[I]f the platforms, whether it’s Facebook or Twitter/X or Instagram or TikTok, whatever they are, if they don’t moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control. And it’s not just the social and psychological affects, it’s real life.”
—Hillary Clinton, joining the chorus of Democrats, progressives and national ticket nominees past and present advocating restricting free speech for the greater good.
Here is what a Pollyanna sap I am: I read the “we lose total control” section in several right-wing media posts, and assumed Hillary was unfairly taken out of context. After all, she’s not, or didn’t used to be, stupid. She ruthless and bitter and the U.S. ducked a metaphorical bullet by not electing her President, but surely, surely, Clinton wouldn’t be so careless and foolish as to say that out loud; surely she was a victim of selective editing. Then I checked the clip and the transcript. Nope, Clinton really said it and meant it. Ooh, Gina wants a word!
Thank-you, Gina!
Back to Hillary on CNN: Michael Smerconish, who is often cited as the most objective CNN host, didn’t faint and fall over on his face, then pop up to say, “What? What the hell is the matter with you?” It’s been the matter with Clinton for a while: Last month, Clinton suggested during an appearance on MSNBC (of course) that Americans accused of interfering in U.S. elections by spreading “propaganda” promoting former President Trump should be civilly or criminally charged. Democrats’ definition of propaganda in recent years often includes “the truth.”
The matter with Clinton is what’s the matter with the entire Democratic Party in 2024: they see the Constitution and its core principles as the last impediment to their gaining “control” of the government, society and the culture, and keeping it. So they want that archaic document written by white, male racists gone or altered beyond recognition: the Electoral College, the Supreme Court, the Second Amendment, the Fourth (Harris wants surprise searches of the homes of lawful gun owners to see if they are storing their weapons properly). What they can’t get rid of, they will abuse or distort, like the 6th Amendment right to a fair trial if you’re a political foe, the Tenth Amendment (to make up a right to kill unborn human beings at whim), and the 25th Amendment, which they sort of used to dump Joe Biden, but as a tool of extortion, not as formulated.
Democratic Party leaders are being remarkably open about their contempt for free speech now, sensing in such astounding blind public support for their “She isn’t what she is” Presidential candidate that they have a shot at total “control.” Most of the news media, secure that their little corner of the First Amendment is safe even though they no longer deserve it, are supporting totalitarianism-advancing measures by their Axis allies. Academia, now almost totally corrupted and politicized, is increasingly hostile to the Constitution. Surveys indicate that a majority of young Americans believe that government censorship of “hate speech”—that is, speech progressives hate—should be enacted.
Of course, those younger Americans were mostly never taught about the Constitution in school, so they have some excuse, unlike Clinton.
Hillary, of all people, has no credibility complaining about “misinformation.” She seeded the Russian collusion hoax. She told the “Today Show” that her husband’s sex scandal was the work of a “vast right wing conspiracy,” bolstering her husband’s “I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky” lie.
Long time readers here recall that in 2016 I was prepared to vote for Clinton because I considered Trump a looming disaster, until the mounting evidence that Clinton’s Campaign and her party were cheating convinced me to vote for neither Trump nor Clinton, as I concluded that an untrustworthy party was ultimately more dangerous than an untrustworthy Presidential candidate. Since 2016, Democrats, like Clinton, have become more anti-democratic in leaps and bounds.
It would be a tragic error to dismiss Hillary as a bitter irrelevant crank. She’s speaking for her party, Kamala Harris, and, as he proved in the recent debate, Tim Walz. Our democracy is on the line in this election, but not because of Donald Trump.
Ethics Alarms 
Tim Walz not Doug
“I misspoke.”
” ‘I misspoke.’ “
If you were raised in a middle class neighborhood, you’ve earned a pass…
PWS
I’m afraid, much to my shame and horror, she speaks for her entire generation. They weren’t kidding when they said they wanted a revolution. Baby Boomers really have wanted to change the world all along. Depressing. They really do think they know best about all things.
But this is the liberal elite mindset. This is what the party faithful have been working towards for decades. They are just so close to accomplishing it that they can now state it out loud. Hillary Clinton can say that she wants to do away with freedom of speech, confiscate all guns, and jail anyone who ever thought about voting for Donald Trump. She can call for permanent lockdowns of the country and jailing of anyone who complains even a little bit. She can do all this because her followers SUPPORT THAT. Leftists are an incredibly narcissistic lot. I thought it bizarre when my high school teachers would support things like this. They acted as if when the totalitarianism they supported came, the DNC would look down on them and say “What a loyal servant our Miss Cindy has been as the 5th grade teacher at Wilson Elementary School in Galena, KS. We shall make her dictator over the 5th Ward in her town and she shall severely punish all those who displease her!” It is the same type of thinking that made people close shopping malls after 9/11. Yes, after the World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and the White House, the next thing on the international Islamic Terrorists’ list is the shopping mall in Russell Springs, KY. It was completely illogical, but they believed it.
The blindly loyal Democrats are not good people.
You’re seeing it, Michael. It’s been right there in plain sight since she was an undergrad at Wellesley and she was writing her thesis on Saul Alinsky, and even interviewing him, I believe. Her and all her contemporaries/fellow travellers. They just went a little quiet to make enough money to be financially secure and safe from the proletariat. But now they’re retired and have free time, they’re moving in for the kill. Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.
Jack, in all of your infinite free time, I would love to have you discuss Erwin Chemerinsky and his latest book “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.” He’s the dean of Berkeley Law, of all things.
What are his obejctions to the Constitution?
It’s a threat to democracy.
From The Guardian: Chemerinsky offers pointers to how change might be achieved – mostly by Democrats winning majorities in statehouses and Congress and working to sway public opinion towards the need for radical change, via a new constitutional convention.
Chermerinsky is a total red diaper baby Commie, Alicia.
Chemirinsky doesn’t learn. He was almost put up against the wall by his own students last year due to the ideology he spreads. He won’t survive 3 months in the America he wants to create.
That’s a pretty reliable feature of such revolutionary ideologies, so reliable that you’d really think the present-day Robespierres and Trotskys would have caught on.
Another reliable feature of such ideologies is that they never do.
I simply do not understand this pathological fear displayed by the Left over “misinformation”. They have conveniently forgotten that nearly all of the information we currently possess has resulted from thousands of years of misinformation that was later corrected or expanded by research, study, and ultimately, the use of free speech. Squelching speech is the first step toward anarchy and chaos.
I’ve often made this provocative statement in jest: The reasons the Founders followed the First Amendment with the Second was because they wanted it known that if government came after your right to free speech, you could shoot them.
I’m now wondering how much jest should be applied to that.
What is there to not understand? If they can’t control the narrative, if people have access to information that isn’t carefully crafted by the left, they will almost certainly reject the leftist ideals and goals. How can the Democrats tell blacks in the US that Republicans are destroying their children’s education if blacks in America can find out that Democrats have wholly controlled the education of black children for decades?
Without carefully controlling all sources of information, it would not be possible to convince most people that Donald Trump is building an ‘abortion database’ and is going to kidnap every woman who has had an abortion and force them to be raped and bear children to bring about ‘Project 2025’. I know that sounds crazy, but the things the mainstream media has been saying about Trump is almost at that level.
This tweet encapsulates the rationale for censorship.
https://x.com/eszterr2/status/1600263145599406080?t=mfMMhQA9yFravm5bu7limw&s=19
Jeez. Reading this and reading the comments, it sparked an idea in my head. Albeit, an incredibly dumb idea, but the mad scientist in me loves it. I want 1 rebellious congressional district to elect a down on their luck homeless person and make that their schtick. Never elect the same person twice and always find the next diamond in the rough. Call it a “protest candidate” – a little anarchy in the well-oiled machine.
I thought that is what Lauren Bobert, Marjorie Taylor Green, and Nancy Mace were?
Of course, it is hard to tell. The Democrats elected Mazie Hirono, Amy Klobuchar, Cori Bush, Debbie Dingell, Barbara Lee, Alexandria Occasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Nancy Pelosi, Rashida Tliab, Maxine Waters, Eric Swallwell, Adam Schiff, Aryanna Pressley, Jerry Nadler, Jamaal Bowman, Jim Clyburn, Chuck Schumer, and Cory Booker and I don’t think any of them were ‘protest’ candidates.
As for how I complied the list, I imagined having to explain to them how to install a computer operating system over the phone. If I deemed that ‘likely impossible’, I included them. I’m sure there are more, I just don’t know enough about all the members of Congress for a comprehensive list. I don’t really know that much about Debbie Dingell, but if you occupy a hereditary Congressional seat, I assume you are probably not that bright.
Yes and no. Yes they are all “protest” candidates in that they are very outspoken and don’t seem to shy away. No, because, in my mind, the protest candidate of my scenario is a) never re-elected, b) has to have everything explained, c) gets to give incredulous looks like these people he has to work with are the world’s biggest morons, and by the time they break that person and make him rich and under their control, we’re on to the next elected-representative.
See, that is what Lankford was. When he was first elected to the House, he sent letters to his constituents that ready essentially.
“To my constituents. I am sorry. I am trying. I have really tried to explain your positions to the people here in Washington. Its seems so simple, but they just don’t seem to comprehend things like the idea that people want decent paying jobs, they don’t want new wars, and they don’t want the government interfering in their day-to-day life. It is like they don’t speak English. I am trying to only drink bottled water due to the fear that it is something in the water here. I will keep doing my best.”
After Jan 6., Lankford has mainly been “Don’t hurt me, I will do whatever you want! Just let me be one of your pet Republicans.”
He stayed too long. I think 6 years is the max anyone can be in Washington without becoming a sellout unless they are extremely strong willed.
We should let Representatives serve as many non-consecutive terms they want, but none can be consecutive. I would vote for this instantly.
In the thread yesterday regarding the question to the ethicist about leaving the country , the questioner said if the “wrong candidate” were elected the US would “fall into some form of authoritarianism” and wondered if it would be eithical to leave the country. Your answer was no, because “it is the civic duty of citizens in a democratic republic to dedicate themselves to building the best and most effective government possible.” I made the point that the questioner could just as easily have been a Trump supporter, or at least a Harris opponent, asking about Harris as the “wrong candidate” who would cause the US to fall into authoritarianism.
In this post you argue that the Democrats want the Constitution “gone or altered beyond recognition”, and you enumerate many of the changes they are trying to make to accomplish this. I don’t disagree. I was going to ask this follow up in the other thread, but since you’ve made that point here, I’ll ask on this more recent thread.
If the Democrats are successful and continue to whittle away at the Constitution, at what point is it no longer a true democratic republic in which it’s necessary ethically to stay and dedicate oneself to building the best government possible? There must be a tipping point after which one would realize that it’s futile, and that the only prudent course of action is to leave. I’m not arguing that we’re there, just wondering where it would be.
I’m also curious if that applies at more local levels of government. California is a Republic. You say in another post yesterday that “California has become more of a cult than anything else”, and that it’s voters are “bat-crazy”. Again, I don’t disagree. But am I ethically prevented from moving to another state, as many others have done, to escape the craziness here because it’s my ethical duty to try to build the best goverment here possible?
What about cities? Is moving to a suburb because San Francisco or Los Angeles have become unlivable hell-holes ethically wrong?
What about an overreaching HOA?
I don’t mean to take it down to an absurd level, but I am wondering if the same ethical analysis applies as you move from the national level into progressively smaller communities.
People have open-enrolled in other school districts without moving, but that’s definitely a protest-move. I think “moving” is a way to communicate that the government (or whatever) is failing. It’s often futile, but sometimes can be effective. Elon’s moving some of his corporations from California to Texas. Will California miss him? Probably not.
In Colorado, we passed a law to put serial numbers and date of manufacture on firearm magazines so that they could enforce a “no magazines made after 2013” ban. The manufacturer moved out of Colorado and set up two shops in Wyoming and Texas. The magazines still don’t get stamped and no one knows when the magazine you have was manufactured. Also, we still sell the same magazines as a “parts kit” so you can assemble it yourself. (Nothing gained, nothing lost. People just know their firearm parts a little more intimately.)
I don’t know where I’m going with this, but moving is definitely the right thing to do. But you should definitely do it within the confines of the law of the place you are trying to go to. Don’t want to start off a new life on a bad foot.
I think progressives realize why people are fleeing them. It’s why the teacher’s unions are so vehemently against school choice — they don’t want people to have an alternative to kids attending their indoctrination schools.
I believe California has recently passed a law changing their tax code to make it harder for businesses (or high end taxpayers) to leave the state. If memory serves, they want to tax your assets even after you’ve moved.
But……they might realize it’s happening, but either they don’t understand it or just don’t care. They may figure that soon enough there won’t be any havens to go to.
————–
On a lighter note, there are all those people who swore they’d leave the country if Trump won in 2016. I think many of them are promising to leave the country if Trump wins in 2024.
:snicker:
I’m all for people leaving crazy places like California, Washington, and New York…so long as they don’t pack that rotten ideology in their luggage and take it across the border with them.
States should require 7 years’ continuous residency befire allowing people to vote