Quote: “You will be jailed for hate speech.”

For those of you in the UK, you can rest easy knowing that Prime Minister Theresa May plans to sell you completely down the river, prioritizing immigrants legal or otherwise over you.

International Development Minister Alistair Burt said the UK “is supportive” of the UN’s Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration document which is the subject of a major UK meeting next week.

Mr Burt said: “The UK Government is supportive of the UN’s Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, both as a step forward in international co-operation to tackle irregular migration and as a framework to help us deliver our commitments under the sustainable development goals.

Perhaps it’s time to insert this timely graphic.

Some European nations are not so keen on the UN compact.

The document, to be signed in Morocco, seeks to make immigration a universal human right and has been met with fury by Italy, a nation that took in the second highest number of asylum seekers behind Germany last year. Italy is boycotting the meeting.

The United States via President Trump has an opinion. From FoxNews.com:

US leading the charge in pushing back against UN’s migration agenda

by Adam Shaw

Under the Trump administration, the U.S. is leading the charge in pushing back against the U.N.’s migration agenda — a move that is picking up support from other countries and giving political cover to those seeking to join them.

The Trump administration announced last December that it would withdraw from the U.N.’s Global Migration Compact — due to be adopted by an intergovernmental conference in Morocco next month. Then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson argued last year that the compact could undermine America’s right to enforce its immigration laws and secure its borders.

“The United States supports international cooperation on migration issues, but it is the primary responsibility of sovereign states to help ensure that migration is safe, orderly, and legal,” Tillerson said.

The U.S. was the first country to withdraw, but it was soon followed by a stream of other countries pulling out of the non-binding compact, officially called the “Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.” Hungary, Poland, Austria, Australia and Israel have all since announced they will not sign the accord, citing concerns that it will limit the ability of countries to set and enforce their own immigration policies.

I have five words: God bless President Donald Trump. And thank God that Hillary Clinton or some other politically-correct Leftist Demorat ass-kisser wasn’t anointed.

The UN and the EU don’t care about borders or a nation’s given ability or inability to absorb anyone and everyone they demand be taken. Not assimilated. Taken. There is a massive, massive difference. Perhaps a Teddy Roosevelt quote is appropriate here.

Europe: be afraid. Be very very afraid. Your ruination is in progress, abetted by the guilty, the ignorant, the historically illiterate.

BZ

PS:
Why not a little rock and roll?

 

 

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ACLU considering kicking the First Amendment to the curb?

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This used to be the stance of the ACLU. Have they abandoned the First Amendment?

If so, then who supports free speech?

Leftists? Demorats? The American Media Maggots? College campuses? The Southern Poverty Law Center? The US Communist Party?

None of the above?

From Reason.com:

Leaked Internal Memo Reveals the ACLU Is Wavering on Free Speech

by Robby Soave

“Our defense of speech may have a greater or lesser harmful impact on the equality and justice work to which we are also committed.”

The American Civil Liberties Union will weigh its interest in protecting the First Amendment against its other commitments to social justice, racial equality, and women’s rights, given the possibility that offensive speech might undermine ACLU goals.

“Our defense of speech may have a greater or lesser harmful impact on the equality and justice work to which we are also committed,” wrote ACLU staffers in a confidential memoobtained by former board member Wendy Kaminer.

Translated: the First Amendment is a flexible, fungible and liquid document which may be applied when it happens not to conflict with any host of Social Justice Warrior goals and issues.

Soave really nails it next.

It’s hard to see this as anything other than a cowardly retreat from a full-throated defense of the First Amendment. Moving forward, when deciding whether to take a free speech case, the organization will consider “factors such as the (present and historical) context of the proposed speech; the potential effect on marginalized communities; the extent to which the speech may assist in advancing the goals of white supremacists or others whose views are contrary to our values; and the structural and power inequalities in the community in which the speech will occur.”

Those who operate between the margins of common sense know that it is the Second Amendment which has historically supported the First Amendment. That kind of support is apparently not in the future of the ACLU.

The memo also makes clear that the ACLU has zero interest in defending First Amendment rights in conjunction with Second Amendment rights. If controversial speakers intend to carry weapons, the ACLU “will generally not represent them.”

The memo’s authors assert that this does not amount to a formal change in policy, and is merely intended as guidelines that will assist ACLU affiliates in deciding which cases to take.

Right. I’m going to use a phrase with which the ACLU is well-acquainted: “chilling effect.” And I suspect it’s their point precisely. The First or Second Amendment aren’t absolutes. There are no more absolutes. There are merely unending shades of gray.

It seems fairly clear to me what’s happening here. Leadership would probably like the ACLU to remain a pro-First Amendment organization, but they would also like to remain in good standing with their progressive allies. Unfortunately, young progressives are increasingly hostile to free speech, which they view as synonymous with racist hate speech. Speech that impugns marginalized persons is not speech at all, in their view, but violence. This is why a student Black Lives Matter group shut down an ACLU event at the College of William & Mary last year, chanting “liberalism is white supremacy” and “the revolution will not uphold the Constitution.” Campus activism is illiberal, and liberal free speech norms conflict with the broad protection of emotional comfort that the young, modern left demands.

Again, what happens when true liberals die and Progressives take hold of every aspect of the Demorat Party? What happens when everything in life — as Progressives demand now and Demorats are clearly embracing — is nothing but a palette of gray, with nothing immured in any absolute whatsoever?

Even massive Leftist Nat Hentoff had questions about the ACLU before he passed away in 2017.

When you’re willing to quantify, parse, minimize and in some instances demean and work against freedom and liberty, what happens to this country? By dint of the Logical Extension, what happens to the rest of the world?

Perhaps the ACLU needs to be reminded of its name and the incredible importance of its letter “L”: LIBERTIES.

BZ

 

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Millennials, Communism and freedom

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First, from the WashingtonTimes.com:

Millennials would rather live in socialist or communist nation than under capitalism: Poll

by Bradford Richardson

‘This troubling turn highlights widespread historical illiteracy in American society’

The majority of millennials would prefer to live in a socialist, communist or fascist nation rather than a capitalistic one, according to a new poll.

In the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s “Annual Report on U.S. Attitudes Toward Socialism,” 58 percent of the up-and-coming generation opted for one of the three systems, compared to 42 percent who said they were in favor of capitalism.

The most popular socioeconomic order was socialism, with 44 percent support. Communism and fascism received 7 percent support each.

Marion Smith, executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, said the report shows millennials are “increasingly turning away from capitalism and toward socialism and even communism as a viable alternative.”

Thank you very much, American “educators” (I bandy that term quite very loosely), Leftists, Demorats and, naturally, the American Media Maggots for doing such a spectacular job of disseminating your staggeringly-slanted, agendized bias. Your lies are working on the mush-minds of our youth.

“This troubling turn highlights widespread historical illiteracy in American society regarding socialism and the systemic failure of our education system to teach students about the genocide, destruction, and misery caused by communism since the Bolshevik Revolution one hundred years ago,” Mr. Smith said in a statement.

This very interesting point:

Millennials were the only age group more likely to say America’s economic system “works against me” rather than “works for me.” Gen Z had the most positive impression of the economy, with 66 percent saying it “works for me,” although many of them have yet to enter the workforce.

On that note, we recently noted 100 years of Communism. From WSJ.com:

100 Years of Communism—and 100 Million Dead

by David Satter

The Bolshevik plague that began in Russia was the greatest catastrophe in human history.

Armed Bolsheviks seized the Winter Palace in Petrograd—now St. Petersburg—100 years ago this week and arrested ministers of Russia’s provisional government. They set in motion a chain of events that would kill millions and inflict a near-fatal wound on Western civilization.

The revolutionaries’ capture of train stations, post offices and telegraphs took place as the city slept and resembled a changing of the guard. But when residents of the Russian capital awoke, they found they were living in a different universe.

And then all the buttery political fun began.

Although the Bolsheviks called for the abolition of private property, their real goal was spiritual: to translate Marxist- Lenin ist ideology into reality. For the first time, a state was created that was based explicitly on atheism and claimed infallibility. This was totally incompatible with Western civilization, which presumes the existence of a higher power over and above society and the state.

Now you begin to see the clouds parting, yes? Western civilization, i.e. more and more citizens in the United States, eschew the existence of a higher power like some tin idol named “godd” or “Bill” or “Berford.” As far as they are concerned, all good things come from The State in terms of our government with one major, vitally-important exception: those damned pesky papers called our “foundational documents” like the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

They are, like, so totally uncool, dude.

The Bolshevik coup had two consequences. In countries where communism came to hold sway, it hollowed out society’s moral core, degrading the individual and turning him into a cog in the machinery of the state. Communists committed murder on such a scale as to all but eliminate the value of life and to destroy the individual conscience in survivors.

Note this:

In a 1920 speech to the Komsomol, Lenin said that communists subordinate morality to the class struggle. Good was anything that destroyed “the old exploiting society” and helped to build a “new communist society.”

Starting to sound a bit familiar?

This approach separated guilt from responsibility. Martyn Latsis, an official of the Cheka, Lenin’s secret police, in a 1918 instruction to interrogators, wrote: “We are not waging war against individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. . . . Do not look for evidence that the accused acted in word or deed against Soviet power. The first question should be to what class does he belong. . . . It is this that should determine his fate.”

Then there’s this disturbing part that today’s educators and students miss entirely — perhaps the most disturbing.

Such convictions set the stage for decades of murder on an industrial scale. In total, no fewer than 20 million Soviet citizens were put to death by the regime or died as a direct result of its repressive policies. This does not include the millions who died in the wars, epidemics and famines that were predictable consequences of Bolshevik policies, if not directly caused by them.

The victims include 200,000 killed during the Red Terror (1918-22); 11 million dead from famine and dekulakization; 700,000 executed during the Great Terror (1937-38); 400,000 more executed between 1929 and 1953; 1.6 million dead during forced population transfers; and a minimum 2.7 million dead in the Gulag, labor colonies and special settlements.

To this list should be added nearly a million Gulag prisoners released during World War II into Red Army penal battalions, where they faced almost certain death; the partisans and civilians killed in the postwar revolts against Soviet rule in Ukraine and the Baltics; and dying Gulag inmates freed so that their deaths would not count in official statistics.

If we add to this list the deaths caused by communist regimes that the Soviet Union created and supported—including those in Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia—the total number of victims is closer to 100 million.

Then this fact — not a suggestion, but a fact:

That makes communism the greatest catastrophe in human history.

Yay Communism.

What is it I’ve said for years? “Everybody always thinks they can do Socialism/Communism better than the last guy.” Except: it never works.

Also this, ripped from today’s screaming headlines about the opinions regarding “freedom” (hok-putui, such a nasty word) on today’s university campuses, from of all places the WashingtonPost.com:

A chilling study shows how hostile college students are toward free speech

by Catherine Rampell

Here’s the problem with suggesting that upsetting speech warrants “safe spaces,” or otherwise conflating mere words with physical assault: If speech is violence, then violence becomes a justifiable response to speech.

Just ask college students. A fifth of undergrads now say it’s acceptable to use physical force to silence a speaker who makes “offensive and hurtful statements.”

That’s one finding from a disturbing new survey of students conducted by John Villasenor, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and University of California at Los Angeles professor.

We already know about speech being the “same” as violence according to Leftists.

In August, motivated by concerns about the “narrowing window of permissible topics” for discussion on campuses, Villasenor conducted a nationwide survey of 1,500 undergraduate students at four-year colleges. Financial support for the survey was provided by the Charles Koch Foundation, which Villasenor said had no involvement in designing, administering or analyzing the questionnaire; as of this writing, the foundation had also not seen his results.

Many of Villasenor’s questions were designed to gauge students’ understanding of the First Amendment. Colleges, after all, pay a lot of lip service to “freedom of speech,” despite high-profile examples of civil-liberty-squelching on campus. The survey suggests that this might not be due to hypocrisy so much as a misunderstanding of what the First Amendment actually entails.

The most shocking?

For example, when students were asked whether the First Amendment protects “hate speech,” 4 in 10 said no. This is, of course, incorrect. Speech promoting hatred — or at least, speech perceived as promoting hatred — may be abhorrent, but it is nonetheless constitutionally protected.

Freedom of speech “important”? Nah.

Since were on the subject of polls, another poll no one else will reveal to you, from my blog post via JihadWatch.org:

51% of U.S. Muslims want Sharia; 60% of young Muslims more loyal to Islam than to U.S.

by Robert Spencer

Really, what did you expect? A considerable portion of U.S. domestic and foreign policy is based on the assumption that Islam in the U.S. will be different: that Muslims here believe differently from those elsewhere, and do not accept the doctrines of violence against and subjugation of unbelievers that have characterized Islam throughout its history. But on what is that assumption based? Nothing but wishful thinking. And future generations of non-Muslims will pay the price.

51% of Muslims living in the U.S. just this June (2015) told Polling Co. they preferred having “the choice of being governed according to Shariah,” or Islamic law. Or the 60% of Muslim-Americans under 30 who told Pew Research they’re more loyal to Islam than America.

These are all clues. These are all indicators of America in the desperate grip of those who wish to tear this country apart from within. Presently there is an active attempt to install mob rule in the United States utilizing not just overt violence, but a highly-funded, organized and systematic undermining, overtaking, eliminating and rewriting of our fundamental founding documents, our history in written form, in oral form, in photographic form and in physical form.

Universities, once admirable towers of higher learning and critical thought now tolerate none of it. The past two generations are shockingly willing to relinquish almost every freedom they possess — to have the government, when it deigns so, to sell those freedoms back. More and more the government is disinterested in such a sale. It simply wants to acquire and keep the power and control.

Is it for this that 500,000 Americans died in the Civil War — so we can become slaves of the government? Do the 1.5 million American deaths during service in war time mean nothing? Must we do it all over again? Historical Alzheimers? Must we go out of our way to prove George Santayana correct anew?

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Communism and Socialism have been tried numerous times in numerous — dozens — of countries in the past two centuries. It always fails. And every new dictator thinks that, in the past, it simply wasn’t “done right.” As I wrote, they believe they are the ones who can “do it right” this time. Then they fail and kill hundreds if not thousands if not millions of their own countrymen.

If there is one lesson the communist century should have taught, it is that the independent authority of universal moral principles cannot be an afterthought, since it is the conviction on which all of civilization depends.

Is the US condemned?

BZ

 

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Where do you go for free speech now?

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If you’re unaware, Gab.ai was created as an alternative social media platform for those of a conservative mind or, more importantly, an actual free speech mind.

It was devised to be the alternative to Twitter and Facebook — mostly Twitter, as it has a Twitter-like feel to it and limits the number of characters per entry.

Initially it took, literally, a few months for me and others to register for Gab.ai due to its popularity. Once on, however, I was a bit chagrined by its klunky interface and what I considered to be its less-than-intuitive interface. Resultingly I wasn’t as active there as I was on Twitter. Gab needed then and now to update its interface and make it more intuitive. There. I said it.

That written, however, there’s a new threat from the Left. The GatewayPundit.com writes:

Twitter Rival GAB Served Notice its Registrar Will Seize its Domain if Not Changed Due to GAB Promoting Free Speech

by Jim Hoft

Twitter rival GAB was served notice by its domain registrar that it has 5 days to transfer its domain or they will seize it.

View image on Twitter

At the same time GAB is suing Google for anti trust violations.

According to David Z. Morris at Fortune magazine, GAB supports Milo Yiannopoulous whom Morris slanders by calling him a white supremacist who was banned from Google for his racially offensive harassment of a black actress –

According to David Z. Morris at Fortune magazine, GAB supports Milo Yiannopoulous whom Morris slanders by calling him a white supremacist who was banned from Google for his racially offensive harassment of a black actress –

Gab, a social media platform that touts its openness to any and all forms of speech, has sued Google for refusing to list the Gab Android App on the Google Play store. Gab claims, according to Ars Technica, that Google denied its listing to protect a data-sharing agreement with Twitter, potentially violating antitrust rules. But the stakes here may be more about perception than the law.

Twitter used to think of itself as “the free speech wing of the free speech party.” But the internet obviously took that as a challenge, breeding dozens of professional trolls like Milo Yiannopoulous, who was banned from Twitter after organizing a racially offensive harassment campaign against actor Leslie Jones.

Yiannopoulos, along with many white supremacists and other prominent figures of the so-called “alt-right,” have since migrated to Gab as their primary public platform. Antitrust lawyer Mark Patterson told Ars Technica that if Google could show that they chose not to allow Gab into the Play Store because of possible reputational damage from that strong association with hate groups, the antitrust claim would have little chance of success.

Even if it is summarily thrown out of court, Gab’s suit will help the nascent platform further establish itself as an alternative to Silicon Valley’s center-left cultural norms. Those have been on display recently in Google’s move to silence critics at think tanks and internally, and in a broader tech-world crackdown on formerly-tolerated hate speech.

Is this nothing more than the Left — AGAIN — doing its level best to remove free speech from the internet? Of course it is. From “complaints.”

Morris is not correct in his outrageous allegations about GAB and Milo and he should be ashamed.  More likely Milo was kicked out of Twitter because he was a successful conservative gay man.  Liberals hate successful conservative gay men.

Twitter over the past year terminated the accounts of  numerous successful conservatives like Milo during the election and prevented tweets from conservative outlets like this one from being wide spread.  Twitter decides which groups are hate groups through their own fascist interpretation of what is a hate group.  Any successful conservative apparently fits their definition of a hate group.

The crux of the biscuit is this.

GAB capitalized on the left wing bias of social site Twitter and now is being attacked for allowing free speech on its site by Google and the alt left mainstream media (MSM).

Gab.ai’s owner, Andrew Torba, wrote at Medium.com:

We knew this day would come and now we have entered a crossroads with a very binary decision: remove one post or lose our domain and thus the entire website.

Our choice was very clear to me. The post needs to come down. If it does not, we lose our domain. To my knowledge there are no pro-free speech domain registrars and that is a massive problem. Our only other option now would be to play a cat and mouse game by transferring our domain to another registrar. Others who have attempted to play this game have failed and even had their domain seized completely from under them. We will not play these games. We have little choice, for now.

The free and open internet as we know it is under attack. It is centralized and controlled by no more than a handful of companies who provide these services:

  • Hosting

  • DDoS protection

  • Payment Processing

  • Domain Registrars

  • Mobile device hardware and software distribution

This is called a clue as far as I’m concerned. But read on.

Without any of these things an individual website can not possibly compete and operate at scale. If left unchecked, these centralized platforms will continue their dominance and control the means of all information, personal data, and communication on the internet.

It’s not too late to save the free and open internet. Decentralized platforms built on the blockchain (including Gab in the near future) will inevitably give the power and control to The People and make the internet censorship-proof.

Gab wants to lead the creation of the next level of the internet. If Web 2.0 was about centralized, social, and mobile networks: Web 3.0 will be a decentralized, blockchain-based, radically transparent, people-powered internet infrastructure.

We are actively looking for a new registrar. This post will hopefully inspire other teams to start building or attract talented engineers to Gab who want to help us protect the free and open web. Until then, we will continue to build and fight for the freedoms we cherish.

What is it, then, that Conservative speech truly needs? Easy answer: sufficient cash to own and wield its own domain registrar, its own hosting, its own DDoS protection, payment processing, and mobile device hardware and software distribution.

I see this as an absolutely enormous vacuum.

Which needs to be filled with Conservative cash.

BZ

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