I'm trying to read "Twitter Is a Far-Right Social Network/It can no longer be denied" by Charlie Warzel at The Atlantic.
Truth Social, a website backed in part by Donald Trump, says it encourages “an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating on the basis of political ideology.” This language is indistinguishable from the way that [Tucker] Carlson spoke of [Elon] Musk’s Twitter, arguing that “there aren’t many platforms left that allow free speech,” and that the site is “the last big one remaining in the world.”
If it acts like a right-wing website and markets itself as a right-wing website, it just might be a right-wing website....
Warzel is hoping for the worst for Twitter, and it's a hope that we've seen since the beginning of the Musk takeover. A free speech policy will drive out the liberals and lefties, and without lefties to kick around, righties won't be happy:
A culture war is no fun if there’s no actual conflict.... Social-media platforms that cater to the right’s ideology eventually become tired and predictable—the result of the same loud people shaking their fist at digital clouds....
It's odd, isn't it? Lefties abandoned Twitter because they wanted their antagonists excluded, and now righties will leave because they want their antagonists present and actively fighting them. According to Warzel.
Is this at the core of the seeming left/right difference on the value of free speech — whether you want to say what you have to say without heckling and harassment from people who disagree with you or whether you want a feisty, real-time debate?
Posts
93 comments:
It's always been a soap opera reality vs reporting on the latest thing that the left said, as the entertainment attraction for each side.
It was spotted as paying the bills with Jessica in the Well, which drew 24/7 females, and since then has been 24/7 tragedies. The right then started reporting on it.
Psy ops are more successful when there’s nobody there to dispel the myths. I mean, there’s still people who believe mainstream media are journalists and the government would never run psy ops against its own people. Conservatives want engagement with ideas because they know the left won’t win. The left’s ideas are unpopular…
They’ll find a way do deal with Musk and Twitter. They have to…
It is long past time to call this by its proper name
Fascism
For anyone who doubts these folks are straight up fascist, I suggest reading Benito Mussolini's "the doctrine of fascism" a dozen pages so even the most dickish Dillard should be able to handle it.
Readily available online.
John LGKTQ Henry
The left used to own the first amendment. What a gift. The right owns the first and the second. Not bad for people who are said to be constantly in trouble with the American people.
I think people don’t want to be told they have to agree to someone’s else speech or be excluded from society. If it takes a feisty debate to get that point across, well that is more fun than war and bloodshed. But I can think of more ways for fun.
The real question is how does it feel to think yourself liberal and now hear that free speech is an extremist view? I don’t disagree that free speech is protected by the right, yet I never held the view that it wasn’t.
Very generally, righties are used to losing debates, but they hope the debate can continue. Lefties are confident History is on their side--like a big version of themselves in the sky. Why tolerate sacrilege and desecration?
So "far right" is just "insufficiently biased against normie conservatives"?
No wonder there's so much nazism these days, when that's the definition.
"Free speech is fine, as long as the wrong people aren't allowed to use it" -- The Right
"What he said." -- The Left
Debating a leftist is an impossible task. You question their actions or policies and the immediate reaction is to call you names. Racist, misogynist, transphobe, the list goes on and on.
Regression to the mean.
1. A person has a vision and adopts a 'purist' ideology
2. Every ideology either favors history and tradition or change and revolution
3. The person holds their views for life and trains their children/students to do the same
4. The 2nd and 3rd generation receive rigid ideological dogmas they don't understand
5. The 3rd generation reinvents the counter-ideology (revolution -> followed by rigid new rules; bound by tradition -> must listen to outsiders to resolve ignorance)
6. The political screw turns. A generation of "radical lefties" become neo-conservatives or alt-conservatives. A generation of "right-wingers" becomes tolerant and open.
7. All move toward the center and then swing past, as they lack self-reflection and haven't challenged the dogmas received from their grandparents, parents, leaders, and community.
Today's left is the true "alt right." Today's right are the true "liberals."
The left wants the right to shut up. The right wants the left to just keep on talking.
"It can no longer be denied/ Free speech is right wing.
It always has been if one understands that "far right" refers to any type of individual liberty, especially those freedoms specified in the Constitution, which is apparently anathema to the Leftist control freaks. There is a reason for this: socialism only works if there is no personal freedom.
It's not so much that "free speech" is right wing as it is that "free speech" is definitely not left wing. You'd think they'd be embarrassed since they so fervently championed it at one time. Not coincidentally, they weren't in control of virtually every institution then. Now that they are, any speech that differs from their dogma is "hate speech," and anyone who dares to utter such things publicly must be canceled, or preferably, jailed.
UC Berkeley, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you...
So odd. Doesn’t Warzel know that free speech and open inquiry used to be a core liberal value; Cal - Berkley and all that.
I went back to Twitter as CreightonAlum for this trans bill in NE. Somehow these Nebraska libs figured it out and they all talk to themselves. So, they call me “Dave” and think they are cute.
The same people who blocked me before are blocking me again.
The Left can’t stand the slightest pushback and they label any dissent as harassment.
One thing that is clear on Twitter since I returned is that today’s Left is completely insane. This trans business makes that clear. As Exhibit A I refer you to Senator Machaela Cavanaugh’s infamous screaming video on the floor of the Unicam.
whether you want to say what you have to say without heckling and harassment from people who disagree with you or whether you want a feisty, real-time debate?
Well, according to that portion of the left that perpetually calls for "right-wing" perspectives to be silenced, Silence Is Violence, so I think it's a little more than not wanting to be heckled that's motivating them. They've just found a form of violence - their formulation, remember, not ours - that they can perpetrate without the disopprobrium that comes from, you know, stomping on a face forever.
And I doubt that all the actual free speech advocates love the idea of a "feisty, real-time debate" - I know I don't love conflict, for instance. But we recognize that the only way to hear the people who are ultimately correct but have an unpopular viewpoint is to guarantee and protect their right to express that viewpoint - which comes at the price of also guarantee and protecting all the crappy viewpoints we (for all values of "we") don't want to hear. This perspective strikes me as arising from - believe it or not - a kind of fundamental humility that acknowledge that we humans don't now and never will know everything. This seems to be a humility lacking in some parts of the left.
If lying with impunity is free speech, Elmo has it down to a science, tweeting constantly instead of managing his vast taxpayer-financed business empire. Trump is even worse with his grift-based enterprises depending on untruths to survive.
My right-wing GOP was not based upon the four horsemen of the apocalypse - Elon Musk, Donald Trump. Leonard Leo and Ron DeSantis, nor were their fascist versions of free speech prevalent.
I'm not sure he understands the Right or Let's motivation for being on Twitter. Righties enjoy finding people who believe the same things they do, a realization they're not alone. They form their own ecosystem. Lefties dominate Twitter. It was easy to have an ecosystem. And now the ecosystem is threatened because the top replies are now more likely to be Musk supporters with Blue Checks. So they threaten to take their ball and go home. Too bad they will never follow through. They're addicted.
It's been my experience that people who have good reasons for believing what they believe don't mind their views being challenged--because they are comfortable defending them. It only seems to be a right-left thing because of how that works out in practice.
The right doesn't just own free speech, they own the Enlightenment and the ideas of freedom and human liberty, the dignity of the individual, that came from it. We live in a world where, if you want to call yourself a liberal, you must first reject all liberal values. If you hold liberal values, you vote Republican.
Their problem with Twitter is "the left can't meme."
Hard to be funny about destroying freedom.
Regular mocking of stupid ideas lacking logic can be painful.
Getting ratioed is not fun.
If your whole worldview depends on a carefully curated reality, where certain facts must be suppressed or it all falls apart, then Twitter will be a painful experience without all of the censorship being controlled by your side.
Imagine if progress in physics, for example, had to pass through Twitter 1.0. Einstein would probably have been banned, along with clucking tweets about "what happened to Einstein? His tweets on Brownian motion were brilliant, but now he has tweeted disinformation claiming that space is curved by gravity and that time passes at different rates depending on speed! Fortunately for the world, he has been banned after we used Community Spaces and had a vote and determined that Einstein's new theories were all bunkum."
gadfly is a master of projection.
No, at the core of the free speech debate is those on the right being in favor of free speech, as they are not afraid to engage with others on the merits of their beliefs. In sharp contrast, leftists want to silence all those who disagree with them. This seems to be because leftists want their own beliefs treated as facts, and as they believe some really strange stuff, they find this impossible to defend.
makes sense!
capitalism is right wing
free trade is right wing
free speech is right wing
civil liberties are right wing
republics are right wing
democracy is right wing
non authoritarian governments are right wing
At lease liberals and leftist are finally admitting they are whiny fascists. Strange combination, but it fits perfectly.
They learned it at liberal American Universities. Congratulations.
gadfly said...nor were their fascist versions of free speech prevalent
Gadfly obviously doesn't understand the historical definition, practices, and implementation of fascism. Just like every liberal who throws around the empty accusation.
But, as a free speech advocate, I want him to be able to sling his bullshit far and wide. I trust that most are smart enough to realize exactly what it is.
"Lefties dominate Twitter."
What? Not any more. It's wild and crazy redpilled now. I can't look away.
Too good to last I'm afraid.
From the post:
". A free speech policy will drive out the liberals and lefties, and without lefties to kick around, righties won't be happy:
A culture war is no fun if there’s no actual conflict.... Social-media platforms that cater to the right’s ideology eventually become tired and predictable—the result of the same loud people shaking their fist at digital clouds...."
I think this blog proves that statement false. There is not a huge number of left-of-center participants here, but they are the loyal opposition and do their best to make their case - at least when they don't resort to Alinsky rules.
Our host is patient enough to put up with the right-of-center people, cruel neutrality and all that, with a few exceptions. The difference between this blog and other sites that self-identify as 'liberal' is that the other sites block people who dare to challenge The Narrative®, and the few who are kicked off here demonstrate misbehavior, not merely opposing views.
"...without lefties to kick around, righties won't be happy..."
Provably false at sites like Instapundit, Blaska Policy Werkes, Ricochet, and others.
What we saw during the pandemic were the biggest and most dangerous lies ever pushed on American society. The biggest lie being, "the vaccine is safe and effective". It has proven to be neither.
Those who stood up to this totalitarian lie were censored and vilified. But, they were proven right over time.
Unfortunately, 200 million Americans enthusiastically through tribalism and virtue signaling, or reluctantly because of coercion, took the mRNA shots. Many forced them on innocent children.
Trump's hands are not clean when it comes to mRNA shots. It's his Achilles heal. If I was DeSantis I'd beat him over the head with it.
But the main culprit in its forced distribution was censorship, and the left's disdain for free speech.
“ "Free speech is fine, as long as the wrong people aren't allowed to use it" -- The Right”
I presume here that you are talking about regulations regarding proselytizing sexual practices to children entrusted to one’s care.
“ "Free speech is fine, as long as the wrong people aren't allowed to use it" -- The Right”
I presume here that you are talking about regulations regarding proselytizing sexual practices to children entrusted to one’s care.
It's so bizarre, yet completely unsurprising that the Left would want Twitter to fail because Musk allows all kinds of speech. These are the same people who screamed bloody murder for years over Fox News...because 1 single cable network was allowed to have conservative (sometimes) views. Or at least offer a light on insane progressive thinking.
The Left doesn't want debate. They want absolute submission. They love a steady stream of The Narrative poured out over the networks, all spouting the same daily (hourly?) talking points. They love clone-speak and seem to get all goosey when groups of them mouth the same inane chants.
The Right has many problems. Not the least of which is Donald Trump, who represents...Donald Trump, but has gotten a nation of people to believe he represents them. (it's not unique: Joe Biden has done the same thing for years, Barack did it, too.) But the Right loves a hearty discussion, a good debate. The Left seems to run from it.
It was not always so. But after years of playing victims in every turn of life, the Left has become accustomed to being protected. When that protection falls away, they flee. Sometimes to Brooklyn. Sometimes to Facebook, sometimes to the comment section of the NY Times, where they can feel safe.
"The real question is how does it feel to think yourself liberal and now hear that free speech is an extremist view? I don’t disagree that free speech is protected by the right, yet I never held the view that it wasn’t."
There are staunch champions of free speech on the right and on the left, as has always been true. They are in the minority on each side, as also has always been true.
The Twitter logo is actually a profile of the right wing of a bird.
"The right doesn't just own free speech, they own the Enlightenment and the ideas of freedom and human liberty, the dignity of the individual, that came from it. We live in a world where, if you want to call yourself a liberal, you must first reject all liberal values. If you hold liberal values, you vote Republican."
Self-congratulatory self-delusion.
"Free speech is fine, as long as the wrong people aren't allowed to use it" -- The Right
"What he said." -- The Left
Hahaha! BINGO!
I just laugh when folks label Musk right wing. It is a credibility killer.
Today's right are the true 'liberals.'"
Not just self-congratulatory self-delusion, but truly masturbatory! (Or Orwellian.)
The left is authoritarian, the right is libertarian, the far-left is totalitarian, the far-right is anarchist, the left-right nexus is leftist. The center is conservative: Declaration, Constitution: anti-slavery, anti-abortion, anti-diversity (anti-SAD).
Is this at the core of the seeming left/right difference on the value of free speech — whether you want to say what you have to say without heckling and harassment from people who disagree with you or whether you want a feisty, real-time debate?
Well you begin by recognizing that disagreement from the Right is not "heckling and harassment" of the Left, and that "heckling and harassment" from the Left is not a debate, it's a means of avoiding a debate.
The Left seeks to avoid debate because they always lose debates. They lose because their ideas are bad, their arguments childish and facile and they don't know how to argue very well.
The Lefties who can think and argue all end up becoming centrists and Righties.
I asked BingAI what "radical conservatism" is and it said that radical conservatives seek to preserve traditional values - but also advocate far-reaching revolutionary change.
I then asked it to provide me with a list of 10 things radical conservatives advocate for that represent far-reaching revolutionary change.
BingAI could not do it: "I’m sorry but I couldn’t find a list of 10 “radical changes” that “radical conservatives” advocate for.
There is no such thing as free speech for very much longer. This is a level of gaslighting that is unprecedented. We are literally teaching our computers to LIE about conservatives.
tim maguire said...
"The right doesn't just own free speech, they own the Enlightenment and the ideas of freedom and human liberty, the dignity of the individual, that came from it."
As our country was founded on those principles, those in the US who fight for and conserve those principles will naturally tend to congregate on the conservative right.
"We live in a world where, if you want to call yourself a liberal, you must first reject all liberal values."
One has to reject it because Freedom is Slavery, doncha know. And true Communism/Socialism/etc has never been tried.
"If you hold liberal values, you vote Republican."
Or vote third party.
Some time back I was reading some comments by Brits who were disgusted and not going to vote Tory. Their issue is that the Tories' "conservatism" is not the British ideals, but simply preserving the status quo. And that status quo is now the ever intrusive state.
For far too long the Republicans have been American Tories. Hopefully the new crop coming up will be different, as some of them have a record of success to run on.
Since Woodstock, 'liberals' have morphed into anti-speech, pro-government, big corporation, nanny state scolding fascists.
Prove me wrong.
gadfly said...
"If lying with impunity is free speech..."
If lying with impunity were free speech, gadfly would be a bastion.
Call it Prole’s Law: Any organization not explicitly left-wing will be perceived as right-wing by left-wingers.
“It’s not so much that "free speech" is right wing as it is that "free speech" is definitely not left wing. You'd think they'd be embarrassed since they so fervently championed it at one time.”
Thing is the new generations actually don’t know this history. No one teaches them history anymore. Just social justice.
“ John henry said...
It is long past time to call this by its proper name
Fascism”
Exactly correct.
This blog evidence that most folks are not looking for feisty real time debate.
So Gadfly, have you read mussolini's "Doctrine of Fascism "?
If not, where does your knowledge of what Fascism (and fascism) is and is not?
Do you accept that you are objectivly a fascist according to mussolini's definition? (at least based on what I see you post here)
Why or why not?
John LGKTQ Henry
David Begley says "free speech and open inquiry used to be a core liberal value; Cal - Berkley and all that."
I consider this a myth. The Free Speech movement was about allowing leftists to organize and indoctrinate on campus. Clark Kerr wanted a campus removed from political agitation, the better to pursue truth and avoid getting the University embroiled in conflicts with the Governor and the State Legislature. This would not stand with the red-diaper generation, so they seized the mantle of Free Speech to justify their penetration of the campus, but they didn't want debate, they wanted to organize, and organize they did.
First off: ugh, my coinage "disopprobrium" above. That'll teach me to post before coffee. Of course I meant "opprobrium." I shall elide my plain old typos...
Onward:
There are staunch champions of free speech on the right and on the left, as has always been true. They are in the minority on each side, as also has always been true.
What's this? Fine people on both sides?
JK, Robert Cook. More seriously, ask yourself which side of the political spectrum welcomes and celebrates champions of free speech from its own side (like Musk, at least for the sake of argument), and which side derides and vilifies free speech champions from its own side (like Turley and Taibbi).
And ask yourself which side welcomes and celebrates free speech advocates from the other side.
Certainly it's true that the left side will welcome and celebrate righties who reject some position currently held by the right, such as when a Megan McArdle or a Peggy Noonan differs from (let's just say) deSantis on something, like illegal immigration. But not when the "something" is free speech. Find me a case in which (1) a right-leaning public advocate is for less free speech (or perhaps "less free" speech)*, or (2) the left lionizes a person of the right for advocating more free speech (or "more free" speech).
If either of those conditions is happening, I haven't heard a word of it. I suspect it's because free speech is no longer a core value for the left. It's still a value, sure, but it's far subordinate to not causing offense ("actual harm" and "violence," in their formulation, as I said above), and gets swept away instantly when someone claims to have been hurt by it - even, increasingly, when someone claims that s/he is "triggered" just by the suggestion that it might be permitted to be heard.
Do you follow?
* If you plan to cite "Don't Say Gay" (which is of course not what that law says) or regs or laws disallowing certain books from elementary school libraries (and nowhere else!), why, I'll see you and raise you "use my pronouns or suffer the legal consequences, and by the way, bake the damn cake, bigot," and rewriting or removing from public libraries historical novels that are not perfectly in concert with the left's current views. Limiting access to content for children is not the same as compelling speech or limiting access to content for adults.
"The Left doesn't want debate. They want absolute submission."
The left is all about collectivism and despises individuals. Everyone is expected to think the same as everyone else in their assigned group. Debate disturbs this arrangement by presenting the possibility that someone, observing that the emperor is naked, might empower others to act on what they see, too.
"Warzel is hoping for the worst for Twitter,"
Have you noticed you never see Warzel and Mark in the same room together?
"...without lefties to kick around, righties won't be happy..."
This is what caught my eye and it is patently not true. The problem with the left is that they cannot argue their own moral positions. This is no more apparent than right here on this blog. What is "hate speech" anyway? Who gets to define it? How does it differ from free speech? The answer is usually, "Well. Because. Shut up!" I'm still waiting for a reasoned well thought out argument as to why we should limit our right to free speech.
And just be clear. That right belongs to me. Despite what constitutional scholars might argue, our founding documents made it very clear who those rights belong to. And it isn't to the state.
I've started reading "The Fourth Turning" which is about cycles in history. We may be in one now. An abbreviated explanation is in this aphorism. "Hard times make strong men; strong men make good times; Good times make weak men; Weak men make hard times." The theory is that a strong generation sets up institutions and traditions that their children and grand children lose interest in and then forget how to maintain them. California is a good example but the USA is becoming another. The grad student types in the Biden regime are an example. The trans nonsense is another.
What will the Republicans on Twitter use as their targets for pouncing when the liberals all leave the platform? Is there a red laser dot of some sort in development?
There are staunch champions of free speech on the right and on the left,
Cite three people on the American Left who promote and protect free speech.
"There are staunch champions of free speech on the right and on the left, as has always been true. They are in the minority on each side, as also has always been true."
Can you provide us some current examples of anti-free speech from the right? (Limiting what children can see doesn't count.)
Temujin: "The Right has many problems. Not the least of which is Donald Trump, who represents...Donald Trump, but has gotten a nation of people to believe he represents them."
This idea that those stupid rube deplorable non-GOPe elitists are just too dumb to understand what they have seen for decades, the impact of certain policies on their lives, and just who has actually been fighting for them and who has bern sticking a knife in their backs is precisely why those deplorables, so despised by the GOPe-ers, refuse to play along anymore.
But yeah, Trump did it to them. Uh huh.
Does anyone know if there is another BLM Matter March in DC today?
Asking for a Romney.
Does anyone know if there is another massive aid package for Ukraine to pay for Ukrainian govt officials and citizens retirement plan coming down the pike while Americans get shafted?
Asking for a GOPe-er.
Yeah, those stupid, stupid Trump voters!
BIII Zhang: "I asked BingAI what "radical conservatism" is..."
If you are asking Bing AI, that means you are asking Microsoft which owns Bing, which means you are asking openAI which is effectively controlled by MS after its last $10B infusion into openAI, which means you are using chatGPT which was released by openAI.
So, you actually asked chatGPT.
FYI, thus far Microsoft is much more effectively operating openAI than Google is managing DeepMind and whatever DeepMind is doing with its "Flamingo" or whatever chatGPT competitor they are working on this week.
And Elon just jumped in with own DeepMind/OpenAI competitor: X,AI.
Just wait until readering and Dumb Lefty Mark and The Hopeless gadfly hear about that!
The French Revolution was founded on the ideals of the Enlightenment. The idealists took the precaution of shattering one of their enlightened leader's jaw so that he couldn't spout dangerous nonsense from the scaffold before his execution.....If the left wins, they will lose. Tactics used against the right will be used against heretics in their own camp. The tactics that the Bolsheviks used against their opponents during the revolution and subsequent civil war were used against the Bolsheviks by Stalin...There is hardly consensus on any issue. We now know the beneficial effects of eating shit. It works wonders on restoring the biome. The human race is wrong about a lot of things and needs room to be argued out of their positions.
"The left is authoritarian, the right is libertarian, the far-left is totalitarian, the far-right is anarchist, the left-right nexus is leftist. The center is conservative: Declaration, Constitution: anti-slavery, anti-abortion, anti-diversity (anti-SAD)."
Funny--not to mention self-serving and dishonest--how you somehow never describe any degree of far right as becoming totalitarian.
whether you want to say what you have to say without heckling and harassment from people who disagree with you
You mean like protesters yelling at a talk? Isn't the usual complaint about people on the left doing that?
Does he mean X Corp?
Joe Smith said...
Since Woodstock, 'liberals' have morphed into anti-speech, pro-government, big corporation, nanny state scolding fascists.
Well, they are not Fascists (nationality-based socialists), and they aren't really Marxists (class-based socialists), but they do seem to be a variant of Nazism (race-based socialist), but now with white working-class Americans as their focused oppressor/enemy.
Also, they didn't morph, they simply dropped the pretense now that they feel powerful.
If lying with impunity is free speech...Trump is even worse with his grift-based enterprises depending on untruths to survive.
Well if you are going to lecture us on lying by being a liar you've achieved perfection Gaddy. It is a well known fact that the Trump family made their money in real estate and Donald made some more as a TV star, one of the highest rated shows on NBC for a long time. Well known facts. Not a grift at all, as you know well. And even if it was every democrat with a national campaign solicited and got donations from his "grift" and said nothing for years. Funny that!
Now without lying try and explain how Joe Biden and every Biden family member became millionaires. What product or service do they provide for all that filthy money Gaddy?
“ "Free speech is fine, as long as the wrong people aren't allowed to use it" -- The Right”
I presume here that you are talking about regulations regarding proselytizing sexual practices to children entrusted to one’s care
Of course they are. Depravity uber alles.
I have an image of tweet by Scott Adams from April 20, 2022
"I'm not a Republican, but the fact that supporting free speech in 2022 forces people to assume you are one is making the option look attractive."
There is no such thing as free speech for very much longer. This is a level of gaslighting that is unprecedented. We are literally teaching our computers to LIE about conservatives.
Yep. Google "south dakota youngest governor AI" or peruse today's PowerLine blog to see some eye opening lies ChatGPT is able to tell instantaneously.
Robert Cook said...
"Today's right are the true 'liberals."
Not just self-congratulatory self-delusion, but truly masturbatory! (Or Orwellian.)
Greenwald and Taibbi are true left-liberals, but who else on the left has any regard for free speech as a principle rather than an instrument? And why are those two so frequently praised by conservatives who probably disagree with them on a wide range of public policy issues?
You use "Orwellian" about as accurately as other leftists use "fascist." I'm not even sure that you have a grip on "masturbatory."
Musk is kinda naive about things outside his field, whatever that is. Usual tendency toward goodthink
But he's being schooled.
"Warzel is hoping for the worst for Twitter, and it's a hope that we've seen since the beginning of the Musk takeover."
Communists hate rich people. Always have. Always will.
I grew up poor, as in stealing food to quell hunger poor. As in soles duck taped back on because there was no money for shoes poor. Today, I live better than I could have possibly imagined as a child. And you know who provided me with such an improved life? Rich people, G-d love 'em.
And contrary to the Progressive zeitgeist, they tend to be the nicest people you'll ever meet. People who get rich by being assholes exist only in the movies as a rhetorical device, most of which are made by communists.
Every time I hear or read someone railing against the rich I always remember this old saying (which I may have posted here before):
"I cried because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had a BMW."
"Dave Begley"
A question for you, Mr. Begley. Given that you live in Omaha (I realize it's full of people) any chance you ever came across a guy named Dr. Roger Fransecky, founder of the Omaha based Apogee Group?
"Since Woodstock, 'liberals' have morphed into anti-speech, pro-government, big corporation, nanny state scolding fascists.
"Prove me wrong."
Well, it is an oft-stated axiom, ascribed to Churchill, (a drunk and an asshole), that radical firebrands on the left when young tend to move to the right as they grow older (and, ahem, "gain some sense"--if they're of right minds, so it is self-servingly claimed). So...maybe there's partial truth in your declaration.
(Of course, asserting "Prove me wrong" after having made a categorical declaration is a typical dishonest move. It is the person making a categorical declaration who bears responsibility to prove their assertion.)
"I asked BingAI what 'radical conservatism' is and it said that radical conservatives seek to preserve traditional values - but also advocate far-reaching revolutionary change."
"Radical conservatism" is authoritarianism, and can become fascism.
Twitter was created by the media, for the media. It was what replaced JournoList.
When it first broke onto the scene every journalist everywhere, right down to the local newscasters gushed over it at every opportunity, which I found very odd at the time, given that up until that moment, no one else knew what the hell it was.
""If you hold liberal values, you vote Republican."
Or vote third party."
Or simply avoid voting.
When we were young, it was the right who said, "You cannot say that." I remember Geof Stone's rueful comment to that effect when he was discussing the formulation of the Chicago Principles on open inquiry at UChicago. The worm has turned. Today's "liberals" are not liberal at all. Their ideology smells worse than Jude Law playing Henry VIII.
Slight correction:
I presume here that you are talking about regulations regarding government schools proselytizing sexual practices to children entrusted to one’s care.”
Robert Cook said...
"The left is authoritarian, the right is libertarian, the far-left is totalitarian, the far-right is anarchist, the left-right nexus is leftist. The center is conservative: Declaration, Constitution: anti-slavery, anti-abortion, anti-diversity (anti-SAD)."
"Funny--not to mention self-serving and dishonest--how you somehow never describe any degree of far right as becoming totalitarian."
Yep the authoritarian right working to get the state to leave you the fuck alone for the past 50 years.
This: "The right doesn't just own free speech, they own the Enlightenment and the ideas of freedom and human liberty, the dignity of the individual, that came from it. We live in a world where, if you want to call yourself a liberal, you must first reject all liberal values. If you hold liberal values, you vote Republican."
Thank you, Tim Mcguire.
"Is this at the core of the seeming left/right difference on the value of free speech?"
No. There was a time when the Left claimed to value free speech. But it is now evident that was a lie. The Left wants power. That's all.
"Yep the authoritarian right working to get the state to leave you the fuck alone for the past 50 years."
Yep, the authoritarian right making it illegal for women to have abortions, to the point of even threatening doctors with criminal charges if they do any urgent medical procedures that might terminate a pregnancy, even if that is the not purpose of the the procedure, and trying to make "day-after" pills illegal or states making it illegal for their citizens to go to other states to obtain abortions, and all the other punitive after-effects of the Supreme Court's ruling; or the banning of the word "gay" in schools or the teaching of CRT, the decimation of the books in school libraries, etc., etc. Asshole Disantis is surely a paragon of making freedom more free!
The right is trying to get the state to leave us the fuck alone? Hahahaha! Getthetfuckouttahere!
A free speech policy will drive out the liberals and lefties, and without lefties to kick around, righties won't be happy
Try us. I think I would be overwhelmed with bliss if I never had to put up with lefty bullshit ever again.
The Big-L Left loved free speech so long as they were in the minority and out of power; they demanded it in order to make their case for their desired policies and propagandize against their enemies. Now that they're fully in control, in power, they're against it precisely because they know and understand that the only way they'll stay in power and control the future is by silencing their opposition.
It was never about liberty or freedom of speech; it was always about power. It's like that comment that Erdogan made about voting, wherein he described it as a process like riding a train; once you got off at your station, no more need to vote for things, 'cos they'd "won".
The Left today is the natural party of tyranny. Of course, it always was; the real deal is that the actual Fascists and Nazis were always of the left. They did a lot of work during the WWII era to ensure that everyone thought those were right-wing parties, but the actual reality? They came out of the Left, they're of the Left, and they'll continue to be of the Left until the Sun goes out. Every denial you hear about that fact? You know you're listening to propaganda spouted by the intellectually dishonest.
Left vs Right does not always suffice for some key issues as a categorization marker anymore and hasn't for quite some time.
Examples: speech + free and open inquiry, merit itself, maintaining standards (multiple venues), distrust of permanent/deep state power, desire to roll back that power, economic nationalism policies, immigration policies, opposition to forever wars, to name a few.
"This blog evidence that most folks are not looking for feisty real time debate."
Well obviously not from you, because you routinely disappoint in real or feisty, but you do have a good name for a bot troll.
Blogger Robert Cook said...
"Yep the authoritarian right working to get the state to leave you the fuck alone for the past 50 years."
Yep, the authoritarian right making it illegal for women to have abortions, to the point of even threatening doctors with criminal charges if they do any urgent medical procedures that might terminate a pregnancy, even if that is the not purpose of the the procedure,
Cook like most leftists considers abortion a sacrament. The "right" had nothing to do with abortion bans which have been in place for hundreds, if not thousands of years. There was nothing "hard right" about Hippocrates.
If you were not so ignorant, you could be dangerous. As far as present day, I favor a 15 week period when it is optional. Unlike you, I do not favor infanticide. In 1969 I did major intestinal surgery on a 1 pound, 10 ounce baby. She did fine and is now 54 years old.
From a electoral point of view, the Democrats want to suppress what Republicans say and the Republicans want to amplify what the Democrats say.
"Asshole Disantis is surely a paragon of making freedom more free."
THIS is what passes for argument and authority for Cookie:
"And finally, don’t forget how both Trump and DeSantis (as well as Texas Governor Greg Abbott) have brazenly celebrated the street violence perpetrated by armed white men. Trump hosted Kyle Rittenhouse at Mar-a-Lago in November 2021. Rittenhouse had shot and killed Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum, while wounding Gaige Grosskreutz, during racial-justice protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020. He became a cause célèbre of the far-right media and the MAGA movement and was eventually found not guilty, leading to Trump’s invitation. The former president has also loudly pledged to pardon charged or convicted violent January 6th insurrectionists.
Not to be outdone, DeSantis recently praised Daniel Penny who killed Jordan Neely, a slim, young black man having a mental health crisis on a New York City subway car. Penny, a trained ex-Marine, applied a chokehold for many minutes. Neely’s death was ruled a homicide and Penny has now been arrested for it. Far-right Republicans were quick to issue statements of solidarity and to support fundraising for his legal case. DeSantis referred to Penny as a “good Samaritan” and shared a link to his fundraising page, while somehow associating the incident with that number one billionaire scoundrel for conservatives, George Soros.
By their behavior and words, Trump and DeSantis provide a permission zone for white nationalist violence."
Put down the bong, Cookie!
Musk strikes me as a man who, rather than being right wing, is disgusted by Democrats and their consorts as any decent American should be.
Robert Cook @ 2:50
So, who'd you knock up? You might want to use a condom next time.
(Of course, asserting "Prove me wrong" after having made a categorical declaration is a typical dishonest move. It is the person making a categorical declaration who bears responsibility to prove their assertion.)
And yet that is exactly what the American left demands of the American right: that we accept their premises as the status quo ante and attempt to disprove their necessary or worth... in spite of the fact that conservatism by its nature is support of the status quo.
F'ristance. The American left demands that the field of battle for abortion is 9 unregulated months thereof, despite the fact that a supermajority of American favor European-style (or more restrictive) limitations.
Further: the American left demands that children, even prepubescent children, be allowed to be exposed to heavy and explicit pressure to "identify" as something other than simply male or female, despite global, long-standing, and obviously conservative (in the sense of "not throwing baby out with bathwater") evidence that virtually all kids who express ambiguity about their sexuality will grow out of it, many eventually realizing that they're gay, some just recognizing that they're the sex they are but maybe not stereotypically so.
And, the American left demands that all white Americans defend themselves (unsuccessfully by definition) against charges of racism, even if they came to the US in 1975 from Cosovo.
Moreover, the American left demands that all Americans accept MMT as The Truth about money, despite a mountain of evidence that it's inflationary and - incidentally - utterly divorced from reality, as well as centuries of understanding that money is a proxy for any medium of exchange and can't be totally severed from its relationship to the value that actual humans assign to it.
In every case I can think of, the American left says "Prove me wrong," usually while farting in someone's face or peeing in someone's glass.
Spare me.
"Yep, the authoritarian right making it illegal for women to have abortions"
This piece is about free speech. Abortion isn't speech. Please stay on-topic. Thank you in advance.
Full disclosure: I'm 100% pro-abortion. Which again, being made illegal isn't speech any more than making it illegal to drive an M1 Abrams tank down I-90 (even though the Interstate was designed to accommodate them) isn't speech.
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