“Everyone is in favor of free speech… but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.” ― Winston Churchill
Lots of drama over this at Twitter. Elon directly involved. 27 million views and counting, despite some blockages Elon had to clear up: For example, Twitter’s head of Trust & Safety is no longer with the company.
If you can, watch today. FREE on Twitter for 24 hrs. I think that will end around 8PM today.
WhatIsAWoman?
After that, check out Elon’s interview with the Babylon Bee. Great discussion.
I’m @hershblogger on Twitter.
Trans Right Activists continue to ramp up their vilification of anyone who objects to the erasure of women. Males-pretending-to-be-females (MPtbF) and anti-TERF feminists encourage the silencing of women by violence. For example, attacks on Posie Parker and Riley Gaines.
There are threats to sue anyone who refuses to use TRA’s Lysenkoist pronouns. For example, from the prancing TikTok doyen (NOT doyenne) Dylan Mulvaney.
There’s even a cadre of the TRAs insisting that heterosexuals are bigots if they refuse to call themselves ‘cis.’
TRA should be BIT, Biologically Ignorant Thugs.
All is proceeding as Jordan Peterson predicted in 2016. I’ve selected a snippet that you can watch for just a minute and a half. People scoffed at it in 2016, but is now accepted wisdom in our blue cities and states, on most university campuses, is promoted by our President, and the default opinion of NBC’s talking head Chuck Todd: “Basically, it’s not correct that there is such a thing as biological sex.”
That 55 minute video has 10 million views, and you may well have seen it. It’s well worth watching if you haven’t, and worth watching again if you have. A refresher on what we were told as the BITs were initiating their assault. TWT:
I plan to snip a few more items in subsequent posts.
How the Disinformation Industrial Complex is destroying trust in science
–Climate Etc., Judith Curry (by David Young)
The Censorship Industrial Complex is the Revolt of the Elites
–Public, Michael Shellenberger and Leighton Woodhouse
Disinfo Dictionary
–Tablet Editors
“The House ran out the clock…”
If it gets to the House, we can hope that’s what happens to Senate bill 686, the RESTRICT Act: Never put to a vote.
That bill is actually peripheral to this post, but is a perfect example of extending surveillance-state tentacles (which we’ll get to).
Ostensibly, the bill defends us against the CCP controlled TikTok spyware – beloved of goofy pre-teens and sinister trans-activists.
I also detest TikTok. Its CCP data gathering on our youth is unacceptable, and its transactivist influencer contingent is culturally corrosive. It should, at least, have age limitations applied to some of its more vile content, with solid parental locking capability. Knock, knock Jeffrey Marsh. We don’t have to respect you even a tiny bit. In fact, we despise you for your pride in being a groomer.
But the RESTRICT bill includes no such provisions; it is written without even reference to ““TikTok,” or parent company “ByteDance,” or even “social media.”” Much less the Chinese Communist Party. That mention could be problematic for Gretchen Whitmer, so I get why the bill can’t name China.
TikTok should be certainly be banned on government devices. In fact, any government employee so unaware of TikTok’s pedigree as to have it on their government device should be fired. It’s not like these people aren’t “woke”, of course they are, it’s that they’re not AWARE. But, ignorance is not only not an excuse, it’s a sign of national security cluelessness. Loose clicks sink ships.
Or, more commonsensically, all government devices could ALREADY be set up to prohibit TikTok installation and block any access to it. Do it by executive order, since it affects only employees – supposedly loyal.
However, there’s no surveillance-state advantage in something so simple.
The RESTRICT Act Would Restrict a Lot More Than TikTok
RESTRICT, as written, simply expands and cements the power of government to abrogate the First Amendment as described below.
We can’t shoot down a Chinese spy balloon while it’s actively, successfully spying, but we can extend state control over Americans watching their kids do silly dances on a Chinese spy app – which the government hasn’t absolutely banned on every device it owns.
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The rest of this post offers links to some articles which may be too long for your interest. I post them even so because they describe, without hyperbole, an imminently serious threat to the Republic of the United States. Even if you don’t want to spend the time now, they may become a reference for you when you need to provide a Progressive you know with reasoned information about the danger to a way of life they don’t even understand as their own. I have a suggestion.
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Who is doing anything about this?
Whether Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter will be successful is a question still in doubt for certain definitions of “success.” I’m looking at it as a defense of Enlightenment values, freedom of conscience being the foundational moral imperative.
I do not think the measure is whether it becomes a profitable business. Musk did not buy it for that reason.
I hope profitability eventuates, because we desperately need a continuing social media space not attached at the hip to, or gripped around the throat by, myriad US agencies forming alliances with private companies eager to subvert the First Amendment.
Significant Twitter personnel changes were a bare start in blunting the public-pirate (AKA fascist) alliance against free speech. More importantly, we have insight to the corruption from Musk’s release of internal documents (the “Twitter Files”) and source code algorithms.
The public’s glimpses into the early stages of the transformation of America from democracy to digital leviathan are the result of lawsuits and FOIAs—information that had to be pried from the security state—and one lucky fluke. If Elon Musk had not decided to purchase Twitter, many of the crucial details in the history of American politics in the Trump era would have remained secret, possibly forever.
That quote is from an important, sober – and sobering – recent history of America’s public/pirate surveillance state.
It’s also long, but if you want to better understand the stakes – and what I hope could eventually be Musk’s success – it is a must read. Incisive and insightful.
A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century – Tablet Magazine
13000 words
Mentioned in the preceding article, a scathing in depth analysis from the Columbia Journalism Review of the mendacious “Russiagate” media coverage.
The press versus the president, parts one through 4
Part 1
6200 words
Part 2
6500 words
Part 3
4800 words
Part 4
8700 words
Running List of All Twitter Files Releases (summarized with links to detail)
? words
Today is TOC’s eighteenth anniversary.
Here’s the 1st anniversary post.
February 19th, 2006 is The Other Club’s first anniversary.
145,000 words and 7,000 unique visitors later (some of whom have even returned) it has been enjoyable and intermittently cathartic. I’ve followed no template. I’ve written about what struck me as funny, or more often outrageous, on a given day. There is a necessity to this. I haven’t got a lot of time to devote here, so the writing needs to come relatively easily. I’m sure this is common to most part-time bloggers.
A plurality of the posts have involved free speech issues – ranging from the McCain Feingold Campaign Finance debacle through American Feminist attempts to suppress thought. I’ve touched on American corporations’ complicity in Internet censorship and extensively discussed the cartoon-jihad.
There’s been quite a bit about Canada’s political process and some comment on the Supreme Court and the meaning of the Constitution. There has been more than a little criticism of the Bush administration, especially on economics. The UN has been mentioned unfavorably.
Finally, there have been many posts attempting to call attention to partisan opportunism where loyal opposition was called for, especially regarding the War against Islamofascism.
Mostly, I write this blog because I like to write and I think I occasionally have something interesting to say. I really appreciate feedback and I pay attention to it. Comments and email are encouraging. I thank those who have visited, and I especially thank those who visit regularly.
I have come to know a few other bloggers via comments and email and for that I am also grateful. Several have seen fit to compliment this blog by linking to what I have written. Thank you.
So, a toast to The Other Club – Happy Anniversary!
That first anniversary post’s small optimism about the internet’s effect on Western culture now looks, shall we charitably say… naive.
Let me repeat this bit: “American corporations’ complicity in Internet censorship”
I had no idea about the real shit coming. But I should have.
Eighteen years and a million TOC words later, our institutions have turned en masse on free speech.
Supreme Court justices are unable to define the word “woman.”
Our armed forces have DIE departments, where those letters stand for diversity, inclusion, and equity.
Skin color is more important than character content.
Any objection to these dogmas may entail life altering shaming. We’re all subject to scarlet lettering by the neo-puritans.
I have long term, intelligent friends making ad hominem attacks over differences of opinion spurred by “woke” issues that didn’t exist in 2005. I’m increasingly battle weary from the downward spiral.
There are 169 draft posts here I can’t seem to finish, and the link below has been hanging around in a Tab on my browser for awhile. I Tweeted it (I joined Twitter in support of Musk’s attempt to restore a semblance of free speech.) – @hershblogger.
I had also thought to comment on it here. I fear that that would make 170 drafts.
So. I’m just recommending this link, without comment beyond, “This is not the future I imagined.”
Fittingly, it’s about free speech.
Jonathan Turley: “Free Speech for Whom?”: Former Twitter Executive Makes Chilling Admission on the “Nuanced” Standard Used For Censorship.
Long ago, I started at the University of Michigan with declared dual majors of Philosophy and English. The goal was teaching.
Fortunately, I achieved neither a degree nor the vocation. I escaped after my Freshman year. I have no degreed credentials.
My naive intention may, however, explain why I found this thought provoking:
Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Juxtapose Wittgenstein’s thought with the currently popular attacks on freedom of speech. Subversion and suppression of speech are WMDs used to confound debate: The evolutionary foundation of intelligent thought.
Debate on meaning is subverted by redefinition of common terms. Discussion of context is verboten. Ad hominemism becomes the handmaid of “cancel culture.”
It’s why the Left is so full of clever people inventing euphemisms. Like “Gender Affirming Care” for mutilating surgery and castrating drugs as a human right for 12 year olds. Like “Cisgender” as a dismissal of someone who identifies as their biological sex. Like “undocumented immigrant” for illegal alien. Like “Our Democracy,” for single party authoritarianism.
When The Other Club lived at Google, I had for a time, a Twitter account to which each new post would automatically Tweet.
Twitter worked hard to convince me that I wanted nothing to do with it, so I deleted the account. A long ago time now, and I don’t even remember my old handle.
Yesterday I rejoined Twitter as my small note of encouragement to @elonmusk. The entertainment value of the sink is alone worth the price of admission.
This is the first post which (should) automatically appear as a Tweet from the WordPress version of TOC.