“As A Matter Of Principle”

     Fear not, Gentle Readers. I shan’t torture you with another long exposition on the real meaning of the word principle. Rather, I’d like to underscore an important aspect of the campaign to silence anyone who dissents from the Left-approved narrative.

     I don’t know much about Russell Brand. He’s described at Infogalactic as “an English comedian and actor.” His personal website describes him as “an award-winning comedian, actor, author, public thought leader, and a passionate activist for mental health and drug rehabilitation.” As a rule, I avoid persons who call themselves “activists” or “thought leaders” – I find them “vexatious to the spirit” – so in all probability I’d have gone to my grave knowing nothing about him if it hadn’t been for this development:

     The Sunday Times, a Rupert Murdoch publication in the U.K, published a hit piece against Russell Brand accusing him of rape and sexual assault 20-years ago. It did not take long before the accusations triggered the cancel culture and YouTube demonetized the actor and pundit. Russell Brand has vehemently denied the allegations.

     However, in a remarkable escalation the U.K Parliament is now targeting Russell Brand. The British government has sent a letter to U.S. video platform provider Rumble demanding they take action against Brand. Not only is the British government targeting an individual and demanding action over an unproven allegation, but they are also sending a letter to the U.S. company demanding acquiescence to their censorship demand.

     Apparently, Brand has said some things that disturb the Powers That Be in the United Kingdom. What did he say? I have no idea, and I’m not about to squander the precious seconds of my dwindling free time trying to find out. But until the most recent events, I’d have assumed that, like most “activists” and “thought leaders,” he was somewhere on the political Left. That’s where they’re thickest on the ground, at any rate.

     If Britain’s Parliament is cheesed off enough at Brand to seek to have his videos demonetized, whatever it was that he said must have gone against The Sacred Narrative in some fashion. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. YouTube has already demonetized Brand’s entire oeuvre. Now the British government wants Rumble, a friendly-to-free-expression competitor to YouTube, to do the same.

     Rumble, to my extreme pleasure, has told Parliament to shove it up their honorable asses. That’s as it should be. But it might not be the end of Russell Brand’s troubles.

     When 20-year-old rape allegations are filed against a man, he’s in the deepest of deep shit. Unless he’s videotaped his whole life and kept backups of everything, he can never disprove such allegations. Of course, neither can his accusers prove theirs, but that’s equally irrelevant. The point of the accusations is to provide a rationale for “cancelling” the accused. And as we can see, the tactic is a potent one.

     The cancelling tactic has served the Left so well that it’s come to feel invincible. Its dominance of the big Internet fora – Google, Facebook, YouTube – has resulted in a great reduction of conservative or libertarian opinion on those sites. The allegiance of the mainstream media makes possible campaigns of calumny that are too much for most targets to bear. And so we have arrived at the “mopping-up” phase of the Left’s campaign to stifle dissenting voices: the phase that says, by implication, that the big players are now firmly under their heel.

     I shan’t ask you if you’re troubled by this. If you’re not, you aren’t a regular Gentle Reader of Liberty’s Torch, so you wouldn’t even see the question. This isn’t so much an alarum as another data point on the curve that traces our subjugation. But it suggests that another anti-free-speech stroke might be in the works: this time, against Rumble.

     The point is “principle:” Dissidents must not be allowed any hope. The routes of escape must all be closed. At the conclusion, all will have bent the knee; all will have accepted the yoke; all will chant the Party’s slogans.

     Rand knew it would be that way:

     “Yes, I suppose I should explain,” said Dr. Ferris, “that we wish to get your signature early in the day in order to announce the fact on a national news broadcast. Although the gift program has gone through quite smoothly, there are still a few stubborn individualists left, who have failed to sign—small fry, really, whose patents are of no crucial value, but we cannot let them remain unbound; as a matter of principle, you understand. They are, we believe, waiting to follow your lead. You have a great popular following, Mr. Rearden, much greater than you suspected or knew how to use. Therefore, the announcement that you have signed will remove the last hopes of resistance and, by midnight, will bring in the last signatures, thus completing the program on schedule.”

     All rise for Flag salute. And do have a nice day.