Once You Lose Free Speech, Bring Out the Fat Lady Because Its The End Of The Freedom Show

I am very concerned that the last quarter century has been such a shit show that enough people have been driven insane and want to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire. Especially young people, those under 35 or 40 who believe we live in a functioning Democracy with competitive free market capitalism . They may easily conclude both are crap.

Problem is we have not lived in a functioning Democracy, not since 9/11 and probably not since the mid 1970’s . Our Capitalism is now a Capitalism of Monopolies and Cartels which partner with and direct government . Profits are King and non-Corporate citizens can get stuffed . Markets are manipulated by insiders while regulators are captured by those they regulate. The Federal Reserves top priority is keeping Wages low to increase Corporate Profits. Corporations account for 6% of government revenue (its over 40% in Taiwan).

Unlike old geezers like myself, the young have never lived in a real Democracy or competitive capitalist society . Now I am not naive enough to say things were perfect in the 50’s-70’s, Dark Forces were at work to corrupt our Democracy and Economy and they succeeded after a decade of social turbulence starting with the JFK hit job and culminating in the Nixon Coup orchestrated by Military/Intelligence Community and Rockefeller /Business Round Table Elite.

But even with the staged Oil Shocks things were far better 50 years ago than today. Middle Class was a home with 2 cars, and one persons salary could support 6 kids and pay their college tuition without taking on excess debt. Women were entering the work force and the market was opening up to blacks

This is not to say people have not done well today, but on average, living standards have dropped quite drastically, although this is obscured by the BLS economic statistics (Bureau of Lies with Statistics)

The good times of making an honest living and honest elections came to an end because Rockefellers Trilateral Commission decided we had too much Democracy and ex-TLC member Paul Volcker did a Controlled Demolition of the Economy, followed by Reagan unleashing the neoliberal economy.

This led to the gambling on financial bubbles of the Sir Bubbles Greenspan Era , politicians bought and paid for with speculative profits, manipulated elections and the nail in the coffin for Democracy - Citizens United. Today only the Corporate Citizens Count with $$$ from Super Pacs and Dark Money Donors, enough to pay for all the politicians commercials and their social media influencers that people base their voting decisions on

Enough of the history, I have covered that more at depth elsewhere. The Fire I am talking about is a World where the people accept the right for government, any government, or any NGO to become the arbiter of the Truth and limit what you can say.

This article if I understand it correctly seems to be OK with states restricting free speech. Just not the White House or Federal Government

Spare me your idiotic free speech pearl-clutching

Washington has no jurisdiction over human communication to begin with, and so of course it cannot pass laws regarding speech. That is for the states to decide individually. Any state can restrict speech however it wants. Texas can sue Netflix for Cuties if that is in accordance with the will of franchised Texans, and this is good. So, I do stand with Berenson as far as the most finite understanding of the issue raised by the New York Times goes - if someone is going to censor them, it should be individual states, not Congress or the White House.

The First Amendment also applies to the non-legislative branches of government—to every government agency—local, state, or federal

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/2192/incorporation-of-the-first-amendment

Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment (and therefore may be restricted) include obscenity, fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, speech that violates intellectual property law, true threats, and commercial speech such as advertising. Defamation that causes harm to reputation is a tort and also an exception to free speech.

Corporations are not subject to Free Speech and are legally permitted to lie and censor except

The Supreme Court has stated that “a private entity can qualify as a state actor in a few limited circumstances,” such as “[1] when the private entity performs a traditional, exclusive public function; [2] when the government compels the private entity to take a particular action; or [3] when the government acts jointly with the private entity.”

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt1-7-2-4/ALDE_00013541/#:~:text=Amendment%20and%20Incorporation.-,Of%20course%2C%20the%20First%20Amendment%20also%20applies%20to%20the%20non,local%2C%20state%2C%20or%20federal.

This is where the fusion of the corporate sector and government becomes dangerous Fascism.  The government has its corporate partners restrict free speech, provided it can do so without leaving evidence they are coercing or incentivizing them to do so.

Then there is this

What is objectionable about the Times’ idea of misinformation is simply that it is out of accord with currently prevailing traditional consensus in most of (white) America

So he seems to be saying that misinformation is not misinformation if the majority believes it is correct.   The majority have an IQ of 100 or less. Lets not let the idiot majority decide what is truth (including all races, not just white). This is why our founding fathers rejected Majority Rule and chose a Constitutional Republic.

Misinformation is misinformation if it is incorrect.  However, there is no need for there to be any arbiter of the truth so long as we have free speech with open debate and reason.  Under such circumstances the truth will ultimately prevail.

Without Free Speech and Open Debate we are in Orwells 1984, or at least some Brave New World version of it

Publicly sanctioned misinformation has been the norm in America since World War I.  Censorship as well.  So its no surprise this country has devolved into a Banana Republic over the last century.   

Censorship become more noticeable in the age of the internet only because there were not as many large forums for people to speak in public before the internet (radio talk shows, letters to the editor, etc) ,but its not a recent phenomena. Long before COVID we had internet censorship over issues such 9/11, Holocaust, Climate Change, Israel, heck, even baseball blogs were censoring baseball discussions.

NYT for example has been one of the greatest purveyors of misinformation before and during Alex Berenson’s tenure. Anyone remember the lies on WMD that led us into the Iraq war, the incubator babies to get support for the Gulf War, the lack of debate over 9/11, the one sided preaching of Man Made Climate Change, and so much more

The problem is the Censorship Industrial Complex has become far more organized and centralized, helped in part by the consolidation of ownership in MSM and Social Media in the hands of a dozen large  corporations who partner with the US government and the rest of the Military Industrial Everything Complex

Acceptance of Censorship and Surrender of the Rights of Free Speech is an Open Invitation and Welcome to Tyranny

The greatest danger to Free Speech are those who are OK with Speech being regulated.

Berenson weighed in on the topic here

The New York Times has lost its mind. And by mind, I mean principles and understanding of the First Amendment.

He then reports

The government should restrict “false” information online, even if doing so blocks people from “publishing or accessing information,” 55 percent of Americans said in a large poll released Thursday. Only 42 percent disagreed.

The antipathy to free speech represents a sea change in attitudes in just five years. It is driven by a powerful new hostility to First Amendment rights on the left.

In an identically worded poll five years ago, Democrats and Republicans favored free speech online by roughly 3 to 2 margins. Today, Republicans still favor the First Amendment by about that much. But Democrats have turned against it by even more.

The scariest poll you'll see this summer

I don’t know how trustworthy polls are, but thats nuts. And 2/5 Republicans being Ok with blocking misinformation is not good either.  The problem is many Republicans are also OK with blocking information they disagree with. Its like many on both sides are in favor of Tyranny, so long as their Tyrant is in charge

Also, I suspect those on both sided who are in favor of censoring “misinformation” are on the younger side of the age ledger for reasons I alluded to above.

I see a Fat Lady behind the curtain warming up so I am guessing the end is near. Probably just going to take one more “Event” to push it through.