“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” by The Elephant's Child

January 11, 2021, 1:59 am
Filed under: Politics | Tags: Parler, Tech censorship, Trump Censored

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859

What a strange time. Everybody is upset, speech is censored, picked apart, banned,. and nobody seems to remember the very first amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. It states simply:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Of course everyone would immediately jump on “peaceably to assemble” rather than “the freedom of speech” part. We  have had a pretty steady diet of protests and riots, especially since the death of George Floyd, who did not, as protesters believed, die of police brutality, but from a significant overdose of fentanyl, enough the autopsy said, to have killed him several times over. That unleashed vast demands all over the country to “defund the police” but then the death toll in cities where police were restrained increased dramatically.

Statues have been defiled and torn down, anything named for anyone who had anything to do with the Confederacy, military bases named for Civil War generals, have had their names changed. The Civil War ended 155 years ago, so we need to refight it currently? Then there was the big New York Times accusation that Slavery was brought to the United States in 1619 and has been a blight on our country ever since, but that turned out to not be true either. We seem to have a larger problem with unfamiliarity with history, which reflects rather harshly on our school systems.

There is a current vogue for “fact-checkers” though no one seems able to quantify what qualifies someone to be a “fact-checker” and most of them seem not to know what they are talking about anyway. The problem is Big Tech’s promotion of websites where people can express their opinions and share them with like-minded friends, except it didn’t work out that way, and anyone expressing an unpopular opinion had to be banned and it went on from there to the point where unpopular opinions must be banned and the websites that allow it must be banned, and the people who open their mouths publicly must also be banned. 

There have been riots and demonstrations in most major cities, some from communist activists like Antifa and some from looters hoping to get a newer computer, and some who just thought rioting was great fun. Businesses have been destroyed, closed down, and most governments at every level have seen it as their job to restore order, control the Covid epidemic, and shut everything down. Locked-down people are getting restless and and governments are stepping in to keep them in, with varying degrees of success. The pandemic rages on. The Presidential pandemic advisor announces that he’s just been operating with guesswork anyway.

There is an important election as the President’s first term comes to a close. Probably no president has ever been so consistently attacked and demonized on a daily basis, from the initial attacks for “Russian collusion”. Why is anyone surprised that he resents it, when he is trying to make America great again, and to a significant extent succeeding? Economy growing, employment up, taxes down, regulation down. The election, and questionable votes all over the place. Way too much mail-in voting, lots of dead people voting, my favorite that I read about was a gentleman born in 1824. That should have raise a few red flags in a hurry. Reports of clear voter fraud.  Reports of Big Tech interference and influence. Rumor. Innuendo. A few articles plaintively ask “Where did Trump tell anyone to storm the capitol?” and “Exactly where and how did Trump incite the mob?”

Twitter has “permanently” banned Trump’s personal account, but doesn’t dare ban the account of the President of the United States. Parler, which is a conversation website like Twitter, has been put out of business by its web hosts. The media has forgotten anything they learned about scruples or honor in journalism school, and no longer can be trusted for any honest information. And breaking into the capitol has not occurred since, well, the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. Here’s a video of protesters trying to break into the Supreme Court to protest the seating of Justice Kavanaugh.

Most of the blather going on is nonsense. Trump Derangement Syndrome. It’s sad when so many ill-informed Americans decide that demonstrating and protesting is more important than studying-up and learning about what is really involved. But then I am not the demonstration type. Never been to one, nor had any desire to do so. I do write some pointed letters to those with whom I am particularly displeased, or even to those with whom I agree. Sometimes I even get answers.

It’s becoming clear that we need some restraints on Big Tech. The Cato Institute has pocket copies of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence for sale, inexpensively, and also available at Amazon. Good gifts. As are good history books. More information is the solution, but people have to want to become informed.

 

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