I checked: over the past seven years, no fewer than six regular Ethics Alarms commenters have written me to say they were withdrawing from the blog for reasons related to their emotional, mental or physical health.
Ethics is supposed to be good for you…
1. The President announced that he would not be attending Joe Biden’s inauguration, thus overtaking Hillary Clinton as the “worst loser” in all of American Presidential history. Andrew Johnson declined to see in his successor, President Grant, and was certainly bitter, but he didn’t lose the election: he wasn’t even nominated. John Adams, who did lose to Jefferson in his bid for a second term, didn’t attend his lifetime frenemy’s swearing in, but had the valid excuse that he was mourning the death of his son Charles. John Quincy Adams, John’s son, comes closest to Trump’s sore loser act, as he also refused to go to the inauguration of the man who defeated him, Andrew Jackson. However, “Quincy” had good reason to be afraid of “Old Hickory,” who was furious with Adams for letting his campaign attack his wife.
Trump should attend the inauguration, of course, though I am not surprised that he isn’t. It would be a unifying gesture, and would also show character, courage, and patriotism. It is an important tradition for the incoming and outgoing Presidents to jointly engage in the orderly transfer of power.
2. The vise tightens. Apparently Big Tech and social media have decided not to even try to hide their collective assault on free expression and dissenting views:
- Twitter permanently banned the President of the United States from its platform. I don’t care what their official excuse is: this is a major communications source placing its fist down hard on one side of the scales of political discourse. It signaled this long ago, for those of us who weren’t trying to gaslight the public. Civil libertarians should be concerned, but they aren’t, because they almost unanimously are perfectly happy to see those they don’t like or disagree with silenced. Iran’s Ayatollah, meanwhile, can still send out tweets while he supports terrorism.
- Facebook also banned the President from its platform. Again, this is purely partisan political censorship. The US is facing a single party in control of two branches of the government allied with the news media, social media and the tech firms to stifle dissent and political opposition.
3. But wait! There’s more! Simon & Schuster announced that it has canceled its planned June publication of “The Tyranny of Big Tech” by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo), the first Senator who objected to the Electoral College results declaring Joe Biden the president-elect. The company said it canceled publication “after witnessing the disturbing, deadly insurrection that took place on Wednesday in Washington, D.C.” And what, exactly, did the actions of a couple hundred jackasses have to do with the value of Hawley’s book, and how did a Senator’s completely legal objection to the election results have any relation to a riot he neither encouraged nor endorsed?
In its statement, the publisher said it “cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom.” There are legitimate questions about the election; 40% of the public believes that it was manipulated, and any member of Congress is completely ethical and responsible to take steps to ensure a full investigation and transparent reckoning. He had no “role” in the rioting whatsoever.
Hawley released his own statement on Twitter calling the cancellation of his book “Orwellian,” and saying in part, “Let me be clear, this is not just a contract dispute. It’s a direct assault on the First Amendment. Only approved speech can now be published.”
Enablers of the slow suffocation of dissent by the cancel culture quickly argued that a private publisher is not required by the First Amendment to publish anything, but Hawley was using “First Amendment” as a synonym for freedom of speech. We will not have freedom of speech if the means of communication—books, social media, news organizations like the New York Times—are used to filter out speech that one political end of the spectrum finds inconvenient.
S&S, responding to Hawley’s statement, replied that it was “confident” that its decision to cancel the book was “fully within our contractual rights.” That’s Rationalization #4. Marion Barry’s Misdirection, or “If it isn’t illegal, it’s ethical.“
Yes, it is legal for publishing companies to use their power and business prominence to undermine the goal of nurturing an informed citizenry while enabling single party rule. It is also unethical.
4. I think that’s all I care to think about right now, before Ethics Alarms starts endangering MY health.
Ethics Alarms 
Some real blood lust by the Democrats. This is no longer about social and political differences, but a war. I belong to two right of center posting boards and one left of center. Guess which ones just got canceled? Sadly, the second may be necessary to restore the first.
Indeed it is a war. My fear is that it will soon become a shootin’ war.
Then let’s rumble. Michael Collins, magnificent bastard that he was, defeated an army that defeated the kaiser by establishing his own rules.
The British are still in Ireland and Collins was killed at age 31 probably by one of his own countrymen. Bit of a waste really …. Tremendous guerrilla leader.
He was absolutely assassinated by a Republican diehard because he made the mistake of trying to stop halfway through. Still, he set the template for how to win when you’re up against a hostile government – eliminate its agents.
Imagine a US where no prosecutor dares to start his car for fear it will explode, where administrators get hit by drive-by shootings as they leave church, and where police loyal to the new order are riddled with bullets as they go to get the newspaper.
Imagine one where if you are a big city liberal you don’t dare stop for gas, for fear as you pump you’ll hear a pistol click behind your head, and the words “make your peace with whatever, you sonofabitch,” are the last words you hear before your head explodes.
Sound far-fetched? MC and his guys did similar things.
This was another unauthorized comment by Chris, who has been banned, who refuses to meet the requirements for reinstatement, and who keeps breaking the rules her every time he posts. he seems to have been infected by whatever pandemic it is that has caused several commenters, past and present, to snap of late. Anyway, when I catch such sneak posts, I spam them…—Jack.
Tech company leaders should be afraid…very afraid.
This coordinated attack on the First was just waiting for an excuse. An incident. Maybe even create one? Too many noted Republicans have rolled over on this attack on the First. I was a strong advocate for stringent gun control and always considered the more ardent gun nuts a collection of kooks with their irrational conspiracy theories. I was totally wrong.
Anyone who gives these censor, to quote the film Joker, what they “fucking deserve”, would become a hero for ages.
But wait! There’s more!
Tech giants are now planning to stop hosting social media apps if they don’t begin censoring users.
Can we stop compartmentalizing Bug Tech from the DNC and finally recognize the vast left wing conspiracy.
And it is moving *fast*.
This is precisely how things are done in the PRC.
The CCP threatens internet providers with punishment if they don’t control their users.
Now US Big Tech threatens internet app providers with punishment if they don’t control their users.
Wikipedia: “China’s Internet censorship is more comprehensive and sophisticated than any other country in the world.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_China
US Big Tech: “Hold my beer…”
Google just banned Parler from its App Store because of reports that Trump was going to join. Big Tech is really determined to silence anyone who disagrees with them.
Apple is also threatening ban.
Which you can only access on an ipad or iphone.
Considering the threats to Trump, I don’t think his actions are necessarily in the sore loser category.
His staying away may be a way to keep the peace.
Showing up would show courage in his part.
Or he could be an unnecessary distraction.
However, could the Secret Service secure his safety?
What would it do if Trump was killed at Biden’s inauguration?
His absence could be indicative of any number of things.
-Jut
Gerald Ford, of all people, had two assassination attempts against him. Trump has had none. I’d say a President is never safer than during an inauguration.
Trump is not like anyone else. With all of the talk of imprisoning him, much worse than the Lock Her Up Nonsense from the last election, it is worse now. With all of the talk of a second impeachment, and the 25th Amendment, I am not sure it is just talk.
Besides, Trump is not a politician. He has his business to attend to. Once an outsider, always an outsider. Had they ever given him the slightest courtesy, you might have had a point. As it stands, his not showing up seems perfectly fitting.
The peaceful transition of power does not require politeness; it only requires peacefulness.
-Jut
Getting even scarier. “Techno Fog” a lawyer whom I frequently check on Twitter, has had his account deleted along with an untold number of other right-leaning accounts.
Techno Fog was completely non-controversial. He mostly just posted links to declassified documents and legal documents, with perfectly rational and peaceful commentary. He had a large role in debunking a lot of Russiagate conspiracies, and also presented a lot of evidence about the unethical nature of the Flynn prosecution. That’s probably why they erased him.
They are using the rioting at the Capitol as an excuse to delete every voice that disagrees with them. I wouldn’t be surprised if this blog was gone soon.
Who was it who said this was like the Reichstag fire?
Not that it matters much but Biden thinks it’s good he isn’t coming.
Saw that. Yeah, Joe wants to be a unifier, all right.
What an asshole.
I’m sure that Romney will be there. Will I watch the Inauguration? Fat chance.
Joe’s anti-police comments didn’t help either. At least Obama didn’t paint a target on every cop’s back from the get-go.
Which anti-police comments were that?
Biden also compare Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz to Joseph Goebbels today. I don’t think his rhetoric is going to be any more statesmanlike than Trump’s was. He obviously plans to inflame tensions as much as possible.
Re 2. Jack, do you have a plan for when WordPress kicks you out? All my online friend groups have started looking for options because we will be eventually hit by it.
My resolution for 2021 is to get cancelled.
Noooooooooooo!!!! I do not comment much, but I read everything, and I rely on your blog as a source of insight that is outside my confirmation bias bubble. I learn a great deal here, and I especially appreciate the community of smart commenters.
Look at the bright side: it’d get Jack out from under those edit blocks that WordPress imposed!
The same applies to me. This is where I get the important news filter Ed through ethics. It has enlightened me many times and jerked me back to what is ethical but not necessarily what I would like to do.
Ditto. There’s no where else to go to read rational analysis.
I hope you at least have your posts backed up somewhere if you have to start fresh on another platform.
That’s easy-level stuff. Like saying you’re planning to gain 5 pounds instead of losing 10. 🙂
Contrarian resolutions are the very best kind!
As an associate member (Australian branch) of the Resistance I’m massively impressed. How did ‘we’ manage to get that wonderful image, a Confederate flag carried by a rioter inside the Capitol 6 January 2021? What a masterful move, leaving the gates to the open and giving the ‘vicious dogs’ the day off!! Surely someone should be in in for a very big bonus!
Notice of removed comment: The legendary banned commenter Chris trolled that it was ironic that we were discussing how banning someone “from a website” for violating its rules was unethical. See, EA banned him GET IT??? Har! Except comparing a blog to Facebook and Twitter is disingenuous. Those are platforms, and a core part of the national communications network. a single, insignificant blog banning a non-compliant commenter doesn’t affect an individual’s right to free speech or ability to publish his or her own ideas elsewhere at all. In contrast, Big Tech and the major social media platforms have a virtual monopoly.
Most of Chris’s commentary was better and smarter than this, but I’m glad to see he’s still reading.
I request a boon.
I owe you. Yes???
Reinstate Chris.
I thought that was what you would say.
All he has to do is ask nicely, say “I’m sorry,” and “please.”
It’s not too much to ask.
Or you can pardon him and then he wouldn’t have to say I’m sorry or please.
Apparently, it’s too much to ask.
This is management 101. If a subordinate violates a policy, and is “pardoned” without any expression of regret or contrition, or without any assurance of better conduct going forward, then all you have is someone who you cannot trust, and that’s just irresponsible.
Until and unless he subscribes to the rules, he should NOT be reinstated.
No boon then, I won’t pretend I’m not disappointed.
On the bright side, you can save your favor for someone or something more deserving.
valkygrrl never asks a second favor once she’s refused the first.
And not to belabor the point: Chris tried once again (Today, just now)to post here after he was banned. That itself is a rules violation, and he knows it; it’s also at least the third time he’s done it.
Thus explaining and justifying my regrettable failure to grant your boon. A lawyer who applied fot reinstatement who had continued to breach ethics rules while suspended would be laughed out of his disciplinary hearing, and with good reason.
Ah, but you did already ask for this once, when Chris was initially booted. The answer was no then, and nothing has changed since.
“valkygrrl never asks a second favor once she’s refused the first.”
That mean Jack can expect an equine noggin amongst his silken sheets…?
Not only that, it makes your banning of him to begin with look more like a personal fit of pique if you reinstate him without his acknowledgment of misbehavior and assurances of rehabilitation. Also, allowing him back without any acknowledgment of prior wrongdoing or buy-in to your conditions to comment practically assures you’ll have to ban him again, and that right soon.
While it is always worthwhile to grant a boon if it is possible, a boon is always a compromise of a previous position. This compromise would be, in my formerly professional judgment, too significant. In my days as a blog manager, I had to reject these requests quite frequently, and for exactly the same reason.
Early in my career, I would grant such requests. But it doesn’t take many lessons in how a member with a grudge against the management and no agreement to do better will kick around for a short while and then try to burn the place down to prompt serious re-evaluation. I learned that lesson well, and our subject matter was only sports.
Apparently you have learned it as well, at some point. Perhaps not on this blog, but it doesn’t matter. One of my favorite truisms is that “the burned hand teaches best,” but it’s even better if you learn that lesson from the charred fingers of others.
I don’t think he wants back in. For one thing, he knows a lot of us on the right ▶️ would be waiting with drawn swords. ⚔️. For another, he was beating up on Jack on other blogs taking about how his time here was wasted.
Re: No. 2; Twitter is Stupid.
Twitter justified permanent suspension of Trump’s account. Twitter accused Trump of tweeting things that supposedly violated the “Glorification of Violence policy.” Trump’s two tweets, though, don’t refer to violence at all. But Twitter stated that his posts “could inspire others to replicate violent acts and determined that they were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.” That is an amazingly brazened position.
jvb
It’s good to know no one can or will stop you. The thing is, it doesn’t end with Trump. It only begins with him. Apparently a bunch of other right-leaning folks are being erased also. What’s to stop them from erasing right-leaning but legit stuff like the Daily Wire?
There is nothing to stop them. However, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz are going first. They may be expelled from the Senate. Biden compared them to Goebbels and there is a bill to have them expelled.
Who would expel them from the Senate?
Twitter only has three data centers in the U.S., I believe….Sacramento, Atlanta, and Charlotte, NC, I think Not sure if they’re the “hardened” type with 12″ concrete walls, etc. They also have a number of still pissed-off employees from their managerial bloodbath a few years ago, who would know more about that sort of thing. Just random information for trivia aficionados. Probably no one should actually tweet that.
Hmmm, without those data centers they’d be nowhere…
Three days after storming the Capitol and you’re already fantasizing about the next terrorist attack?
I wonder if Jack is proud of having his blog so violently misused.
Censorship is violence.
It would be an act to restore freedom, not terrorism.
Exactly. These companies might want to consider their own vulnerabilities when they start making enemies. I’m close to a Twitter ex-manager who could give the exact addresses and specifics, inside and out, for these facilities. Many of the techies at that level know each other, and communicate regularly (often how they move from one job to another), and not all of them are lefties. If a relatively low-tech guy like me could get that info, there are surely many connected and not-so-restrained actors who could decide to use or pass along such details with disastrous results for Twitter.
I wonder what would happen of the home addresses of the leadership were leaked out.
1. How many ceremonial events did he avoid because he knew he would mercilessly mocked? If Trump showed up at the Inauguration, he would experience the same thing. His critics would point out how he’s “still” trying to make everything about him, yadda yadda.
There is literally no choice he can make that won’t be criticized.
2. At the same time, streaming services and other electronic device storing systems are making some media accessible only on their own platforms. Not only will you not be able to access, say, Disney stuff, without a subscription to Disney Plus (which means Marvel, Star Wars, Muppets, etc), but they will be able to control which of those products will be available in the future. Just as Disney has buried “Song of the South”, it will be so much easier for streaming services to ditch so-called problematic films, television programs, music and published works, along with the artists in them, when people no longer buy hardcopy discs, cds or books. There will eventually be no way to watch “Gone with the Wind”.
3. See #2. Simon & Schuster can also books out of print by authors it doesn’t like or that have content of which it doesn’t approve. Any publisher can do this and even remove content from its e-reading platform. Once books stop being printed, you will be amazed at what you will and won’t be allowed to read.
Standing by for a “Fact Check”:
Oh, God, the Bee is a national treasure.
Soon to be banned on Twitter, I’m sure.
I suggest Orwell’s “1984” and “Animal Farm” as well as Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” as background reading for today’s socio-political milieu. What was fictional reading in my high school years has and is becoming reality.
Better get hard copies….or start assigning people to memorize them.
This week, I was put in Facebook jail for thirty days, ostensibly for posting a link to a nationally syndicated political cartoon that was critical of Georgia’s election irregularities. “Someone” apparently found this offensive and Facebook decided I was in violation of their “community standards.” This was my first offense, although several of my friends have been similarly “punished” during the past year. I will survive, but I have been practicing my “Attica!” chant.
Over at The Hill, I’m…um..aware they refer to it as a time out.
Its comment sections are a place one may choose to avoid if they value intelligent discourse and want to maintain some shred of hope for humanity.
Well, Trump may have overtaken Hilary in the race down to ‘worst loser’, but is there any possible doubt that Biden & the DNC have by far earned the ‘worst winner’ prize?
They’ve proved more than once that they’re sore losers. Now they’re proving that they’re also sore winners.
Absolutely true, and expect that observation in Part 2.
I WILL comment, Jack. Just can’t do it at this time. Stay tuned.
I will quote my comment on another post.
https://ethicsalarms.com/2020/11/04/late-morning-observations-on-election-2020-so-far/#comment-722938
Censorship by Twitter (which advertised itself as a politically neutral platform where people are free to share their thoughts and ideas) can only further delegitimize the system.
And when the system of delegitimized, it weakens deterrents against the use of violence.
The targets of this violence should be the censors!
Now Parler is censoring the right!
Chris is back up above. Same as ever.
Not any more!
Joker was a classic.
Check out this woman.
She is a despicable nithing, like David Duke.
But as far as I know, she never operated a platform, advertising itself as a politically neutral platform where people can share thoughts and ideas, gaining an audience of millions, and proceeding to suppress the sharing of ideas and facts she politically opposes.
Jack Dorsey is a greater threat to freedom than she or David Duke is.