On Censorship and President Trump - Chronicles of Strength

What’s happening with President Trump and his censorship by big tech is a frightening and fundamental threat to freedoms all Americans hold dear, and should. What’s worse is the ecstatic support this censorship is receiving from most liberals — not even far leftists. There are undoubtedly going to be disagreements about whether Trump incited violence and deserves this. I maintain that he did not — or, that if he did, then by that standard so did every other major Democratic leader this past year — and that the idiotic events at the Capitol are 1) highly uncharacteristic of Trump supporters in general, 2) were universally condemned BY conservatives AND Trump, and 3) the lawlessness, rioting, and violence, not only permitted by but ENCOURAGED and MORALLY PRAISED by left wing politicians and activists throughout the entire summer is surely what set the stage more than anything for violent antics from people on the right. As Feser says in a recent article, lawlessness begets lawlessness. Surely, this does not EXCUSE the actions of people on the right who engaged in violence but it does make them UNDERSTANDABLE and the hypocrisy of the left is yet again reached a surprising new height. Unfortunately, what liberals do not realize is these suppression measures will not work out for their benefit long term. What we are seeing is utterly characteristic of Maoism and will not end well for anybody who allows this sort of de-personing, fear-driven censorship to continue, even if, temporarily, it plays in favor of their political agenda. Love him or hate him, Donald Trump should not be banned.

– Pat

PS – Regarding a response to a FB interaction on whether private businesses should have the right to determine what is/isn’t allowed to be a patron, I said this.

Definitely, we don’t want to say businesses can’t in anyway “discriminate,” because that would lead to all sorts of stripping away of individual liberty, especially for freedom of religion, conscience, expression, and so on. However, a few things worth pointing out in this particular case.

Certainly (and in the very least), as users of these businesses we can criticize them, just as people criticize businesses for practices they don’t agree with all the time, even if we don’t want legal measures enacted against them. Criticizing (not just non-patronage) is often how we get businesses to serve the customer and community better.

HOWEVER, many of these Big Tech companies have legal protections/privileges that are relevant for this discussion, because they are predicated upon allowing freedom of communication and should be removed if they are going to begin acting like publishers (which they long have been, in deciding who gets a voice and who doesn’t, what content is allowed and what isn’t, etc) rather than mere mediums of communication.

Unfortunately, many making criticisms regarding censorship/1A haven’t been great in making the relevant distinctions to avoid the charge of inconsistency coming from people who otherwise argue for the autonomy of private businesses. They’re just crying foul play over freedom speech, which isn’t helpful in getting the more fundamental points across, particularly about the cronyism between Big Tech AND governmental favoritism/protections.

But also, there is the whole “this is spooky and Maoist and trending in a troubling direction” element of everything going on, so pretty much any push back against that progression is something I am prone to support, even if it isn’t articulated as well as it could be.

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