“Anyone who is angered by the prospect of American citizens expressing their opinions is a Stalinist and should be feared.” – Tucker Carlson
The above is yet one more bit of evidence that Tucker Carlson is the most trustworthy voice in broadcast and cablecast journalism. Carlson knows whereof he speaks, for he himself has been a victim of modern-day censorship. Twitter banned his account some time ago. Perhaps he’ll get it back now that a different hand is at the helm.
Twitter also banned President Donald Trump and The Babylon Bee. It’s a wonder that its “Trust and Safety” gauleiters have tolerated anyone to the right of center. Nevertheless, there are still a few whom the censors haven’t yet bagged. Perhaps that’s all in the past now, but we shall see.
Abridgements of Americans’ Constitutionally guaranteed rights have been many these past few years. Virtually everyone who reads Liberty’s Torch will be aware of the many infringements on our Second Amendment rights. But the rest of the Bill of Rights has been shredded to an equal degree. A few examples:
- Amendment III: Infringed when police or “security” personnel commandeer a private residence as a viewing or listening post.
- Amendment IV: Destroyed by illicit surveillance of private persons’ communications, and by the invasion of privately held lands to situate cameras and other recording devices there.
- Amendment V: Destroyed by no-knock raids and “civil asset forfeiture,” and by the use of “immunity” deals to coerce testimony from unwilling witnesses.
- Amendment VI: Are the January 6 detainees enjoying “the right to a speedy and public trial?”
- Amendment VII: State-level jury trials that acquit defendants whom the federal government “needs to convict” are routinely overridden by federal trials for “violations of civil rights.” (Cf. the Rodney King trials)
- Amendment VIII: “Excessive bail” is now routine, especially when the case concerns drugs.
- Amendment IX: None of Americans’ unenumerated rights are acknowledged today. In particular, the right of jurors to vote their conscience, regardless of the judge’s statement of the law, is actively suppressed by American courts. A lawyer can be disbarred for mentioning it in an open court session.
- Amendment X: Federalism – the separation of powers between the federal and state governments – has been a dead letter since the New Deal, if not even earlier than that. (Cf. Nancy Pelosi’s claim that “the general welfare clause means that we can do anything.”)
The emergence of the “two-way” Internet was hailed as a great development for freedom of expression. No one anticipated the emergence of corporations eager to serve the political Establishment as censors. Yet “censorship by subcontractors” was fastened upon us without our noticing. So much for freedom of expression in the medium most critical to today’s discourse.
Some of us, such as your humble Curmudgeon, can still express ourselves freely, though at personal cost and with the disadvantage of being excluded from the major sites of interchange. Many others lack the resources – time, money, expertise, and so forth – that make a site like this one possible. To them, Facebook and Twitter looked like Godsends, real opportunities to be part of the conversation. However, for many the reality has proved otherwise.
Perhaps it need not be so henceforward. As Carlson notes in the above-linked video, the powers that be are quaking for the loss of Twitter alone. There are three possible directions from here:
- The censors could try to ignore this development;
- They could release their stranglehold on Americans’ right to express themselves;
- Or they could intensify their suppression of facts and opinions unfavorable to the Establishment.
Courses #1 and #3 appear self-destructive. Only course #2 seems to offer the Internet giants a prospect of retaining their status. But we shall see.
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“Or they could intensify their suppression of facts and opinions unfavorable to the Establishment.”
They’re already talking about how terrible it would be for only one side to be allowed to speak. They don’t have any sense of irony.
An excellent take on the abridgements, Fran. The specious — and controlling — interpretation of double jeopardy is that states and the federal government are “different jurisdictions” so successive, separate prosecutions are fine. In a nation for which liberty is a fundamental principle the citizen can thus be subject to TWO ruinously expensive prosecutions based on a dishonest interpretation.
The nation’s preeminent political cases are brought in the District of Columbia where defendants can be tried by wealthy white liberal bureaucrats, lawyers, and lobbyists, a predominantly black federal civil servant population, or a black welfare population. But it’s just blind justice, of course.
The Tenth Amendment is underappreciated. It’s clear what it requires. Any mention of Medicare for all, Obamacare, “health care,” homosexual marriage, decriminalization of homosexuality, separation of church and state, abortion, or federal land management in Art. I, Sect. 8 or elsewhere in the Constitution? If not, it’s a state matter. So the Tenth Amendment needs to be read as providing that what isn’t delegated to the United States or prohibited to the states is reserved for the states or the people UNLESS at least five justices of the Supreme Court think that such matters should be TAKEN from the states of the people.
The leftists clearly don’t care if what they are doing is self-destructive. Just look at commie news network, disney and netflix.
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That is a point to consider, but the laws of the marketplace will have their say as well. The censors need to retain a certain minimum number of “eyeballs” to continue to fleece their sponsors. We don’t know what that threshold value is, but they’ll eventually drop below it if they continue on their current course.
That model (consumer market sponsor dependent) to running the media appears to have all but disappeared. In some instances, simply owning a news organ entitles its owners to obtain insider information that is stock market useful. So much time has been spent on legit concerns that Congress has taken that access to enrich themselves that what I am pointing out has never been mentioned by anyone. I may be wrong, but even if it has been observed before, it never got legs.
We are living under a ruling class that has all but openly announced that this is they way things are. You and others have accepted that is the way, de facto. I’m just now pointing out how the media moguls can maintain their hegemony and echelon membership without viewer numbers being needed to keep up and running.