if you just started fearing for free speech now you must not have been paying attention.
This is literally what got us to this point in American history.
Yes, I’ve been against the tribalist take on free speech for awhile now.
Let people say what they want even if it makes you uncomfortable. We need to keep in mind that this censorship isn’t for the censors; it’s for the audience. They want to control what other people get to see, and by extension what they get to think.
Apparently all the people getting fired for being happy that a Nazi died didn’t matter to Democrats, but Kimmel is the red line for them. It’s less that they care about free speech and more that this is shatters their illusion of sensibility. They’re acting like this is the start of Trumps attacks when this is just the incident that actually woke them up. Companies and institutions have been bending the knee since the beginning and they didn’t say shit; these are now the normal rules of American business.
I listened to an interview on the radio recently that was enlightening in how little it said. It was a geopolitics analyst giving the most lukewarm condemnation of Trump killing Venezuelan civilians. He eventually admitted that no legal experts actually believed Trump had the authority to do it, but only weakly claimed we should “ask Congress if this is the standard we want going forward.”
Liberals have been so scared to even call Trump a fascist dictator, which I think is because they don’t want to accept how fucked the situation is. They don’t want to admit that their precious rule of law is dead and buried. They want to keep a semblance of normalcy alive, in part because it helps their financial backers, but mostly because accepting the horrors makes them feel responsible for actually doing something to fix it.
Liberalism didn’t die with a bang, but with a whimper.
It’s less that they care about free speech and more that this is shatters their illusion of sensibility.
Well said
The only thing that companies and politicians reacting the wrong way about Charlie did right was to finally show you who are the Nazis.
Anyone defending Charlie is a Nazi. I don’t care how they did it.
“Oh you shouldn’t kill people because of political differences.” Nazi because they didn’t say shit when liberals have been murdered.
I have a friend whom is upset in our group chat due to memes and proceeded to claim charlie wasnt even the bad racist guy the left paint him to be. He said he has a hard time sharing a group chat with people who would speak so harshly about an actvist he agrees with politically (there is a black member in our chat). I shared some of charlies quotes including “You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to be taken somewhat seriously” and he still tried to claim this wasn’t a racist statement.
His actions and personality don’t always line up with his political beliefs but its getting harder to keep him around. He & his mom has relied on welfare and our socialized healthcare their whole life (Canadian). He is part of the queer community and believes post secondary schooling should be free. But votes and supports conservative and is a bit of a trumper. I genuinely don’t get it. Both him and his mom would be homeless or worse if it weren’t for the social safety nets conservatives want to remove.
if he supports conservatives, why are you still friends with him /genuine
He’s been a good friend since high school and as much as he says he’s so conservative, many of his actions speak otherwise. He doesn’t have a lot of friends or exposure to the outside world right now. Leaving him behind would likely result in him becoming more extremist. If his actions start mirroring conservative values, then hes probably being left behind.
But votes and supports conservative and is a bit of a trumper.
He wants to benefit from everything society gives him but doesn’t want to provide that same benefit to others.
Because he thinks he deserves it while others are stealing it from him.
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
The main principle of conservatism is that they deserve everything while at the same time everyone else deserves nothing.
This issue for them is they think something more is owed to them. That deep down, they shouldn’t have had to rely on that welfare. In a better version of their lives, they would have the easy job that pays well. But the Democrats are the cause of their current circumstance.
Disillusioned people who refuse to compromise with poor critical thinking and too much pride got us here. That can’t be “fixed” in 4 years.
His biggest issue is he never passed highschool and has never had a job. He has no work ethic from a rough upbringing but isnt really able to put in the work he needs to. Now hes got a slew of mental illnesses which i think is in part having no purpose or meaning in life except video games in moms basement.
My parents owned a small business, they needed a general laboror and they would have picked him up and dropped him off at home. He wouldn’t have even needed an interview but he kept saying he is “above physical labor”. He then claims me being able to buy a house recently is all luck and due to my wealthy parents (who didn’t pitch a dime) and not hard work.
Having a rough upbringing is no excuse. I also had a rough upbringing, and im an engineer now. You choose to try to make your situation better, or you don’t. The world may deal you a shitty hand, and if the issues you face are systemic, I can see it holding you back. But, it sounds like this guy is a poor white kid. They love to give out scholarships to poor white kids, its literally what got me through school.
It sounds like your friend is just not the brightest crayon in the box. Kind of hard to pull yourself out of a shitty situation when you don’t have a lot going on upstairs.
He can be smart when he applies himself. He just struggles to apply himself. 1 hour of effort in a day is a full days of hard work to him. I agree you can’t just blame your upbringing, at a certain point you have to take your own life into your own hands.
I knew this Hispanic kid last year, may have been a citizen due to his partial Puerto Rican Ecuadorian heritage but maybe not, anyway, he was a Nazi. I tried to talk sense to him and he was like I love everybody man. Which really does not jive with being a Nazi but Nazis are popular right now.
I mean, the only check on the president is impeachment, and they’ve tried they twice without success. There’s no legal or democratic options to stop him from doing anything at this stage unless he somehow manages to hand democrats a supermajority in the senate.
Well, fuck your country for having a political structure once defiant of a King and in 225 years can’t come up with anything better than a President with absolute power who is above the law and can make anyone else above the law at will. So you have a leader with absolute power with support of large religions, that’s a Kingdom.
Exactly. The US functionally has a king now. The Republic has fallen.
And yet, they aren’t organizing to win such a supermajority like anything depends on it. They aren’t conveying the urgency, aren’t working to reunite the party, aren’t even trying to be compelling controlled opposition. I think deep down they know they hold no power and will hold no power, but they’ll do anything to keep other liberals or themselves from admitting it. Normalcy is the only thing they have left, so they’re keeping it alive even as our god emperor tears everything in the country apart.
The only battleground that actually matters anymore is for local elections, and they’re doing everything they can to combat their arch enemy: the left.
The reason for being of the democratic establishment is not beating the Republicans, it is maintaining control of the party win or lose. To keep it out of the hands of those populists that would excite the electorate with Promises of not getting ass fucked by the super rich without their consent. An irresponsible sentiment to The Establishment Democrats think as their reason for being is not undoing any of the privilege the rich have taken these last decades.
Somehow we are still letting these guys run the opposition as well. Maybe they will all get indicted in 2027 for false election rigging charges at least. Silver lining.
I wouldn’t say that they aren’t doing anything. The number of letters we’ve received asking for donations to the party has sharply ticked up. They’re getting what they really want from the situation.
Oh well. That’s it then I guess.
They don’t want to admit that their precious rule of law is dead and buried. They want to keep a semblance of normalcy alive, in part because it helps their financial backers
It’s because they’re nihilists. They don’t have a moral ethos. These are the same people who installed a ruthless dictator in Chile to protect liberalism from the Chilean people. They believe that the ends justify the means, the ends in that case being to bring neoliberalism to Chile. Remember what Friedrich Hayek, one of the architects of neoliberalism, said:
At times it is necessary for a country to have, for a time, some form or other of dictatorial power. As you will understand, it is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism.
I’d argue that for Democrats, this upcoming midterm is war. And sometimes, political campaigns should be put into motion only when opposition has the lowest chance of parrying attacks. Maximum effectiveness.
Now, also waiting for “perfect timing” only to take no action in the end could be where we are headed. I hope not.
I think that’s a lazy way to understand them. They really believe they’re the good guys, as do fascists and tankies and right wing libertarians. Very few people are actually that nihilistic, and even those that kinda are end up believing the shit they say anyways.
That’s just it, I don’t think they see themselves as “good guys” or “bad guys” because that implies some kind of moral dynamic, and they see themselves as above such things. They’re technocrats, I think they see themselves as scientists, in a way. I don’t think they care so much whether or not a course of action is “moral” only that it achieves the desired results.
I think people misunderstand nihilism. It isn’t the total absence of belief, it’s a rejection of meaning and morality. It’s not that the liberals don’t believe in anything, they believe in free markets, they believe in the fully atomized, wholly self-interested, utility maximizing individual. They believe in those things, they just don’t care if that individual, or, god forbid, a group of people, hold any moral positions, unless or until those moral positions start interfering with the functioning of "free markets.’
I think people misunderstand nihilism. It isn’t the total absence of belief, it’s a rejection of meaning and morality.
Nihilism does not, necessarily, reject morality.
Moral nihilism does, but that’s just one sub category. Also, that’s specifically about the rejection of objective morality.
And I’m telling you, as someone who grew up around and has paid a lot of attention to liberals, they believe their own bullshit. They’re not special; every such group is like this.
Cancel Disney+, Hulu, ESPN and your live streaming TV/cable sub if you have one.
https://help.disneyplus.com/article/disneyplus-cancel
https://help.hulu.com/article/hulu-cancel-hulu-subscription
https://support.espn.com/hc/en-us/articles/40377589107476-How-do-I-cancel-my-ESPN-subscription
Way ahead of you. I never subscribed to that useful idiot crap in the first place.
Viva la free streaming sites!
I don’t think that’s the answer because this is coming from Sinclair and the FCC’s threat that ABC can do it the easy or hard way, and if hard, then the FCC is going to have some more work to do (paraphrasing).
We need to petition ALL the networks AND Netflix, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple and get them ALL to put up a message on all stations and networks for a day that basically says:
The First Amendment protects Free Speech. It is one of the things that makes the America great. The FCC has threatened to find issues with broadcasters who allow free speech on their platforms. We must stand together to keep America great and stand up for the First Amendment. Contact your members of Congress to make your voice heard.Hopefully someone can improve my first draft of a message.
More importantly, IF people think this is a good idea, please pass it on to anyone who can get the message out of this enclave and into wider distribution.
That would be great if anyone of the billionaire owners had a spine left, unfortunately they don’t. So speak with your wallet, they might grow a spine when their stocks loose value - but not because they care about democracy.
Based on how little Paramount suffered after the 60 minutes/Colbert cave-ins, it is doubtful many people will see any reason to cancel subscriptions. If you only get the faithful to cancel, you are only hurting those you love and not the billionaires.
If the talent and the customers for various networks band together to demand a day-long media blackout, the billionaires might be persuaded to all do it at the same time as a power move to show the Government how independent the media can be. Billionaires might very much like to show that they are the ones in control and they can put whomever they want on TV, in memes, or wherever.
Forget trying to make these media conglomerates see the light, we should boycott them for the sake of boycotting them. This was always going to happen and they were never the good guys. If there is anything on want to see find it on a pirated streaming site. Like a lot of people only signed up for Paramount because of the new South Park season.
People like you are the reason the US does not have strong unions and labor laws and worker protections. Keep convincing yourself you don’t have any power to change anything. These things take time and endurance, there is no quick fix.
Comrade, please. I am asking the public to organize and make this demand. We tried cancelling when it came to Paramount, and look at triviality of that ‘boycott’. Look at the data. The only way people are going to see a reason to complain is if, “We’re gonna miss our favorite show!” So put that reason in their face.
This is the answer at the current juncture. This is Disney caving to pressure. Force the regime to do it the hard way. Make it unambiguous. Don’t comply in anticipation. Don’t appease the fascists. Make them exert effort and waste time and deal with the bureaucracy (such that remains of it, at least). Weaponize malicious compliance and inefficiency against the fascists. Resist, in all ways, shapes, and forms possible.
Don’t bother with petitions - they do not give a shit. Vote with your wallet. That’s the only thing they’ll listen to over their regime. And remember, Disney has Seriously Fucking Good lawyers - if they wanted to fight this, they would. Make them want to fight it, by showing them that the alternative is a collapse of subscriptions that they now base a large part of their revenue on.
Also, pirate more stuff 🏴☠️
I can only hope EU carries that torch going forward and doesn’t bend the knee to US influence. But I have to admit, it’s not looking too good…
There’s too much money being invested in far right political movements, it will be hard to resist them.
It will be hard to resist, but at least we know how to resist, and we don’t even need guns for that
Here’s hoping. There was strong public backlash at the bending of the knee on the shitty trade deal so I expect a lot more push-back going forward.
Trump and his fascist army are the enemy. Are you part of a force or a partisan. Either way they are not going to win. As a fascist you have to control too many people. An anti-fascist controls themselves
🇺🇲 🤝 🇬🇧
Killing free speech
