MAGA-Powered Parler Is Down After Amazon Cancels Its Web Hosting Services

Plus: Pelosi will start impeachment proceedings if Pence doesn't invoke 25th Amendment, asylum restrictions have been blocked, and more...

Amazon pulls plug on Parler. The relatively new social media platform Parler has—for now, at least—vanished, after Amazon canceled its web hosting contract with the company effective Sunday night. Google also banned Parler, on Friday, with Apple following suit on Saturday. The companies cite posts making threats against Mike Pence, organizing last week's events in Washington, D.C., and making plans for further action to challenge the 2020 election results.

Parler may "be unavailable on the internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch," wrote CEO John Matze in a statement. "We will try our best to move to a new provider right now as we have many competing for our business."

Matze called it a coordinated attack by Apple, Amazon, and Google "to kill competition in the market place." He added that "you can expect the war on competition and free speech to continue, but don't count us out."

Parler isn't really a competitor for Apple, Amazon, or Google, and Parler's head displays a fuzzy conception of free markets if he thinks it means big tech companies must contract with apps and businesses they don't wish to, for whatever reason.

But Matze isn't wrong that something here stinks.

Plenty of digital platforms—including those much bigger and more mainstream than Parler—provide a place for conspiracy theorists, MAGA riot organizers, and threats of violence, as well as the politicians who back and encourage these forces. To take action against Parler and no other social media sites or web forums—and to do it so swiftly, without providing them with a little buffer to find new options—feels like the Amazon/Apple/Google version of Twitter and Facebook suddenly banning Trump's accounts and deleting his post history. It's a big, high-profile move in the midst of inflamed passions and threats of legal action that feels more designed to stave off becoming a target themselves.

It's not a First Amendment issue, of course, and it's perfectly within Apple's, Google's, and Amazon's rights as private companies to make these choices. But it also looks a lot like they're making Parler a sacrificial lamb to political pressure to do something about people talking too uncontrollably online.

Actionable threats and harassment needn't be ignored, but we should focus on the folks behind those threats, not aim to take down whole ancillary reams of speech and content to punish a minority of lawbreakers.

Incidentally, this provides the anti-Section 230 crowd with a better glimpse of what a world without Section 230 would look like all the time, not just in the wake of incidents that rattle us. Nobody would want to even tangentially do business with apps and other web forums that don't aggressively police and limit user speech, for fear that liability would work its way up the food chain to them.

(One of the first civil lawsuits under the 2018 law FOSTA, which took aim at Section 230 and online ads for sex work, was against Mailchimp for letting an adult ad website sign up for an account and send emails.)

Parler was painted as a broadly conservative answer to Twitter, a place where free speech reigned. In reality, it attracted a certain strain of conservatism—that which worshiped President Donald Trump and often trafficked in wild conspiracy theories—and quickly started running into issues between its original "anything goes" ethos and the demands of moderating a major platform. But for all its flaws, it doesn't deserve its current fate as a tech scapegoat for last week's attack on the U.S. Capitol.

---

IMPEACHMENT IMMINENT?

If the vice president doesn't invoke the 25th Amendment to get Trump out of the White House now, Nancy Pelosi will start impeachment proceedings. The House speaker plans to begin taking those steps today, attempting "to pass a resolution by unanimous consent Monday morning calling for Pence and Trump's Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office," reports CNN.

If the resolution doesn't pass by unanimous consent -- and it most assuredly won't given likely Republican resistance -- then the measure will be brought to the floor for a full vote on Tuesday.

The resolution will call on Pence to respond within 24 hours and, if not, the House would move to impeach the President.

"Next," Pelosi said in a letter to Democratic colleagues, "we will proceed with bringing impeachment legislation to the Floor."

[…] Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell previously made clear in a memo that even if the House moved in the coming days to impeach Trump, the Senate would not return to session before January 19. That would place the start of the trial on January 20 -- the date of Biden's inauguration.

---

QUICK HITS

Some quotes from my interview yesterday with @RepMeijer, the young anti-war vet and Republican who succeeded @JustinAmash in Congress. https://t.co/x5pQmzafIr

— Matt Welch (@MattWelch) January 8, 2021

• "More than 5,000 law school alumni and students have signed a petition calling for the disbarment of Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) over what it says were their 'efforts to undermine the peaceful transition of power after a free and fair election,'" notes The Washington Post. You can read the full petition here.

• Asylum restrictions set to take place today have been blocked, after another federal judge ruled Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf's appointment to be illegitimate. "In a scathing 14-page decision, Judge James Donato of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco agreed with other federal judges who have concluded that DHS failed to follow proper legal procedures when installing Wolf as the department's acting secretary," reports CBS News. "He said Trump administration lawyers 'recycled' arguments to defend the legality of Wolf's appointment, 'as if they had not been soundly rejected in well-reasoned opinions by several courts.'"

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Amazon pulls plug on Parler.

That should fix everything.

[Jerry B.]

Jeff Bezos is hoping that if Amazon toes the line, the Democrats won't increase his income tax when they go after the billionaires.

Yeah. Right.

[OpenBordersLiberal-tarian]

"when they go after the billionaires"

Why would Democrats go after billionaires? This isn't the 1980s anymore. Biden had more billionaire donors than Drumpf; he's not going to attack his own base.

#InDefenseOfBillionaires

[Brett Bellmore]

Because "That's where the money is."

The left has two reasons for promoting income inequality.

1) Increases the number of poor people whose votes can be cheaply bought.
2) The wealthy are more efficiently milked for taxes, graft, and no show jobs for the kids.

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[Trollificus]

It DOES look like a duck, and it quacks...

[Lord of Strazele]

Dems should rewrite the federal tax code to discourage corporations from gaming the system by relocating to other states or countries.

[Earth Skeptic]

Pussy. Dems should simply nationalize any uncooperative corporations.

[Lord of Strazele]

That's unconstitutional bro and a bad idea.

[mad.casual]

Explain that to state governments and the local zoning board(s).

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[Longtobefree]

How is it unconstitutional?
Interstate commerce?
General welfare?
Tax policy?

Welcome to the revolution. We lost.

[Mother's Lament]

They've already nationalized Alphabet, Apple, Twitter and Facebook.

21% of their board members are former elected Democrats.
18% of Alphabet's upper management has been employed by elected Democratic party officials before.
Facebook has 400+ employees who worked for the Obama administration. Twitter only slightly less.
Facebook actually banned accounts at the behest of Hunter Biden in 2012. This was done by Facebook exec Adan Conner who went on to work for Obama.

The list goes on, and on, and on.

[A Cynical Asshole]

21% of their board members are former elected Democrats.
18% of Alphabet’s upper management has been employed by elected Democratic party officials before.
Facebook has 400+ employees who worked for the Obama administration. Twitter only slightly less.

I wouldn't be surprised if many other large corporations have similar makeups to their corporate boards. Why bother with formally nationalizing industries when you can simply place "loyal party members in good standing" on their boards and thereby have full control of them anyway?

[Nardz]

It's the best way to get "libertarians" on your side

[Brett Bellmore]

That's a standard technique in China for controlling nominally private companies.

[jomo]

21% equals a controlling majority? 18% Hmmm, is this that new math you guys are always going on about?

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Yes, jotard, having former elected Democrats on a corporate board would in no way influence the company's direction nor its political connections.

[jomo]

But everyone else on the board is wholly objective and/or "from the right background?" Is that your take? lol

Also, you skipped the math part in your answer.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Jotard doesn't think having ex-politicians on a corporate board offers any advantages.

[Overt]

And by the way, this- private corporations run by ruling party opperatives- is the definition of Fascism.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

And by the way, this- private corporations run by ruling party opperatives- is the definition of Fascism.

It is, but the MUH PRINCIPLZ crowd still argues under the pretext that corruption is none of our business when its done under the auspices of a private company--even when that private company is working hand-in-hand with the government itself.

Like leftists, they project their support of these practices by accusing the people protesting those actions as fascists.

[KillAllRednecks]

This is from Merriam Webster:

Definition of fascism:
1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

Doesn't mention anything similar to your definition?

Most people would examine their beliefs if they have to lie to make a point.
I guess Trump lying so much has encouraged his supporters to lie as well.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

He's talking an actual dictionary, not one that kneels to 18-year-olds, you hicklib faggot.

[KillAllRednecks]

From encyclopedia Brittanica:

Fascism, political ideology and mass movement that dominated many parts of central, southern, and eastern Europe between 1919 and 1945 and that also had adherents in western Europe, the United States, South Africa, Japan, Latin America, and the Middle East. Europe’s first fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, took the name of his party from the Latin word fasces, which referred to a bundle of elm or birch rods (usually containing an ax) used as a symbol of penal authority in ancient Rome. Although fascist parties and movements differed significantly from one another, they had many characteristics in common, including extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites, and the desire to create a Volksgemeinschaft (German: “people’s community”), in which individual interests would be subordinated to the good of the nation. At the end of World War II, the major European fascist parties were broken up, and in some countries (such as Italy and West Germany) they were officially banned. Beginning in the late 1940s, however, many fascist-oriented parties and movements were founded in Europe as well as in Latin America and South Africa. Although some European “neofascist” groups attracted large followings, especially in Italy and France, none were as influential as the major fascist parties of the interwar period.

I didn't realize you were so young. I'll take it easy on ya sport!

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Funny, nothing about that mentions their economic systems, you hicklib faggot.

[KillAllRednecks]

None of it mentions corporations or businesses.

Just be a bigger man for once and admit you were wrong.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

You do realize that fascism entails economics as well, right, you hicklib faggot?

[A Cynical Asshole]

Dems should simply nationalize any uncooperative corporations.

Don't be silly, Strazele is a fascist, not a socialist.

[R Mac]

^

[Sometimes Bad Is Bad]

Fuck off slaver.

[Lord of Strazele]

If I advanced my position like you guys I would deny that I wanted to raise taxes, accuse you of wanting of to raise taxes, raise the taxes and then call you deranged for complaining about the higher tax rate.

[Sevo]

"If I advanced my position like you guys I would deny that I wanted to raise taxes, accuse you of wanting of to raise taxes, raise the taxes and then call you deranged for complaining about the higher tax rate."

You first ought to learn to write an intelligible sentence, but I know the 6th grade is tough for you.

[Lord of Strazele]

It's clear enough. You should stop telling people to kill themselves.

[Sevo]

You should fuck off and die. The world would be a smarter place.

[JesseAz]

Soft Fascism exists, so you just want to go to full fascism. Nice.

[Lord of Strazele]

Taxing corporations slightly more is fascism? What's trying to overthrow an election and seize power?

[Earth Skeptic]

Selective taxation to manipulate business is certainly on the path to fascism. Just like selective taxation to manipulate people is on the path to totalitarianism.

But keep telling yourself about the common good.

[Lord of Strazele]

You don't mind the manipulation when it's Texas poaching biz from California. Some of these low tax states make up for it by leaching off the federal govt.

[Sevo]

"You don’t mind the manipulation when it’s Texas poaching biz from California. Some of these low tax states make up for it by leaching off the federal govt."

Pod is not good at that skill we call "thinking".
Fuck off and die, lefty shit.

[Agammamon]

We don't leech off the federal government.

Never demanded that CA pay for us - they insisted.

Maybe if the majority of tax money did not leave the state then there wouldn't be so many people trying to claw it back?

[Loki]

Whataboutism.

[Agammamon]

Well, it's a coup. Doesn't have to be fascism - or do you consider the American Revolution to have installed fascists in power?

[Trollificus]

Are you saying you were in actual fear of being governed by the MAGA-hat wearers taking selfies in the Capitol the other day?

Hyperbole much?

[Agammamon]

'gaming the system's - that's loser-speak for 'I don't know how incentives work'.

Also, are you seriously saying that we need to build a wall around the country?

I told you guys who wanted a wall to keep people out that inevitably they'll want to use it to keep you *in*.

[Nardz]

There is literally nothing the left won't do regardless of anybody else's actions.

[Moonrocks]

Amazon is probably in on it. I don't know how much Bezos helped to bankroll the Dems last election, but I imagine it's in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

[Outside the Box]

I don't think you understand campaign contributions.

Nor that everything he says and does indicates that Bezos is a libertarian.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

Bezos is the lefts battered wife. He keeps giving them money and support, hoping that this time they won't smack him around

[Mother's Lament]

I think Bezos recognizes their rhetoric as simple posturing to the remains of the old left still shuffling around the DNC's margins.

The Democrats are the Davos oligarchs puppet show. The Republicans were too, but Trump ruined that.

[Agammamon]

If he recognizes that then he should be scared - the liberal rump is all that's keeping the young progressives from eating him alive.

[Gray_Jay]

"Bezos is the lefts battered wife."

Are you kidding me? He's made out like a bandit under their state Governor-installed COVID policies of the last year. Plus all of the additional web traffic that work-from-home demands. I wouldn't be surprised if this was AWS's highest revenue year ever.

This whole sordid enterprise has been, and will continue to be, expressly to benefit people like Bezos.

[Outside the Box]

" I wouldn’t be surprised if this was AWS’s highest revenue year ever."

Considering they've increased revenue every year, that's not going out on much of a limb.

"This whole sordid enterprise has been, and will continue to be, expressly to benefit people like Bezos."

Absurd conspiracy theory crap. Like Bezos sat down one day and said "hmm, I can continue to make money the way I know how, by providing excellent service, selection and price and by always working back from the customer, a method that has made me *the richest man in the world*; or hey, I have a better idea, why don't I concoct some harebrained scheme involving the Chinese, pandemics, control of federal and state government... all to drive my numbers up a little? Yeah, that's the ticket."

People who say shit like this I'm sure get cool points, but as soon as you think it through for 2 seconds, it makes no sense.

[Trollificus]

I have to agree that the "Plandemic" stuff has the reverse-engineered, "See? It all fits together!" aspect of a bad conspiracy theory.

That said, the crushing and seemingly targeted negative economic impacts of GOVERNMENT POLICIES can certainly be decried.

If somebody said it was a concerted effort to destroy the middle class, and prop up the mega-corps...well, it would be hard to point to any counter-evidence, conspiracy or no.

[Gray_Jay]

Is it part of your performance review at Amazon to go stan for your boss in this way? There isn't a fucking Libertarian bone in Jeff Bezos's body. This entire epidemic has been a godsend for both the retail distribution side of Amazon and the web services side, and the guy Bezos helped install is going to continue policies that will enhance both of those. Since Bezos is such a Libertarian, naturally you can point out where the Washington Post, since he bought it, has advocated Libertarian policies, instead of their exact opposite.

He's far closer to a textbook Fascist than he is a Libertarian, and the dumbshit may have opened a door that he, and the rest of the tech leadership world, may not be able to close.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Bezos is the lefts battered wife. He keeps giving them money and support, hoping that this time they won’t smack him around

You're kidding, right? He literally owns the very newspaper that's been running an anti-Trump byline for over four years now. He is fully on board with their agenda and has been for decades.

Want to know what's fucking ironic? The only people who actually seemed all that concerned about Amazon's ever-growing corporate power and fascist-style ties to the federal government have been Trump and Ocasio-Cortez.

[Outside the Box]

Bezos is at heart a libertarian. He's not going to make any public statements to that effect and he is smart enough to see the LP for the sideshow that it is, but his cultural/social liberalism is not at all in question, and given what I have seen from working for him for 13 years, I believe that if he could "push the button" to get government completely out of business/the economy, that he would. His values are about pleasing the customer, not about "squashing competition". He is very explicit in fact that Amazonians should not pay attention to the competition: if they do a great job, great, that means customers are even more pleased. He truly loved companies like Zappo's and bought them because he admired what they brought to the table, not to "kill the competition."

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Bezos is at heart a libertarian.

No, he's not. There's nothing in his history that indicates this.

He truly loved companies like Zappo’s and bought them because he admired what they brought to the table, not to “kill the competition.”

That's literally been Microsoft's SOP for decades, and it hasn't been because they love the product so much.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Jeff Bezos is hoping that if Amazon toes the line, the Democrats won’t increase his income tax when they go after the billionaires.

Yeah. Right.

No, Bezos is doing this precisely because he knows the Democrats won't do shit to him. Amazon is providing the government with its cloud service, for fuck's sake--including the CIA and NSA, which bought a $600 million contract with AWS in 2014. You really think the Dems are going to turn around and say, "Oh, we're going to jack up your corporate tax rate now"? Get real.

I'm not sure what it's going to take for people to realize that these guys are all on the same team, but the days when corporate CEOs weren't in lockstep with Democrats on everything is over.

All those Millennial college activists who commenters on here 10-15 years ago were saying, "Oh, don't worry, they're no threat, they're just the loudest voices in a small pond and they'll get smacked into reality when they have to get a real job"? Well, I warned you fuckers that eventually, these assholes were going to get jobs in government and corporate firms where they could push their ideology into the mainstream. That it wasn't going to be confined to college campuses in a few years, and I knew this because I saw this ideology forming among my peers when I was in grad school 20 years ago.

Welp, the chickens have come home to roost now--a generation and a half that's been raised on the idea that anything that inconveniences them, or gets them out of their comfort zone emotionally is a personal danger, are now driving the agenda of both the public and private sector. The real question is to what degree we become Oceania now.

[Gray_Jay]

Or I could have just read what Red posted, and saved myself the trouble.

[Gray_Jay]

I will say though, that if you want to prevent the Oceania that Red mentioned? You make it clear to the Boards, Corporate Officers, and lower level C-Suite personnel of these corporations driving these policies, that they personally will be in legal, financial, and personal jeopardy if they continue to pursue this path.

Or you can enjoy your new existence in a pod within the new American favela. It's up to us.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

The Boomers and early-stage Gen-Xers have been more than happy to enable this behavior, so there's no incentive for it to stop.

[CE]

California is already telling companies who they have to add to their boards. Other states will follow.

[Ignore me!]

We're one better than Oceania because everyone who supports it (in the outer party, at least) thinks Goldstein is Oceania and they're somehow a brave resistance.

[JesseAz]

Amazon should be sued for arbitrary application of its rules and contracts. Unfortunately contract issues have been absorbed into 230 protections.

[Moonrocks]

Section 230 absolves Amazon of all responsibilities to obey contract law. This has been the mainstream opinion of every court that has heard a lawsuit against a big tech company to date.

[JesseAz]

All they did was write into their contracts all resolutions must be done in SF courts to ensure their outcomes were always set.

[Moonrocks]

Would something like that even be enforceable in any context that doesn't involve a multi-billion dollar tech company? I know that the "we can unilaterally change this contract to what ever we want whenever we want with no notice required" provisions aren't.

[Gray_Jay]

Depends on which forum hears the complaint, doesn't it?

[Outside the Box]

But it wasn't arbitrary at all, and shame to the press including this Reason article for implying that it was. Read the letter sent to Parler: it was very clearly about Parler's lack of mechanism to even remove posts that violated terms of service like "incitement to violence." Other websites built on top of AWS are held to the same standards.

It's just lazy conspiratoid journalism to automatically assume a nefarious anti-conservative motivation in everything these big tech companies does. I can't speak as much for the others, but while I worked at Amazon for 13 years I saw accusation after accusation like this that I could see from the inside was clearly false. It would get humorous at times as decisions were made by software written by some poor schlep engineer and he/she would be like, "I did *what*?" There is NO mechanism at Amazon by which the engineers in the trenches could be directed/influenced to favor some political ideology. It would go *SO* against everything that every Amazonian is trained on and judged by that it would be anathema.

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[Ride 'Em]

The billionaires have probably moved most of their money to foreign trusts or Cayman Island corporations like Soros did. It is why the billionaires backed Biden. They like his crony capitalism.

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[ThomasD]

Nothing to see here, move along.

Peasants.

[JohannesDinkle]

The best thing to do with people who believe they aren't being heard is to shut them up.
Restore unity! Bring us all together by punishing those who don't agree with us.

[Earth Skeptic]

Might be better than telling people (on your own side) that the best way to govern is mob action.

[R Mac]

I too was disappointed in the left wing political mob violence all throughout 2020. Doesn’t excuse what happened Wednesday, though.

[loveconstitution1789]

Most people there were protesters.

The Capitol is a public building and should be open at all times.

The people who damaged property or committed theft violated the law.

The violations of constitutional law by bureaucrats and politicians to steal elections, coup duly elected presidents, and spy on Americans IS FAR WORSE AND IS TOLERATED.

Until these Lefty traitors are held to account for the crimes they commit, I could give two shits about someone who stole a letter from Pelosi.

Civil war 2.0 is here folks. Bloodletting is next.

[Ride 'Em]

Being a bit older than most of you, I can remember the Year of the Strike when college campuses were shut down by students. I was at Rutgers when it happened. When the students went to take over the administrative building, the president of the university met them on the front steps and invited the students in for a tour after saying it was their building. The takeover turned out to be a line of students walking into the front doing a tour of the building and then walking out the back.

[Loki]

"JohannesDinkle
January.11.2021 at 10:00 am
The best thing to do with people who believe they aren’t being heard is to shut them up.
Restore unity! Bring us all together by punishing those who don’t agree with us.

Earth Skeptic
January.11.2021 at 10:10 am
Might be better than telling people (on your own side) that the best way to govern is mob action"

When you are so focused on cheap shots that you don't see you mugged yourself.

[Trollificus]

Huh. Did you see the video Trump put out Tuesday? Saying we need peace now, we need law and order, and his supporters needed to go home?

Not sure if that was the last straw proving his "coup attempt" but it was taken down when he was banned for inciting insurrection.

You may live on Earth, but you're failing the "Skeptic" part of your username pretty badly.

[RabbiHarveyWeinstein]

We must silence those damned Flat Earthers too. Questioning science is heresy!

[Trollificus]

Along the lines of suppressing dangerous misinformation, my asshole neighbor commented about how cold it is today. Can I get him gulaged for climate change denialism??

[A Cynical Asshole]

The best thing to do with people who believe they aren’t being heard is to shut them up.

"When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say."

I know it's a fictional quote, but it seems to apply here. Actually, that applies to a lot of things these days.

[Ron]

the protest weren't a coup or inssurection This is the real coup. Silencing those you disagree with and having the FBI search legislatures homes who were at a legal protest. BTW its illegal to arrest sitting legislatures but you can go after them and make them spend all their money defending themselves and scare the shit out of them just like they did to General Flynn.

[R Mac]

And now that they got away with it with Flynn, it will become SOP.

[RabbiHarveyWeinstein]

Consume approved corporate media on approved corporate platforms.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Plenty of digital platforms—including those much bigger and more mainstream than Parler—provide a place for conspiracy theorists, MAGA riot organizers, and threats of violence, as well as the politicians who back and encourage these forces.

Good thing there aren't riot organizing users other than the MAGA variety or they'd really be hypocrites.

[JesseAz]

You are not allowed to even mention the BLM riots or you're racist.

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

You cannot post content that mention riots that happened all summer, any objection to Covid policy or the official line on anything concerning Covid, or anything that even hints the election could have been less than The Cleanest Election Of All Time™️ without being flagged, blocked, banned, or subject to other algorithm fuckery.

And reason just gave the most tepid of condemnations of mass collusion to disappear an entire platform under the guise of “public safety.”

[Trollificus]

Reason: "Will you allow a mild criticism of some peripheral aspects of your ascent to absolute power, Master? It is crucial to our branding."
Person of Unspecified Gender Behind the Curtain: "Go ahead. But stop well short of "incitement".
Reason: "Uh...how will we know where that is, exactly?"
PUGBC: "We will let. you. know."
Reason: "Of course, of course..."

[R Mac]

What part of Antifa is just an idea are you not getting?

[A Cynical Asshole]

Maybe the part where an idea committed multiple acts of arson, looting, destruction of property, and even in a few cases murder last summer/ fall?

[Ersatz]

Its becoming increasingly difficult in these comments sections to know where posts and\or responses are running afoul of Poe's Law.

[A Cynical Asshole]

I know R Mac was being sarcastic, and I was responding with a sarcastic rhetorical question of my own. It's pretty much sarcasm all the way down.

Although you're right, it is hard to tell sometimes who's being sarcastic and who's being completely sincere.

[Gray_Jay]

It's one of the claims I'll be making, should I ever be asked in the Real World about my post history here.

[Trollificus]

Yeah, it's "sarcasm all the way down"...until you get to the turtles.

Who WILL report you, make no mistake.

[Unable2Reason]

The Molotov Cocktails had me distracted.

[R Mac]

Mostly peaceful fireworks, is what those were.

[Ride 'Em]

Sort of like the marxist terrorists organizations in the 70's and 80's that stored explosives and firearms for the BLA and others. They all shared the same ideology but weren't "organized".

Snopes refuses to call people like Susan Rosenberg a terrorist because their is no clear definition of terrorist but call people like McVeigh and the Unabomber domestic terrorists.

I go their every once and a while for a laugh.

[Fist of Etiquette]

If the vice president doesn't invoke the 25th Amendment to get Trump out of the White House now, Nancy Pelosi will start impeachment proceedings.

Well someone hurry the fuck up before he can give Belichick the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

[Earth Skeptic]

I miss the days when the VP was the loser in the Presidential election.

[JesseAz]

I like how they aren't even pretending that invoking the 25th would be a constitutional violation since Trump actually isn't incapacitated. They talk about sedition and democracy and then advocate for such acts as invoking the 25th.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Huh, I didn't think of that. I know that was the original purpose of the 25th, but does the text not allow for other reasons? (I hate to be one of the multitudes googling it since last week.)

[R Mac]

Use DuckDuckGo.

[loveconstitution1789]

and Gab

[Rat on a train (FTG)]

The text says "the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office".

[Longtobefree]

Under the 25th amendment, the President IS incapacitated when the signers of the declaration say he is.
"Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President."

Please note the part about "other body as Congress may by law provide".
It would be completely constitutional for the congress to designate the DNC as that body.

[Roberta]

But if Congress would be willing to do that, why wouldn't they just act directly? I mean they could designate themselves a committee of the whole.

[Longtobefree]

That committee would be tainted by the presence of Republicans

[Mickey Rat]

Invoking the 25th conveniently puts the responsibility on Pence, rather than Pelosi and it is also easier to accomplish. The Democrats continue to advocate abusing institutions for their own political convenience.

[RabbiHarveyWeinstein]

Patriots support the Pats!

[Fist of Etiquette]

DELETE HIS ACCOUNT

[Unable2Reason]

Isn't this just a test run for Biden?

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

He should pardon Robert Kraft. That would give ENB a boner.

[KillAllRednecks]

He should execute all the mormons! No trials. Mormons aren't people so they have no rights.

[KillAllRednecks]

The only good Mormon is 16 million dead mormons!

[KillAllRednecks]

You're a fascist traitor Chuck. You deserve to die you pedo worshipping scumbag!

Please tell me if you visit!

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

Flag. Refresh. You don't even exist.

[KillAllRednecks]

Hopefully you won't exist you piece goddamn shit.

Where did you live in Oregon? My guess is shithole rural Clackamas county. Like Estacada trailer park? I'm close right?

[Michael S. Langston]

Says the genocidal bigot.

[KillAllRednecks]

Chuck is the bigot.

He's bigoted towards non Mormons.

[What's that smell?]

Nancy Pelosi is a credit to functioning alcoholics everywhere!

[Ride 'Em]

They want Pence to invoke it so Biden won't be the first to be removed under it.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The resolution will call on Pence to respond within 24 hours and, if not, the House would move to impeach the President.

She's doing everything she can to extend the political battle Dems had effectively won.

[Jerry B.]

Oh, just wait for the show trials of the Capital "rioters".

[loveconstitution1789]

Lefties didnt learn their lesson with the Bundy show trials.

There were acquitted.

All these Capitol peaceful protesters wont be convicted of anything if they fight. Conviction rates for prosecutors have been going down for years when you go to trial. Its why the government does everything it can to force a plea bargain.

[Overt]

12th Amendment time yet?

[loveconstitution1789]

Poor dummy. The Jan 6, 2021 challenge of Biden electoral college votes was the 12th Amendment.

As I said multiple times, 12th Amendment here we come and it happened.

Trump won the plurality of legal votes in states that mattered. Trump won the election but lost to massive Democrat election fraud.

Trump is more popular than in 2016.

I'm definitely more correct than unreason wishes it could be.

[bignose]

I’m definitely more correct than unreason wishes it could be.

Minus the whole "Trump will have a second term, despite all evidence to the contrary" thing, you mean. Little stuff like that.

[Zeb]

For fuck's sake, it's 9 more days. Just wait it out.

[H. Farnham]

My thought exactly, but I was talking with someone the other day who said something that made sense. Opponents want impeachment to ensure that he can't run again. (the assumption being that a politician can't run again after being impeached; I don't know, or don't care)

[Rat on a train (FTG)]

Ineligibility for federal office is an option on conviction. There are no penalties for impeachment.

[H. Farnham]

Thanks, I would imagine that's the end game then.

[mad.casual]

I had assumed they wanted to impeach as a stage/grounds for subsequent conviction. They've been saying practically since 2016 that he should be prosecuted. They've certainly been consistent at flipping through the notes of their brainstorming sessions to come up with reasons. Given the pile that they've gone through, I expect them to convict him of being President while white and male.

[Rat on a train (FTG)]

Conviction will be difficult. Even with the mass hysteria, I don't see enough Republicans voting with the Democrats to get to 67.

[mad.casual]

Conviction will be difficult.

You misunderstand. It won't take 67. Once he's out, they only have to find 12 that don't like him and/or are willing to right the injustice of Congress' inability to impeach him... again.

[Roberta]

They could never empanel a jury of 12 who'd convict. There'd always be a secret MAGA among them.

[Rat on a train (FTG)]

For the purpose of Constitutional ineligibility for federal office, they must get a Senate conviction.

[mad.casual]

You're assuming they want to be technically right. I don't think they give two shits if he runs for representative of the 101st district of bumfuck. I'm assuming they want to convict him so that they can bludgeon the GOP with it for the foreseeable future.

Hell, they probably hope he gets convicted and runs a 2024 campaign from prison. Probably as the LP candidate just to cover all their bases.

P.S.: Can a felon get on enough state ballots to win the Presidency? I know The Constitution says one thing, but it was crafted under the guise of the President being secondary to the States.

[Trollificus]

I've read through the responses wrt impeachment/conviction...and have seen not a single mention of what charges it would be a conviction ON.

Is this like Adam Schiff Method??

Schiff: We have evidence against Trump!!
Reporter: What is the evidence?
Schiff: It's in the indictment!
Reporter: No, it really isn't.
Schiff: We have mounds of evidence!
Reporter: And that is...?
Schiff: INCONTREVERTIBLE evidence! Just look at it!
Reporter: Where?
Schiff: We have evidence. It's unmistakable.
Reporter: (looks at watch) Okay.

HEADLINE: "BOMSHELL! Solid Evidence Against Trump! Walls Closing In on Embattled President"

[Longtobefree]

Also loss of pension, no office funding, no staff funding, and the pure joy of raw political power.

https://reason.com/volokh/2021/01/10/under-the-former-presidents-act-a-removed-president-does-not-receive-a-pension-office-staff-office-space-and-secret-service-protection/

[Gray_Jay]

No USSS protection either, not that he needs them specifically.

Getting the message, 'Mr. Anyone-Else-Who-Might-Think-Of-Busting-Up-Our-Racket?'

[Roberta]

Could they impeach, and then leave the trial on hold until such time as he's re-elected? So there'd be a cloud over anyone's interest in nominating him in 2024?

Here's a fantasy: He seeks the Democratic nomination. And starts winning primaries.

[H. Farnham]

Ha, that would be hilarious. Maybe then people would finally see the blatant absurdity and hypocrisy inherent in politics... nah, never mind, the politically active would still find a way to convince themselves of their righteousness.

[Rat on a train (FTG)]

Don't articles of impeachment die, like bills, when the next Congress convenes? They could always impeach again.

[Rat on a train (FTG)]

That is 9 days that Trump could order a nuke strike on Los Angeles.

[Sometimes Bad Is Bad]

Nope.

[R Mac]

Whoosh!?

[Rat on a train (FTG)]

Boom!

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

The real question is if anyone would be able to tell the difference between pre and post nuclear LA?

[R Mac]

Well, they say cockroaches would survive, so you could be right.

[Rat on a train (FTG)]

Ask Harry Washello if you can find him.

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

Made the mistake of driving up highway 99 instead of I-5 from LA to Sacramento a couple weeks ago. Holy fuckin shit, dude. It’s bad.

[I, Woodchipper]

That's 9 days he could decide to pardon Assange and Snowden

[Moonrocks]

It's quite clear at this point that it isn't about Trump. It's about that pesky constitution with all it's rights and limits on government power that's hindering the progress that the left has planned for us.

[Earth Skeptic]

"Had to destroy the Constitution in order to save it"?

[Longtobefree]

It hasn't hindered them very much so far - - - - - - - - -

[Nardz]

It's never really been about Trump.
It was always about their hatred for Americans outside the hivemind.
Trump was just the icon... and the barrier.

[R Mac]

He’s the symptom, not the cause. Now they’re doubling down on the cause, hoping no new symptoms pop up.

[thorsmjollnir]

Lol. Look around you. We are under a form of martial law imposed by executive Governor orders. Nearly half of small businesses are being purposefully destroyed. Every year the Democrats take more and more power and have taken over the corporate world to the point where we have corporate sponsored struggle sessions and the destruction of lives simply for disagreeing with someone's politics. The Constitution is worthless to stop it. You need some Lysander Spooner in your life.

[Moonrocks]

I'm not spooning with any guy named Lysander.

[R Mac]

I believe Mr. Spooner has been rightfully canceled, and all evidence of his existence is being scrubbed from skynet as we speak.

[loveconstitution1789]

They cant "wait it out".

Democrats already started Civil War 2.0 and based on history, their Gettysburg is coming up fast.

[KillAllRednecks]

Its tempting to string Anti-American traitors like you up after trials, but life in prison will do. We should avoid the death penalty at all costs.

[TJJ2000]

Ironic you'd use the term Anti-American traitor to describe someone who "loves the Constitution"...

[KillAllRednecks]

Why is he advocating insurrection? Why did he support overturning an election?
He's an uneducated redneck traitor. We need to make examples out of these revolutionaries.

[Don't look at me!]

.. these revolutionaries.
You do know how this country was started, right?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

Advocating following the rule of law and the constitution is not traitorous, supporting the people that want to tear up the laws and enforce them arbitrarily is. Saying kamala Harris deserves to have her scumbag face smashed in for falsifying evidence is statement of fact not sedition

[Explicit Bias Trainer]

lol

[Overt]

"Why did he support overturning an election?"

To the extent that he "supported" this, it was via due process (courts, congressional actions that could be tested in courts, etc), not force of arms, so- as usual- your statements are pretty indecipherable from the incoherent bleating of a she-goat in heat.

[Zeb]

There are constitutional ways to challenge and potentially overturn an election result.
And don't try to tell me that the left wouldn't be screeching about elections being stolen and trying any desperate challenges had Trump won.

[Ron]

they thought they had a way by using the dossier since there were no legal means to remove him

[thorsmjollnir]

What's there to love about it? It hasn't stopped us from entering into this dark period.

[TJJ2000]

By the very ignorance of 'It' by the people and politicians. Needless to say our 'dark period' at this point is still 1.01x better than the CCP, USSR, Cuba, Iraq, Venezuela, etc, etc, etc .

[DH]

This is why people own guns. Primarily To defend themselves from luntics like yourself.

[loveconstitution1789]

Yup.

Notice how Democrats got their cuck into office as President and got 50-50 Senate seats but still acting like they lost?

Lets see if unreason ever talks about why.

[KillAllRednecks]

I don't understand why if you hate America so much why you stay? Why not try and convince Trump to start his own fascist hellhole somewhere? You can have a wannabe dictator's dick as far up your ass as you want. Us real Americans will be rid of you America hating traitors. Win win!

[Explicit Bias Trainer]

god it's just so try-way-too-hard

[TJJ2000]

You find me another country founded on principles in the U.S. Constitution and I'm gone.... Then you Nazi's can conquer up the USA and won't care too much... UNTIL...................

And here's the problem; The very Nazi mentality the left carries is one of conquer and consume. Once they've consumed all resources from a society they continue to conquer-on...

[KillAllRednecks]

Goddamn you hicks are dumb. Calling non fascist traitors "Nazis" doesn't make us Nazis.

Read a goddamn history book. You're the ones with similarities to Nazis!

[TJJ2000]

How about starting with simple word definitions in the dictionary Nazi = National Socialist...

I'm sure you read a 170,000 page book by a Nazi that ensured you the Nazi's were those who believed in Individual Liberty and Justice; but the fact you chew it up like religion doesn't say much for your own logical competency.

[KillAllRednecks]

Yes it does mean that. They used that name to attract left wingers. They did have some left wing policies. However they had much greater support from conservatives. It was conservatives who initially put Hitler in power. Hitler hated communists.

Try reading more than the title of a book for once you moron.

[TJJ2000]

Social Conservatives --- There's a vast difference between government conservative and social conservative.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Try reading more than the title of a book for once you moron.

Try reading a book that doesn't require Imagine Ink to finish, you hicklib faggot.

[KillAllRednecks]

You really don't like me Red Rocks?
Did I fuck your girl or something?
Sorry, but I get a lot of pussy and don't really care if some douche doesn't like me.

Especially a far right bigot like yourself.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Sorry, but I get a lot of pussy and don’t really care if some douche doesn’t like me.

Your drug dealer should have told you that fleshlights aren't actually pussy, you hicklib faggot.

[Earth Skeptic]

Why? And avoid setting the bar for civilized governance even lower? Come on, don't we need a precedent of using the 25th amendment in a more extreme case to make is easier to use in the future, even for trivial matters? And if we don't impeach Trump again, how will we attain a future "normal" where Presidents face impeachment every few months?

[loveconstitution1789]

The lunatic Democrats didnt have 67 Senators to remove Trump before and they dont have 67 Senators now.

I think the strategy to give Democrats just enough rope to hang themselves is genius.

[Gray_Jay]

Ehhhhh, not that they have the time to conduct an impeachment trial, and this is all bluster anyway, but I wouldn't be so sure that they couldn't peel off 20 Republicans at this point.

I'm curious to see just how many change parties after the first sets of internal polls come back. Polls which will likely alert swing state Republicans up for reelection in '22 or '24 that they're dead men and women walking. It doesn't take a whole lot of formerly staunch Republican votes, swearing off voting for any more GOPe, if they bother voting at all, to turn a safe Republican seat into a loser.

[mamabug]

The thing is, the democrats can only peel away voters if they appear to actually want them back. The more they push the narrative that anyone who voted for Trump for whatever reason is evil and should be punished, the less people feel like they'd be welcomed for some reason.

In the larger analysis of the election, and trying to take partisan ship out of it, Trump lost because the democrats did a good job at mining votes out of a few key areas in the country with high democratic partisanship but low voter turnout. It was successful, but they had to pour a ton of money and resources into doing it. This isn't sustainable at the congressional level, though, and many not work again unless the COVID 'anything goes' election process becomes permanent - which is much harder to do if you are trying to work in a non-pandemic situation. This is why, despite Biden winning, the GOP gained seats and (if not for Georgia's run-off rules) would have held the Senate.

If formerly staunch Republicans swore off voting for the GOP it won't be because Trump lost, it will be because the existing GOP appears to no longer be fighting for them. Disowning those voters by impeaching Trump will definitely cost them their seats because, as we already know, the dems won't reward them for it and the republicans will punish them.

[Gray_Jay]

"If formerly staunch Republicans swore off voting for the GOP it won’t be because Trump lost, it will be because the existing GOP appears to no longer be fighting for them."

Yes, that was the point I was trying to make. You made it much more clearly. These disaffected voters aren't going to vote D; they're not going to vote at all.

[R Mac]

Good post, except until I see Republican governments in these states make some actual, concrete changes to election laws to stop this from happening again, I’m confident that the next time they need it, there will be another reason, like another pandemic, to do this again.

[JesseAz]

She wants impeachment because then he would be barred from running for re-election. She is using impeachment to undermine a future democratic election. She is worse than anything people claim Trump is. She admitted to this on 60 minutes.

[TJJ2000]

Hell hath no fury like a Woman Scorned.

[Nardz]

Gendered language is no longer legal

[TJJ2000]

Ya; I know but I'm a Racist White Supremacy Terrorist Dictator and me and my buddies of 10 or so are out trying to commit Insurrection on the White House....... Or so they tell me.

[TJJ2000]

Oh; and a fascist per "KillAllRednecks".... lmao... You have to enjoy the irony in that one.

[KillAllRednecks]

The irony is you're a fascist?

[mamabug]

Only the male gendered language, though. Or words containing 'man', 'men', and 'he'.

[Rat on a train (FTG)]

amen

[Jefferson's Ghost]

"For fuck’s sake, it’s 9 more days. Just wait it out."

Yep.

[loveconstitution1789]

Democrats havent won which is why the Democrats are still trying to win.

Democrats started Civil War 2.0 and war is hell.

[KillAllRednecks]

What happened to Trump's second term starting on Jan 20 lc1989? You were so sure!

Could it be that you're just a backwards, uneducated, inbred hick from rural Georgia?

You live in the asshole of America. Everyone makes fun of you backwards southerners and you are too stupid to realize it.

The last civil war didn't go well for traitor southerners like yourself.

Now shut your treasonous ass up or get out of MY COUNTRY you America hating fascist hick!

[loveconstitution1789]

Not sure how I was supposed to guess how large the Democrats election steal would be.

Trump won the plurality of legal votes in states that mattered. All the Democrat lies and RINO politician spinelessness were just to make sure the extent of the Trump coup is never known.

Democrats already tried to coup Trump in 2016. They succeeded in 2020.

[loveconstitution1789]

poor unreason commies.

Democrats lost Civil war 1.0 and will lose Civil War 2.0

[TJJ2000]

I'm back to touting the Convention of States...

[loveconstitution1789]

I was optimistic because Republicans almost have 2/3 of states to convene.

The problem is clear now. RINOs will be spineless and not support changes to protect the USA and Democrats will never side with changes to get 3/4 states to ratify.

The Commie Democrats are getting really good at using our system of government against Americans. They have funding and support from Communist China now.

[KillAllRednecks]

The problem is the majority of the country isn't a traitor like you.

[TJJ2000]

Tell me; Why is it so predictable that lefty-supporters do the whole chicken-pecking thing? Is it a POWER rush or something? I see your type all over the place pecking away and about what? Absolutely nothing just pecking away like a chicken-sh*t pecking order of POWER.

[KillAllRednecks]

We are sick of fascist traitors like you trying to ruin our country.

My grandfather fought fascists during ww2. He must be spinning in his grave from all the wannabe fascists here in America.

[TJJ2000]

Why am I a fascist?

[KillAllRednecks]

You're supporting Trump illegally trying to stay in power.

[TJJ2000]

Sure, sure; He's been launching the nuclear arsenal ever since Dec 3rd.... If it's not chicken-pecking it's delusional land but I prefer your delusions...

And if it turns out there was election fraud?

[KillAllRednecks]

If there was fraud like Trump and his brown shirts say don't you think it would of come out by now?
Wouldn't 1 of the SC appointees of his at least voted to hear the case?

You fascist hicks have nothing.

[TJJ2000]

One case is still pending. Plus it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see PA did in fact violate their own State election laws by E.O... It seems judges like to ignore election fraud evidence as much as they love to ignore the U.S. Constitution.

[KillAllRednecks]

Cram it traitor! You will speak when spoken to in MY COUNTRY you America hating hick!

[R Mac]

Lol.

[loveconstitution1789]

Poor unreason commie bots.

[Explicit Bias Trainer]

oh god the whole thing is so stale move on already man

[Michael S. Langston]

Hey bigot - you keep using that word [traitor]. I don't think it means what you think it means.

[KillAllRednecks]

Mormons are the bigots moron. You support their bigotry and evil, so you're the bigot!

Are you Mormon? If you are I got a bullet with your name on it.

Mormons are destroying America. They must be stopped.

The only good Mormon is 16 million dead mormons.

[Michael S. Langston]

Says the genocidal bigot.

And no, my point isn't really about Mormons, it's only that non-crazy people should ignore the rantings of genocidal bigots.

[Trollificus]

You sound like Rev. Kirkland on meth with an axe blade in his skull.
OR
You sound like some kid who's seen people flame-baiting and trolling on the Internet and wants to try it.

Convincing about equal numbers of people that what you say makes sense either way.

[KillAllRednecks]

Why are you Mormon or something?
If you're I got a gas chamber to shove you in.

I'm not trolling, a parody, or a sock.

Mormons are destroying America and must be stopped!

[KillAllRednecks]

What's it like to be laughed at and looked down upon by people who are better than you? I know you're too inbred and uneducated to realize the majority of the country looks down on you backwards rubes. You're just a stupid, white trash, braindead southerner from asshole rural Georgia. You shouldn't hate real Americans. Try to be better(or be best) yourself. Try reading a book and not fucking your cousin.

[loveconstitution1789]

Poor unreason commies.

They outed themselves and will never be trusted again.

[KillAllRednecks]

No one at reason cares what an inbred, white trash, backwards simpleton from asshole rural Georgia thinks you stupid traitor!

GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY TRAITOR!!!

[Sevo]

Lame, even for a parody account.

[KillAllRednecks]

Poor Sevo! I think the reason you've never tried drugs is no one has offered you drugs.

Stupid goddamn square.

What's it like knowing someone you hate because I party is so much smarter than you? It must be hell to be outsmarted by stoners, drunks, and cokeheads all the time?

[sockpuppet catcher]

"Poor Sevo!"

you should hide your tells better

[KillAllRednecks]

What the fuck does that mean?

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

It means everyone knows you are SQRTSLY doing a shitty Kirkland impression you fucking mental defective.

[KillAllRednecks]

Please continue to think I'm Sqrty or whoever. It'll be easy to execute you Mormon traitor if you don't know my identity.

Why do you worship a pedophile? Why do you want to force everyone else too?

How about be stupid and let live?

It's because you and your church are evil!

The only good Mormon is 16 million dead mormons!

[Pogo]

Wait your stupid hick ass is from Portland?

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

What’s it like to be laughed at and looked down upon by people who are better than you?

You should know, you hicklib faggot, you have plenty of experience.

[KillAllRednecks]

At least I'm not a bigoted redneck like yourself.

I'm from Portland. Not a lot of hicks there.

Get that from your country fried brain. You're the hick dummy!

[KillAllRednecks]

*through

not from

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Remember, you hicklib faggot, you run the razor vertically down your arm, not horizontally. Get one of your tweaker meth-head buddies to show you how.

[KillAllRednecks]

Remember to pull out and jizz on your sister's flat chest.

The inbred child she won't have will thank you!

Bigot.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Keep your childhood experiences out of this, you hicklib faggot.

[KillAllRednecks]

Did I hit a sore spot you bigoted hick?

Sorry you sister gave you herpes, but you knew she gets around...

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

That sore spot's the lesions on your body, you hicklib faggot.

[Michael S. Langston]

lmao - What’s it like to be laughed at and looked down upon by people who are better than you?

The idea you think you're better than anyone else made me laugh. So at least you're good food for something genocidal bigot.

[KillAllRednecks]

I'm better than you because you support Mormons!

[See Double You]

^^^actual psychopath

[KillAllRednecks]

^^^ actual Mormon enabling traitor!

If you support Mormons you are supporting destroying America.

[Overt]

All this has happened before. And it is happening again.

When the Brothers Gracchi enflamed the populist sentiments in the City of Rome, it drove the aristocracy apoplectic. Tiberius, the Tribune of the Plebians passed land reforms that prevented rich rulers from amassing all the farmland from the poor. He was so popular that the Senate used special means to get him out of office, and when he went to protest, Senators and their supporters clubbed him to death on the senate grounds.

Gaius, his brother would attain power 10 years later, in a much more nuanced way. His small reforms each built a coalition of agrarian and urban poor. For his troubles, the elite gathered a mob that chased him down. He would be decapitated, his head filled with lead, and his sons and wife stripped of all land and possessions.

I'm not saying that the Gracchi were heroes or martyrs. They were decidedly unlibertarian. But they *were* an example of populist firebrands going up against the elite. And the Elite crushed them. Not just politically, but personally and financially. The Total War effort was so extreme, that the next Populist to seize power clearly understood that he would have to completely depose the ruling class and institute a new form of governance if he was going to survive their conniving. And so he brought his armies across the Rubicon and a whole new era for Rome began.

[loveconstitution1789]

Lefties thought Twatter and buying cheap shit from the Commies in China would be the bread and entertainment of the serfs.

Turns out the "serfs" have other plans.

[RabbiHarveyWeinstein]

Let them watch football.

[Earth Skeptic]

Except BLM ruined that.

[Longtobefree]

Only for the "pros".
Alabama and Ohio State tonight.

(it makes me sad that I quit watching big business football decades before they went all political. I can't stop watching in protest, because I wasn't watching anyway)

[Roberta]

After I'd been coaching children's football a few years, I no longer had any interest in merely watching football.

[KillAllRednecks]

NFL is way better than college. Especially since college is rigged in favor of the inbred SEC.

Hell we should let the south win at something? Football's too important though. They can have volleyball. They'll never know the difference because they're so backwards and uneducated. The only reason Vanderbilt is in the SEC is so they can say they aren't full retatd.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

The hicklib faggot doesn't seem to realize that most of the SEC players are black.

Why do you hate black people, you hicklib faggot?

[KillAllRednecks]

Because I'm not racist you racist homophobic bigot.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

You not being a racist is the reason you hate black people, you hicklib faggot?

[KillAllRednecks]

I didn't mention race because it wasn't relevant. All power 5 schools have black players btw...

Why did you play the race card? Now I know you're racist and homophobic!

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

You called black players in the SEC inbred. Don't try backpedaling on that now, you hicklib faggot.

[KillAllRednecks]

I should of been more clear. The SEC fans are inbred racists. The majority of the players are the same as any other power 5 players. Except the PAC 12. They're better.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

The SEC fans are inbred racists.

Their fans are black, too, which is why their kids all want to go to school there.

Why do you hate black people, you hicklib faggot?

[Moonrocks]

That's not a very comforting story.

[mad.casual]

Gaius, his brother would attain power 10 years later, in a much more nuanced way. His small reforms each built a coalition of agrarian and urban poor. For his troubles, the elite gathered a mob that chased him down. He would be decapitated, his head filled with lead, and his sons and wife stripped of all land and possessions.

So any bets on whether it's Don Jr. or Ivanka's head that gets filled with lead? Don seemed awful campaign-y at Dad's farewell rally before SHTF.

[Overt]

Well, history sometimes rhymes, but isn't necessarily a soft reboot. It is highly possible that the elite ruin him too, and fast. I saw today that the PGA just canceled their contract with the Trump golf courses. So it is possible that the entire Trump family is destroyed and chased into exile.

Whether or not the Trumps get another bite at the apple is unimportant. What is important is that there is a young, charismatic, ambitious person right now rising up through the ranks, and paying attention. Maybe they are in the middle ranks of the military right now, or doing time in the intelligence community. But they are watching, and in 16 - 20 years, they will be ready to move.

And that person isn't going to risk coming into power only to be undermined by the very government he leads. He is going to take heads and destroy all the institutions that might resist him.

[Mother's Lament]

Well said.
Excellently put.

[Nardz]

The left is going the Nazi/Soviet route precisely to prevent that possibility.
Elections are finished.

[Roberta]

Do they seriously think the end of mere elections would prevent that possibility?

[Overt]

Caesar didn't need elections

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Sort of. He certainly legitimized his rule through military conquest, but he still needed to come to power through the (admittedly corrupt) election and nomination processes that Rome had in place--taking offices like aedile, flamen dialis, tribune, quaestor, etc.--in order to prove himself as a creature of the nobility. And while it can be argued that it was under duress, or at least due to resignation, he still needed to be elected Dictator for Life by the Senate. He couldn't just unilaterally do so or his populist base would have turned on him.

[Gray_Jay]

"What is important is that there is a young, charismatic, ambitious person right now rising up through the ranks, and paying attention. Maybe they are in the middle ranks of the military right now, or doing time in the intelligence community. But they are watching, and in 16 – 20 years, they will be ready to move."

We won't recognize this place in 16 to 20 years. Such an attempt as you describe, will turn out like Guaido's abortive coup down in Venezuela. It's going to take us a long time to get our Octavian.

We will be amazed and horrified at how fast things will change.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

I guarantee that whomever ends up running this place in 10-20 years, it's going to be a Deep State creature like Bush was.

[A Cynical Asshole]

The Total War effort was so extreme, that the next Populist to seize power clearly understood that he would have to completely depose the ruling class and institute a new form of governance if he was going to survive their conniving. And so he brought his armies across the Rubicon and a whole new era for Rome began.

And Caesar was still assassinated by a group of Senators ("Eh tu, Brute?") for his trouble.

That's why in Star Wars Emperor Palpatine dissolved the Senate and gave regional governors who were 100% loyal to him direct control (yeah, yeah, I know Star Wars is fictional, but whatever, lessons can still be gleaned from it).

[Mickey Rat]

And Caesar Augustus was accepted as hereditary monarch, in fact, rather than in name because the people were tired of the civil wars.

[Nardz]

Caesar's mistake, like Trump's, was mercy.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

The Total War effort was so extreme, that the next Populist to seize power clearly understood that he would have to completely depose the ruling class and institute a new form of governance if he was going to survive their conniving. And so he brought his armies across the Rubicon and a whole new era for Rome began.

And in the chaos that followed, those same elites ended up having to pick sides. Augustus emerged on top after all of this due to his immense political genius and having the fortune of being friends with hyper-competent associates like Agrippa and Maecenas. However, unlike Caesar, he was smart enough to realize that the Senate just wanted to grift in peace, so he made a deal with them that he would be the actual power in the Empire, and in exchange he'd allow them to grift in peace.

[Gray_Jay]

And allowed Lepidus to live, albeit in greatly reduced circumstances, so his counterparties could be assured he'd keep his word, and he really wouldn't put everyone to the sword for the hell of it. That course of action reduced tensions.

This ritual scourging of Trump, OTOH, is designed to inflame them. With the purpose of justifying far greater crackdowns. I guess the people making these decisions think they'll be able to fade any violence which may result.

[Overt]

I agree with the descriptions of Augustus. My point is that Trump was never Caesar. He was Tiberius Gracchi. A populist firebrand who nearly toppled the corrupted order. And when the Corrupted Order burned the Gracchi, salted their earth and heard the lamentation of their women, the future caesars learned a critical lesson: You will never succeed as an outsider unless you are willing to put these people to the knife.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Yep. And what happened to the Gracchi eventually led to the civil war between Marius and Sulla, which resulted in literal purges whenever one of them was in charge.

The reason Big Tech and the media are working with the Democrats to try and permanently suppress right-wingers in the public square, is because the next right-winger that ends up in the big seat is a lot more likely to go full scorched earth, a la Franco and Pinochet. Because the lesson the right takes out of left-wing hooliganism like this is that the only thing that will prevent the left from rising up and doing the same thing in the short term is to liquidate the existing left-liberal order, and incentivize those who remain to either shut up or flee the country.

[TJJ2000]

Anyone else find it humorous that the media is running this absurd narrative that Trump Supporters were insurgents while Nancy Pelosi is demanding it be her!

[loveconstitution1789]

The MSM tried to blame the deaths of capitol cops on Trump. The one cop committed suicide off duty.

This other capitol cop was "hit by a fire extinguisher" and died. Nobody can say what actually happened.

This is an operation to attack dissenters. If all those protesters were armed and started shooting and burned the capitol down the cops would have pissed themselves. The cops already pissed themselves and shot an unarmed lady climbing into a window.

[mad.casual]

This other capitol cop was “hit by a fire extinguisher” and died. Nobody can say what actually happened.

Hit by a fire extinguisher, returned to duty, and *then* died. Even if we had video footage of what happened in the Capitol, it wouldn't necessarily constitute direct video evidence of his murder as he walked away.

[Longtobefree]

After he returned to duty, he must have slipped on a bar of soap.

[Ron]

blood clot to brain not unusual had a friend who while skiing collided with another person. the two got up talked he started to walk away and died

[A Cynical Asshole]

My wife's step sister died from something similar. She was out hiking and fell and hit her head. Got up, went home thinking everything was fine, but died in her sleep that night. Although in her case I think it was an aneurysm as opposed to a blood clot.

[mad.casual]

Yeah, it's a possibility. I had a chemistry Prof. who was hit by a train (in his car), cleared, give a lecture and then collapse from a broken rib/punctured lung. For all we know, he was critically injured by some other act, and all the attention to the fire extinguisher masked the symptoms. Still, ameliorates if not rules out murder 1.

[Actual Doc]

His scenario most resembles an intracranial epidural hematoma. Middle meningeal artery gets damaged, bleeding accumulates in a confined area (epidural space in cranium is very tight), its arterial so pressure builds up higher.

Usually takes 2-6 hours to build up. Classic picture is a head trauma, a "lucid window" where everything seems fine, then pressure gets high enough, brain shifts, pressure on brainstem, and they go down

[mad.casual]

See above, doc. All we have is the media story about 'bump on head followed by death'. Pretty slim details to make a definitive diagnosis and any first year biology student, pre-med or not, could armchair a (bad) diagnosis.

People walk away from all kinds of accidents only to die of causes, related or not, hours or even days later. The whole idea behind a trial (and more generally the free flow of information) is to avoid such framed, potentially post hoc fallacies.

[Actual Doc]

Most resembles, certainly not definitive or a diagnosis.

Could be so many things, but when you see a shit load of trauma, patterns come up. Further info needed for sure. He could have gotten hit in the head and had an unrelated stroke, heart attack, or any number of things.

But his story is certainly one we see a lot. So that's where I would put my money. But I am very aware that he could have died of something completely different and I of course cant make a diagnosis from a story.

For funsies, can we make a stupid wager on it? I will bet you 100 dollars to a charity of your choice that it was an epidural hematoma. I'll even let you get away with not picking a cause and just saying "not an epidural hematoma".

I always pay my bets, so please pick a worthwhile charity (if you want to play 🙂 )

Seriously just wanting to have some fun, I have no horse in this race (politically)

[Michael S. Langston]

I'll do it - email me langston(dot)michael(at)gmail(dot)com

[mad.casual]

But his story is certainly one we see a lot. So that’s where I would put my money.

Not a lot. Again, post hoc. Lot's of people get hit on the head with all kinds of shit and walk away unphased. That's why the medical professionals released him.

For funsies, can we make a stupid wager on it? I will bet you 100 dollars to a charity of your choice that it was an epidural hematoma. I’ll even let you get away with not picking a cause and just saying “not an epidural hematoma”.

Can I put money on "We'll never know"? Without an MRI nobody can definitively prove anything (and maybe not even then). And, again unless you treated him, neither of us is going to see that

I don't doubt your instincts but we don't convict people based on instincts. Moreover, in the truthiness/post-truth era, even the facts don't really matter.

Does your platform support parlet or combo bets? I'll bet $1 at any odds that officers didn't know Freddie Gray was carrying a (legal) knife from across the street. I'll parlet your choice of the percentage of those winnings, at any odds, to a bet that Stephen Paddock didn't actually use a bump stock. Then I'll parlet those winnings under the same conditions that opioids killed George Floyd. Whatever the total winnings are, I'll wager, full tilt, that Officer Sicknick died of a hematoma.

[mad.casual]

Just a hypothetical; if Sicknick, for his last several physicals, had a BP of 170/80, did the blow to his head kill him or did the adrenaline/excitement finall push his BP over the breaking point? Even if they did hit him, if he was only hit in the head but has other internal bleeding, that would absolutely complicate any diagnoses.

Again, AFAICT, he didn't suffer a contusion or need stitches. Your story is easily plausible but it's based on an artificially narrow narrative.

[Actual Doc]

Just a hypothetical; if Sicknick, for his last several physicals, had a BP of 170/80, did the blow to his head kill him or did the adrenaline/excitement finall push his BP over the breaking point?"

Missed that before. It depends. If he had a subarachnoid hemorrhage a hit to the head could have caused it as well as just high BP alone. If it was a subdural hematoma (not as likely) the BP could have contributed as well, but would more likely be due to trauma. If it was an epidural hematoma, there is only one explanation: trauma to the head in the spot where the MM goes through. That is the only way they form, there arent other spontaneous causes or otherwise. The CT that they likely did would be enough evidence, neither of us would have had to treat him. Similar to if they found a bullet in his head, we could assume the bullet killed him. If the blood was in the epidural space, something hit him in the head, upside his head, whether fire extinguisher, fist, or he tripped and fell and knocked it.

[Actual Doc]

If it comes out that there was a scan done (just need CT) showing the standard pattern, then that is enough evidence that it was an epidural hematoma. Or an autopsy would show blood in his head, outside the dura. Almost guarantee they did a head CT when he got to a hospital so that scan is out there.

Seriously this is all in fun. I dont really care what he died of, sad for him that he is dead. No parley bets, but I will put up for whatever charity you choose. If I am wrong you have to first post on something ACTUAL DOC IS THE BEST!!! That is all 🙂

[Actual Doc]

"but we don’t convict people based on instincts"

Also you seem focused on this. I am not talking criminal trial stuff. I am just betting that he died of what I think he died of. I dont convict anyone of anything when they come into the hospital, but when I hear there was some reported trauma, and a guy had a lucid window for hours then dropped dead, I have a strong hunch. Based on seeing this, lots of times (esp in his age demographic, look at him). If his CT scan showed a convex pile of blood under his temporal bone then there is no argument, that is what happened. And that CT was done, and will likely come out at some point.

Bet? Should I make it 200?

[TJJ2000]

Last I heard the 'fire extinguisher' claim hadn't even been confirmed yet. I did get a kick out reading the supposedly 4-killed consisted of 1 having a medical condition problem and the other getting trampled by Capitol Police pushing + of course a health condition.

So 30,000 people; 3-had health conditions and 1-got shot by police.

[mad.casual]

Last I heard the ‘fire extinguisher’ claim hadn’t even been confirmed yet.

The video footage I've seen, I'm not entirely sure they don't mean 'hit' in the metaphorical sense. Every day officers hit citizens with speeding fines, this day, rioters were hosing people down with fire extinguishers and Sicknick "got hit".

[TJJ2000]

Still got the link?

[mad.casual]

Not exactly. I didn't mean to portray it as "I've watched footage of Sicknick getting sprayed with a fire extinguisher." as much as "All the assoicated footage I've seen portraying people with fire extinguishers, nobody does anything remotely physically violent." Notably inconsistent video footage given the narrative. Especially given how many cameras were or should have been rolling.

[CE]

yup, first rule of a happy marriage: when you win an argument, stop arguing.

[Bill Godshall]

"But Matze isn't wrong that something here stinks."

Now that Trump has announced he's leaving office next week, ENB has regained one of her senses.

[ThomasD]

"When you have the leaders of business implementing the political agenda of a political party against its opposition, that’s the definition of fascism."

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/425209/

[JesseAz]

Shhh. We aren't allowed to say this in public anymore.

[Mother's Lament]

It really is, and it's amazing to me how our JournoList hosts and the fifty-centers here in the comments are refusing to notice.

"None so blind as those who will not see", I suppose.

[jcw]

dude, the commentators are going to hate your take ENB on parler. You either shouldn't have talked about it because Reason needs to stop talking about anything related to the president for some reason, or you aren't hard enough on the tech companies.

[Sometimes Bad Is Bad]

Apologist.

[sockpuppet catcher]

fuck off sarcasmic

[JesseAz]

Or give an actual libertarian answer and vigorously defend open communication and free speech principles. Stop rationalizing the actions under "private corporation" and actually denounce the actions being taken. Understand the contractual issues also involved that are completely ignored in said rationalization.

Even the ACLU realized this.

[Overt]

I mean, it is striking that ENB can't describe Parler as anything but a "MAGA Powered" platform. I guess her limp wrist defense of them is better than nothing, but only marginally so. And I say that as someone who does not support Trump.

Parler is a platform dedicated to free speech. The fact that conspiracy theorists have retreated to there after every other platform got ban-happy is immaterial, or perhaps a strike in their favor.

It is also a very silly take that Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, et al are canceling Parler for fear of "political pressure". Article after article has been released recently specifically targeting the platform for hosting the "wrong" people, and I can speak from first hand knowledge that at several of those places, employees and management have been looking for the right opportunity to cancel them with the least public backlash.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Remember back when Alex Jones got deplatformed, and a bunch of us here sounded the alarm that this was an awful precedent because of the very fact it was a constriction of free speech as principle? That even if you disagreed with Jones, you shouldn't support him being silenced?

I'll say again, Sarah Jeong's "Internet of Garbage" is the blueprint here. They're literally using "freedom of association" arguments to squelch the expression of non-leftist opinions and ideas (while notably, saying that anyone on the right who does the same is violating civil rights). As you pointed out, this has been floating around Silicon Valley for a long time. BigTech is now firmly arm-in-arm with the Democratic Party now, and has insinuated its way into federal protection via government contracts for tech services (plus, long-time patronage from CIA investment funding via In-Q-Tel).

It's going to take someone with more balls than Trump showed, to be honest, to break this up and put the marketplace of ideas on a level playing field again. I realize that gets the MUH PRNCIPLZ crowd all a-flutter, but they're willfully blind to what's going on right in front of their face. They will either end up being fully on board with the Dem platform going forward, or will wonder why on earth the people whom they defended are putting them up against the wall.

[Overt]

I don't think anyone in the "Muh Prnciplz" crowd (including me) disagree with what you wrote. The fact is the Dems are firmly in control of the government now, and the government cannot be trusted to regulate against exactly the behavior that put the Dems in power. I was saying this last year, and it hasn't changed.

You are correct that it is going to take someone taking a stand- but it isn't going to be a government leader. It will be people in the private sector.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

I disagree, only in that it would take someone from the corporatist class, but with populist sympathies, getting involved in politics to do so. Trump had that potential, but he was far too easily distracted and too intent on chasing squirrels on social media.

It would take someone with Caesar's balls, but Augustus' political instincts, to pull that off. The one thing that should really concern people is whether Peter Turchin's predictions about the trajectory we're on prove to be correct (The Atlantic had an interesting article about his theories this past month), and these are just the precursors to a full decline.

[Gray_Jay]

Aren't Turchin's theories basically the 70s scarcity models---along with their implied and explicit advocacy of austerity expectations for the general public? See, Jimmy Carter wearing a sweater, because we can't afford to heat our homes, including the White House, any more. Only this time, gussied up to include people's expectations for social mobility, provided they 'follow the rules:' go to college, work hard, be thrifty, get married, have 2.3 kids...?

We're about to have far cheaper space travel, with access to the amazing resources therein, and this guy is telling us it's in our cyclical historical nature to suffer now? Gee, no one says the Third World needs to keep on suffering for Gaia's benefit.

[jomo]

Here's anopther problem though.

People that are mad that Trump got de-Twittered are the same people largely speaking that want to get back at them by getting rid of Section 230.

SO basically, people want to use the threat of "publisher liability" to get back at the platforms. In the context of fighting back against so-called "censorship" of condservatives.

So say you (you being anyone on that train of thought) get what you want and 230 is stricken or changed. You have now successfully advocated to get Big Gov to decide who can do what and say what... and FURTHERMORE, what do you think a future Twitter now does in that environment? BAN ANYONE THAT SAYS ANYTHING EVEN REMOTELY "DANGEROUS" SO THEY CAN'T BE SUED UNDER YOUR NEW RULES.

I'm not saying what is going on now is perfect, and there are separate arguments if we split it into "morally can/should"
versus "legally can/should." But think about it. If the revenge against Twittwer is to nuke 230, then all you will get is MORE deplatforming because they will be forced to worry about everything everyone says.

[soldiermedic76]

I argued that they are only going after 230bbecuse their complaints about db et al for over ten years have been ridiculed, while FB, Twitter et al has only gotten more blatant. Reason cannot run an article on this subject without adding the to be sure they are private company and to declare what they do not censorship. It is censorship, just not government. Call it out for what it is, because libertarians have long argued that we don't need rules and laws policing freedom of association or business because social pressure will be enough to address bad actors. It is time we paid attention to this ideal, because by making any sort of excuse or ignoring bad actors we just leave those impacted with only one alternative,force of law. And here we see a case we're a company did exactly what many libertarians have stated ,and started their own business only to have the same actors do everything possible to stifle their business as soon as it became a threat. And they appear to have been successful. And don't hand me if it was popular as it was the number one downloaded Ap since November.
I hope they do go forward with their plans to start their own web hosting service, and that they be allowed to without interference from allied nanny staters. Buy I don't hold out hope.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Unlike some of the commenters here, I think the debate over 230 is a distraction, and it's designed to be so because it doesn't get to the root of the problem. It's a symptom, not a cause--the cause is the growth of a literal Gilded Age-style trust right before our eyes, and only a few, like Glenn Greenwald, are seeing the big picture enough to point it out.

[Outside the Box]

"Parler is a platform dedicated to free speech. "

And that's their right.

That, however, does not override others' policies. Amazon has a policy that its servers cannot be used for a variety of things, e.g. illegal activities, child pornography, and incitement to violence (though incitement to violence may itself be illegal?). Amazon documented 98 cases of posts inciting violence on Parler *that were not removed despite being flagged by AWS as violation of their contract*.

As well, the idea that somehow Amazon pulling their plug on 500 servers "shuts them down" is ridiculous: 500 servers can fit in a (well air conditioned) garage. It is nothing in the big picture, which is why, of course, they can be back up in a week. If Amazon wanted to make some sort of political move, why such a weak one?

Again, this narrative sounds great on message boards but makes no sense in the real world.

[Fist of Etiquette]

That would place the start of the trial on January 20 -- the date of Biden's inauguration.

Trump is free that day.

[loveconstitution1789]

Democrats are looking for legitimacy for their massive election fraud scheme where Biden was crowned.

Commies always demand legitimacy because there they know that they dont have massive support.

[JesseAz]

This take from Reason is unbelievable. This isn't contained to just SV. Banks are also now looking at disallowing those the left dislikes from using their services. Are those "private" companies too?

Is Reason even aware of actions such as Mao's red guard? Because you're quietly applauding these actions.

Some of the actions taken over the weekend include teachers being suspended for their job for attending the protest (not being part of the riot), cops being suspended for support for the protests, a political campaign removed for encouraging democrats to walk away away from the party because they had a rally in the morning, etc, etc.

And does Reason even care about contractual law anymore? Is nothing sacrosanct? Reason is literally for arbitrary application of terms of service, of contractual clauses etc? Because I can show you hundreds of calls for violence on Twitter/FB still. Khomeini alone does more to incite violence than anything Trump has done.

This is embarrassing for reason. The ACLU has come out against this. Mises has come out against this. Foreign activists fighting their authoritarian governments are appalled at this. Yet Reason happily applauds along at this.

230 is an extra legal protection. No company should get this if they are condoning political censorship for the major political party. Reason is literally arguing for State run media as long as it is done by the DNC through friendly corporations. This is literally soft fascism. And Reason doesn't care.

We are walking close to the social credit system of China now. And Reason doesn't care.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/11/big-corporate-uses-capitol-riots-to-push-communist-style-social-credit-system-on-americans/

[JesseAz]

This will continue with liberal journalists already calling for cable companies to remove "conservative" news media. And journalists continue to call for bans on conservative journalists:

https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/09/yahoo-news-journalist-urges-twitter-to-ban-mollie-hemingway/

[JesseAz]

Teachers are being suspended from their jobs for being conservative.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bronsonstocking/2021/01/10/school-suspends-teacher-for-attending-dc-protest-n2582896

[Ron]

Hope everyone who was fired for attending a legal protest sues the shit out of their employer. Isn't it illegal to fire someone for political beliefs?

[Overt]

There is no federal law against a company doing this. In California, political speech and views are a "protected class".

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

I’d say it’s almost certainly illegal to fire teachers over it.

[Gray_Jay]

They have a union, and an employment contract. Most employees don't.

Though it will be interesting just how hard in the paint their union-appointed lawyers are going to go for a teacher at a MAGA protest. My guess is not very.

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

Either way, it’s a government job, and they cannot legally fire you over constitutionally protected speech.

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

Theoretically.

[Gray_Jay]

Is 'sedition', constitutionally protected speech? Because that's how it's going to be spun, if it gets that far.

I predict a quiet, modest settlement after plaintiffs get the Heisman from the District Court on some civil procedure grounds, and then I hope plaintiffs have something else they can earn money from besides public school teaching.

[JesseAz]

The left had dozens of examples of incitement for the BLM violence.

https://redstate.com/jeffc/2021/01/10/watch-high-profile-leftists-incite-violence-social-media-accounts-still-intact-n307606

[Ron]

Maxine Waters telling people to harass people where eat where they sleep where they work

[JesseAz]

Examples of the tweets still up as of this morning:

https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/10/twitter-hasnt-suspended-these-accounts-or-tweets-that-openly-incite-violence/

Today seems like a good day for another reminder that all republicans deserve to die & also to add that most liberals are also complicit in all of this & also deserve to die

— Matt (@Mmm_Brownies) October 6, 2018

Republicans deserve to die!! Make the guillotine red again!!

— Axl Barnes (@axlbarnes) May 5, 2017

I love that all the women that ted bundy killed were white woman they deserved it just like all white women deserve to die

— Michael Braatz (@BraatzMichael) September 13, 2015

However all white women deserve to die.

— U Aderallready Know ✘ (@FuckOutDaWhey) June 1, 2013

Why isn’t Twitter pulled from AWS or the various stores? They are in like violations as they accuse of Parler (who does have moderation but they only remove illegal content).

[JesseAz]

BLM continue to incite and commit violence in the new year.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/01/10/large-antifa-group-marches-right-down-7th-avenue-in-nyc-in-full-black-bloc-with-battle-shields-n307643

There has been 6 days of violence in Portland since New Years day. including attacking a government official.

[JesseAz]

Portland continues.

https://nypost.com/2021/01/01/portland-kicks-off-2021-with-another-riot-for-the-new-year/

[KillAllRednecks]

Still prefer Portland to shithole Arizona!

[ElvisIsReal]

Shhhhhhhh, you're not supposed to notice this!

Watching people on my FB feed clutching their pearls about DC is epic, when they literally were cheering the rioting in Portland this winter, is truly epic. I know people who literally "fired" fireworks at occupied buildings in Portland, and they just CAN'T BELIEVE what happened in DC.

[R Mac]

I was unfriended by a “friend” from college because I said I thought locking people in a courthouse and lighting it on fire was worse than what happened Wednesday. It’s truly amazing cognitive dissonance.

[Gray_Jay]

Be glad it wasn't a Red Flag order against you instead.

But yeah, that sucks. Remember when it was rude to discuss politics in ordinary discourse? I miss that time.

[R Mac]

Normally I just ignore it, and go about my day. The only reason I’m on FB is because I’m in a craft beer group, which rightfully has a no politics/religion rule. But he had to post a big “this is what I think and it’s the truth and if you don’t think like me we can’t be friends” post, and I just couldn’t resist myself.

[JesseAz]

Reason has lost its way. It is sad to watch.

They are now pro fascism.

They repeat the same lies and rationalize to applaud this behavior. Instead of recognizing 230 as an extended legal protection they treat its removal as the government controlling websites somehow. Then they repeat the same ignorant phrase that the internet would end without 230, the same ignorant comment made by those fighting for Net Neutrality.

Reason is a joke.

[n00bdragon]

CDA Section 230 is not a legal "protection". It is the assignment of liability for content to the person who creates the content, not the person who hosts it. It's basic common sense as the alternative is pure crazy town. Don't believe me? Let's take a look at the four possible states:

A) The poster is liable but the host is not (current setup)
If you post something illegal you are responsible for that illegal content. This is why if someone posts CP or death threats or instructions to commit a crime or whatever the police can go after that person.

B) The host is liable but the poster is not
This would instantly (and I mean in less than 10 seconds, oh the powers of automated posting) lead to the end of the internet as we know it. It would be legally impossible to host any kind of user submitted content without direct human review of every single post. If you think that's good for the free flow of ideas just remember how open and free public discourse was in the age of newspapers and three TV channels.

C) Neither the poster nor the host are liable
The ultimate free speech scenario, and by ultimate I mean ultimate, as literally nothing could be illegal up to and including explicit instructions to carry out crimes.

D) Both the poster and the host are liable
This is what I suspect most anti-230 nutjobs imagine the solution to be and it's definitely the choice of some very large social media companies, that there should be some kind of sliding scale or joint responsibility for content, but consider for a moment: Who do you think could better navigate this sort of system? A huge multinational corporation with billions of dollars to spend on lawyers, full time content managers, and connections and influence to the very politicians who write the rules for the system or small web startups with none of that?

"A" is the only sensible choice. "B" and "C" are madness. If you think Disneyapplefacebookgoogleamazon controlling all human expression is a problem then "D" is suicide. It's funny how trumpistas can whine about censorship by big tech and then clamor to hand big tech even more censorship power. You people are truly the communist goons you claim to hate, in love with your big government created solutions to big government created problems.

[Gene Healy]

CDA Section 230 is not a legal “protection”. It is the assignment of liability for content to the person who creates the content, not the person who hosts it.

I.e a legal protection.

JFC you people.

[sockpuppet catcher]

sarcasmic is an imbecile

[Apex vs. Nader]

The host is protected from legal liabilty, but it isn't a legal protection. Newspeak is real.

[Mother's Lament]

It is when coupled with the ability to arbitrarily censor constitutionally protected speech or even innocuous speech if you wish.

All the powers of a publisher but none of the liability is the embodiment of legal protection.

[n00bdragon]

Publishers do not have "powers", they have property, and last I checked people are allowed to do with or not do with their own property however they please. You don't have a "right" to post on Twitter anymore than you have a "right" to attend someone's house party. They can boot you out for any reason because it is their house but yet you are still legally liable for your conduct inside should you do anything illegal.

[Michael S. Langston]

They have the power to use their property in a fair an unbiased way or not, just as landlords and bakers do.

[Overt]

If you think 230 Reform is going to stop companies like Amazon from canceling people they don't like, you have a harsh, and sad surprise waiting for you.

[SQRLSY One]

n00bdragon gets it! It's nice (thanks!) to hear the occasional voice of sanity, here, with respect to Section 230!

[sockpuppet catcher]

fuck off noobdragon

[n00bdragon]

Why do people think sarcasmic and I are the same person? Our posting styles are nothing alike and we butt heads on many issues (most recently mask wearing, which I am firmly against but he is for). Maybe it comforts some people to imagine that everyone they disagree with is only one person with many accounts?

[SQRLSY One]

Fascists can't STAND the idea (FACT actually) that MANY people oppose their fascism! It comforts them to think that they have only ONE (or 2, maybe 3) truth-telling opponents.

[JesseAz]

Lol. Sarcasmic, what do you think "is held liable" means? It is a liability protection against lawsuits.

Just wow.

[SQRLSY One]

And can you tell us what "individual freedom" means? Property rights? Honesty? NOT being a "power pig"? Maybe you should go look them up!

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Dumbfuck HihnSQRLSo loves it when global megacorps implement the socio-economic agenda of a major political party.

[SQRLSY One]

Red Rocks for "Brains" thinks "D" party 1-party dictatorshit would suck... I agree... However...

Red Rocks for "Brains" ALSO thinks "R" party 1-party dictatorshit would result in Heaven on Earth! I think that here, Red Rocks for "Brains" has been listening to the Lizard Men! And worse, also to the Evil One!

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Dumbfuck HihnSQRLSo loves his neo-corporate facism.

[JesseAz]

In other words, a legal protection.

[Mother's Lament]

You deliberately left out the Good Samaritan clause, which is the part everyone has issue with.

“(230) provides “Good Samaritan” protection from civil liability for operators of interactive computer services in the removal or moderation of third-party material they deem obscene or offensive, even of constitutionally protected speech”

Why did you do that?

Nobody has a problem with “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker”.
But creating a regulation that gives you a special protection to create a speech platform that allows for you to escape liability yourself but still arbitrarily censor your users according to your whims, is extraordinary.

This is what everyone is objecting to. Why are you pretending it isn't?

[SQRLSY One]

Your endless word salads do NOT disguise your lusts to take over the properties of others, and PUNISH-PUNISH-PUNISH-PUNISH all wrong-thinkers, who do NOT agree with Momma! Momma wants ME to pay with MY free speech, for HER punishment boner! Can you NOT see your arrogance and greed?

[Mother's Lament]

word salads

FFS sarcasmic, if you don't know what a term means, Google it before you use it.

I'll buy you a "Word of the Day" calendar if it'll help.

[n00bdragon]

Because property rights exist. Facebook is not a public utility. Its servers do not belong to the government. They have a right to host (or remove) whatever content they want. The ability to moderate is essential to building any kind of forum. Imagine trying to create a forum for a particular topic without being able to remove content unrelated to the topic. Actually, don't imagine that. Just read a Reason.com comments thread.

[Mother's Lament]

If you want to remove content that is not illegal then you should be liable for the curated results.
You shouldn't get to arbitrarily say "I get to remove this innocuous statement simply because I disagree, but I'll keep this libelous one up because it fits my political views".

You use Reason as an example, but the results here aren't curated, and the 2 or 3 posters who are doing 99% of the trolling and shitposting here, are all avowed advocates of 230's Good Samaritan clause.

[SQRLSY One]

"If you want to remove content that is not illegal then you should be liable for the curated results."

"Justice" (in Momma's eyes) = punishing one person for the doings of another!

I look forward to YOU cheering on Government Almighty, Momma, when Government Almighty starts punishing YOU for what I write!

[n00bdragon]

I can accept that as a good faith argument, but I can also rebut it:
“I get to remove this innocuous statement simply because I disagree, but I’ll keep this libelous one up because it fits my political views”
Yes, that's exactly how it works and there's nothing wrong with this at all. You get to remove anything you want because its your message board, your property, and you can do or not do whatever you like with it. You can also choose to leave up whatever you want, even illegal stuff, because you're not the one who put it there. You could take it down if you wanted to, or not, your choice, but the responsibility the legal mandate to remove it does not fall on you. The legal responsibility for the action lies with the person who ultimately took it (the poster).

Let me attempt to illustrate once more: Let's say you are having a party at your house. Some people attend and you are free to invite or boot people as you please because it's your house. No one has a "right" to attend your party. Now, let's say someone does something illegal at the party, let's say one guest murders another. By your reasoning the host should be held responsible for the murder. That's crazy and I hope you will excuse the reduction of this logic to the absurd but that's what it is. It is the job of the police to come and take the murderer away, not the responsibility of the host, and jail time is the appropriate punishment, not merely being kicked out of the house.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Let me attempt to illustrate once more: Let’s say you are having a party at your house. Some people attend and you are free to invite or boot people as you please because it’s your house. No one has a “right” to attend your party. Now, let’s say someone does something illegal at the party, let’s say one guest murders another. By your reasoning the host should be held responsible for the murder.

A complex society is nowhere NEAR analogous to a kegger at your house.

[n00bdragon]

What is society but the "keggers" we collectively throw?

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

So I'm okay with not letting niggers into my house?

[n00bdragon]

Yes. The CRA is a travesty for freedom. You have every right to be whatever kind of a jerk to people you want to be. That's what freedom is. Nobody needs rights to do things everyone approves of.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

But that's not how it works. I brought up that example specifically because of the CRA.

You can make the argument that you shouldn't be required to let anyone in to your "house," but that's not how it is in the real world. A social media megacorps is NOT the same thing as your home, and the CRA is selectively applied depending on the political fashion of the day.

[Gray_Jay]

Oh I see now. This is the argument about the world you'd like to see in Libertopia, instead of the world we actually live in.

Well, now that both of your feet are planted firmly in the air, Noob, this is the point where i tell you to go keep getting fucked by these companies.

You sound OK with the prospect.

[mamabug]

Let's go down the analogy rabbit hole:

You are having a giant carnival in an open field. Town law says you can eject people from the venue as long as you are acting in 'good faith.' You declare on the invite that, due to health and safety, while in the venue people must have their feet must be covered at all times.

People show up. It is free to get into the carnival attend, but you give them a wristband into which they enter personal details and that they must wear at all times. The wristband tracks everything they do, every personal detail about them they mention, and everyone they talk to - which data you then sell to third parties. This is how you make your money for the 'free' carnival. It isn't a cash exchange, but they are bartering their personal information for access to the venue.

Some people you encourage to set up attractions and games on their own dime. You 'pay' them a small amount for each person they get to attend their attraction. This generates more data, which you keep on selling.

Some of the attraction owners and attendants slip off their shoes and walk around in socks. This goes on for a long time and then, suddenly and without warning, you go through and kick out SOME of the people wearing socks but not others using the 'feet must be covered' rule.

When those who put time and money into building attractions to generate new visitors whose data you used to profit object to the unequal treatment, you cite the town's rule that they can remove people in 'good faith.' Naturally, you get to keep all the generated data and continue reselling it to make money.

This is the current state and the current objections that the courts and the legislature haven't addressed. These companies are profiting off of other people's efforts and enforcing their contract terms unequally and arbitrarily.

I don't think the publisher/platform argument makes sense nor that repealing Section 230 is the answer. In a just, non-hyper-partisan world I would like to see an amendment to it that states something like 'if data gathered on users is being monetized, then the TOS must be unambiguous, enforced in a non-biased manner, and not retroactively applied to suspend or ban users.'

[n00bdragon]

I don’t think the publisher/platform argument makes sense nor that repealing Section 230 is the answer. In a just, non-hyper-partisan world I would like to see an amendment to it that states something like ‘if data gathered on users is being monetized, then the TOS must be unambiguous, enforced in a non-biased manner, and not retroactively applied to suspend or ban users.’

Okay, let's keep running with this example. Let's say some visitor sees someone with their shoes off and complains to the town that the carnival is letting people run around without shoes. The carnival replies that it does its best to make sure everyone wears shoes at all times but it can't catch everyone. You can't require the carnival to police footwear. They're a carnival, not a police department. If by some misguided chance you DO require the carnival to do police work you ensure that only the biggest and most politically connected carnivals can stay open because only they can bear the burden of the costs and have the influence to mold the rules to fit what they were doing anyway. You still get the arbitrary enforcement, but now the madness has the stamp of public approval and you can't choose to go to a different carnival with a different shoe policy.

[mamabug]

Well, first off, the town is not requiring visitors to wear shoes, that is the carnival owner's own rule. And, if that were handled as an enforceable contract, then once some points out another visitor not wearing shoes I would expect the carnival to treat them under the same terms. What should not be legally permissible is for them to say person A is okay because wearing socks covers your feet but person B is not because we don't like him and for the carnival owner to continue profiting off of person B.

I think you missed my larger point, which is that what I fundamentally object to is unequal contract enforcement between users and attraction owners that allows the carnival owner to continue to profit off of them without any guarantee of the services they agreed to 'pay' for. It's even worse in the case of attraction owners where not only are they banned, but all the materials they used to build the attraction are confiscated so they are unable to even relocate it elsewhere.

And, at this point, the analogy is effectively dead. Now, please address two points - is what is being done ethically permissible in a free and just society AND if not, how would you change the current state of contract enforcement.

[n00bdragon]

It IS permissible, or at least it should be. You might not consider it ethical or just or right but that's the thing about free societies. Freedom implies the ability and the choice to be wrong. A society that gives up freedom for justice and morality will end up with neither. This is a well proven fact by this point.

[mamabug]

Ah, well, if we can't even agree that equal and predictable enforcement of contracts should be an ethical norm, we can't even begin to discuss whether it should be a legal one.

[Overt]

"But creating a regulation that gives you a special protection to create a speech platform that allows for you to escape liability yourself but still arbitrarily censor your users according to your whims, is extraordinary."

Fucking A, man. This is not "extraordinary" at all. It has been the case for hundreds of years. If some assholes plan a bank robbery in a bar, the bartender isn't held liable for it.

And even before Section 230, the courts were split on this precisely because it is not at all extraordinary. It was pretty much common for other sites for years- you could moderate even for content (say, banning all political speech whatsoever on a special interest forum) for years. It was only when a couple judges started trying to force platforms to take liability for certain speech that congress stepped in and clarified the law.

[Michael S. Langston]

So Congress had to clarify the law for Internet companies, but not for bars, making section 230 the definition of extraordinary, even as you claim it is not....

[A Cynical Asshole]

B) The host is liable but the poster is not
This would instantly (and I mean in less than 10 seconds, oh the powers of automated posting) lead to the end of the internet as we know it. It would be legally impossible to host any kind of user submitted content without direct human review of every single post.

But imagine all the jobs created! /sarc

[Zeb]

Insane. You have to defend the cultural value of free speech or the legal right isn't worth much.

[SQRLSY One]

"230 is an extra legal protection."

Hey JesseBahnFuhrer... No matter HOW many times you tell your "Big Lie", it is NOT true! You're part of the mob, aren't you? For a small fee, you tell small businesses that you will "protect" them... From you and your mob! Refute the below, ye greedy authoritarian who wants to shit all over the concept of private property!

A prime argument of enemies of Section 230 is, since the government does such a HUGE favor for owners of web sites, by PROTECTING web site owners from being sued (in the courts of Government Almighty) as a “publisher”, then this is an unfair treatment of web site owners! Who SHOULD (lacking “unfair” section 230 provisions) be able to get SUED for the writings of OTHER PEOPLE! And punished by Government Almighty, for disobeying any and all decrees from Government Almighty’s courts, after getting sued!

In a nutshell: Government Almighty should be able to boss around your uses of your web site, because, after all, Government Almighty is “protecting” you… From Government Almighty!!!

Wow, just THINK of what we could do with this logic! Government Almighty is “protecting” you from getting sued in matters concerning who you chose to date or marry… In matters concerning what line of work you chose… What you eat and drink… What you read… What you think… Therefore, Government Almighty should be able to boss you around on ALL of these matters, and more! The only limits are the imaginations and power-lusts of politicians!

[JesseAz]

You just agreed that it is legal protection above. You're just too dumb to realize it sarcasmic.

[SQRLSY One]

Government Almighty is “protecting” you from getting sued in matters concerning who you chose to date or marry… In matters concerning what line of work you chose… What you eat and drink… What you read… What you think… Therefore, Government Almighty should be able to boss you around on ALL of these matters, and more! The only limits are the imaginations and power-lusts of politicians!

And JesseBahnFuhrer it TOTALLY on board with endless totalitarianism!

[Michael S. Langston]

If it [section 230] is not extra legal protection, then why exactly does it exist?

[mad.casual]

Khomeini alone does more to incite violence than anything Trump has done.

This, IMO, is a lynchpin for anti-Globalist consideration/sympathies and I've pointed this out with regard to immigration and 'borders are just a figment of imagination'. They don't want to globalize Western values. They want to globalize top down control.

They don't want to bring peace to the parts of the world where there aren't already peace, they don't want to bring freedom to the parts of the world where there isn't freedom. They want to bring control to the parts of the world where there is peace, the peace and freedom are presumed or implied to follow (or not).

[mad.casual]

The peace and freedom *elsewhere* are presumed or implied to follow.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

It's funny, I thought the plot in Winter Soldier was just a clever storyline for advancing the MCU when that movie came out. Turns out it was describing exactly what the globalists want to implement.

[jomo]

You may want to refresh your memory on who Hydra is and where they came from.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

No, I know exactly who they are. And that doesn't negate my point.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Alexander Pierce: See, I took a seat on the Council not because I wanted to, but because Nick asked me to, because we were both realists. We knew, that despite all diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, to build a better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down. And that makes enemies.

-------------------------

Alexander Pierce: Our enemies are your enemies, Nick. Disorder, war. It's just a matter of time before a dirty bomb goes off in Moscow, or an EMP fries Chicago. Diplomacy? Holding action, a band-aid. And you know where I learned that; Bogota. You didn't ask, you just did what had to be done. I can bring order to the lives of seven billion people by sacrificing twenty million. It's the next step, Nick, if you have the courage to take it.

------------------------------------

Nick Fury: These new long range precision guns can eliminate a thousand hostiles a minute. The satellites can read a terrorist's DNA before he steps outside his spider hole. We're gonna neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen.

Steve Rogers: I thought the punishment usually came *after* the crime.

Nick Fury: We can't afford to wait that long.

Steve Rogers: Who's "we"?

Nick Fury: After New York, I convinced the World Security Council we needed a quantum surge in threat analysis. For once we're way ahead of the curve.

Steve Rogers: By holding a gun at everyone on Earth and calling it protection.

Nick Fury: You know, I read those SSR files. Greatest generation? You guys did some nasty stuff.

Steve Rogers: Yeah, we compromised. Sometimes in ways that made us not sleep so well. But we did it so the people could be free. This isn't freedom, this is fear.

Nick Fury: S.H.I.E.L.D. takes the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be. And it's getting damn near past time for you to get with that program, Cap.

Steve Rogers: Don't hold your breath.

[jomo]

Here’s another problem though.

People that are mad that Trump got de-Twittered are the same people largely speaking that want to get back at them by getting rid of Section 230.

So basically, people want to use the threat of “publisher liability” to get back at the platforms. In the context of fighting back against so-called “censorship” of conservatives.

So say you (you being anyone on that train of thought) get what you want and 230 is stricken or changed. You have now successfully advocated to get Big Gov to decide who can do what and say what… and FURTHERMORE, what do you think a future Twitter now does in that environment? BAN ANYONE THAT SAYS ANYTHING EVEN REMOTELY “DANGEROUS” SO THEY CAN’T BE SUED UNDER YOUR NEW RULES.

I’m not saying what is going on now is perfect, and there are separate arguments if we split it into “morally can/should”
versus “legally can/should.” But think about it. If the revenge against Twitter is to nuke 230, then all you will get is MORE deplatforming because they will be forced to worry about everything everyone says.

[Outside the Box]

"Because I can show you hundreds of calls for violence on Twitter/FB still. "

Amazon does not host Twitter/FB on AWS.

[Fist of Etiquette]

"More than 5,000 law school alumni and students have signed a petition calling for the disbarment of Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) over what it says were their 'efforts to undermine the peaceful transition of power after a free and fair election...

Attorneys. Is it possible for them all to lose here?

[JesseAz]

Why are democrats against Democracy and trying to remove duly elected members? We have been told for the last week that this is sedition.

[SQRLSY One]

Why does Der JesseBahnFuhrer lust after a never-ending 1-Party "R"-state dictatorshit?

[TJJ2000]

This country would find itself in wealth, peace and prosperity again (like it did for 200-years) if it would honor the dictatorship of the U.S. Constitution.

Which state's the USA will NEVER be a dictatorship until Nazi's invade and ignore The People's law over their government.

And with as much dis-alignment there is in the Republican party your fears are completely unfounded.... With the way Pelosi screams and the entire Left jumps ---- That is what you have to worry about dictatorship developing in.

[SQRLSY One]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/24/politics/trump-election-warnings-leaving-office/index.html
A list of the times Trump has said he won’t accept the election results or leave office if he loses
Essential heart and core of the LIE by Trump: “ANY election results not confirming MEEE as Your Emperor, MUST be fraudulent!”
September 13 rally: “The Democrats are trying to rig this election because that’s the only way they’re going to win,” he said.

Trump’s constant re-telling and supporting the Big Lie (any election not electing Trump is "stolen") set up the environment for this (insurrection riot) to happen. He shares the blame. Boys will be boys? Insurrectionists will be insurrectionists, so let’s forgive and forget? Poor Trump was misunderstood? Does that sound good and right and true?

It really should immediately make us think of Krystalnacht. Hitler and the NAZIs set up for this by constantly blaming Jews for all things bad. Jew-haters will be Jew-haters, so let’s forgive and forget? Poor Hitler was misunderstood? Does that sound good and right and true?

[sockpuppet catcher]

fuck off sarcasmic

[Mother's Lament]

Did you just compare Trump's court electoral challenges to the holocaust?

Wow! You're something else.

[Mother's Lament]

What an evil fucking tool sarcasmic is.

[JesseAz]

Democrats have done it for a month or two now. So Sarcasmic happily pushes the left's narrative.

[SQRLSY One]

You fascists PLEASE tell us WHAT, exactly, means that NAZI-like bullshit can NOT go down here in the USA, or Canada, or anywhere else? Especially when YOU (and your types) cheer it endlessly on an on?

Laws of chemistry or physics or some such? PLEASE educate us all, Oh Great Wise Ones! Or are we just to TRUST in You?

[Mother's Lament]

Sarcasmic, if you weren't a low-information idiot, you'd know that the encyclopedia definition of fascism is when you have the leaders of business and unions implementing the political agenda of a political party.

You're rooting for fascism in the literal, dictionary sense.

[SQRLSY One]

May I humbly suggest for you, a 3-step program?

'1) Banish the Lizard Men in your head. That preps you to be clear-headed for the next 2 steps...

'2) Write your magic 35,298-page, DETAILED policy to explain what, when, and how Momma is going to devise and implement the Perfect (or at least Near-Perfect) Policies for Canuckistanistanistanistan to lock OUT the political opponents of Momma, and control the web sites of others, there in Canuckistanistanistanistan. DEMONSTRATE the Superiority of Mommonian Policies, there in Canuckistanistanistanistan.

'3) Write up your results and SELL them to the USA! If Your System works as well as You say it will, I am SURE that the USA will want to pay you $BILLIONS for it all!

[Nardz]

Sqrlsy is a New Nazi

[SQRLSY One]

Hey Nadless Nardzi the Nasty NAZI… You are a Holocaust denier just like Rob Misek! Two peas in a pod, you and Rob Misek are!
Do you deny what the NAZIs did? Perhaps not, I do not know HOW far your evil goes! You strut in front of a mirror wearing NAZI gear for all I know!

What I DO know is that you ignore the roots of NAZI, and other, evil, mass-murdering authoritarianism! You, like Hitler and the NAZIs and other evil authoritarians, start out by assuming that YOU know whose life is worthy, and whose is not! Then you move on to sterilization and killing! It all starts out by denying the value of other human lives! And if you can’t or won’t see and acknowledge that, you’re a deluded and EVIL Holocaust denier, same as Rob Misek!

You and and your fuckbuddy, Shitsy Shitler, also run around telling people to commit suicide! I have NEVER been THAT evil! Nor even THOUGHT about saying that to people! Take stock of your SERIOUSLY FUCKED UP SOUL, Evil One Junior! Start by reading this: M. Scott Peck, the Hope for Healing Human Evil, https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684848597/reasonmagazinea-20/

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Dumbfuck HihnSQRLSo thinks mean words are worse than Dem-BigTech facism.

[TJJ2000]

Is this a lefty questioner?
1) "whose life is worthy, and whose is not"
BLACK lives matter!
2) "move on to sterilization and killing"
CANCEL the right!
3) "denying the value of other human lives"
LATER-TERM abortions for the WIN!

Fits like a glove.

[JesseAz]

Sarcasmic has lost all morality. Hilarious.

[Michael S. Langston]

lol - Lost implies he/she/it had some to begin with.

[Moonrocks]

Not surprised at all that Reason is in support of silencing the left's enemies. I am surprised that they'd even bring it up.

On a tangentially related note, I've previously compared Reason to the old Pravda for their similar leftist views and propaganda tactics. I stand by that, but note that even still Reason is on the "right" of the left-wing propaganda spectrum, the bulk of which has descended into North Korean "coffee made of snow"-tier fiction.

[SQRLSY One]

"Not surprised at all that Reason is in support of silencing the left’s enemies."

Not surprised at all that enemies of individual freedom, and Reason.com, make up strawmen, and then slay and burn them with great relish!

Do you have a citation or example? From other than the drunks under the overpass, or the Lizard Men?

[sockpuppet catcher]

fuck off sarcasmic

[JesseAz]

You can rationalize your authoritarian impulses as much as you want sarcasmic.

You're happy that giant multi national corporations have teamed up with your preferred political beliefs to silence the opposition.

That's on you.

[SQRLSY One]

I notice that Ye Mighty Slayers of Strawmen haven't been able to come up with examples of "...Reason is in support of silencing the left’s enemies.”

WHY, pray tell, is THAT, liars?

[Mother's Lament]

I've noticed that your responses get stupider the more threatened you feel by the post.

[SQRLSY One]

I've noticed that you can't refute what I write!

[R Mac]

Most of what you write is gibberish, and unworthy of refutation.

[SQRLSY One]

Most of what you write is moronic, and unworthy of reading.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Most of what Dumbfuck HihnSQRLSo writes is copypasta.

[Gray_Jay]

"Most of what you write is gibberish..."

This. Flag & Refresh. Which should be the new title of this forum.

[JesseAz]

Reason is more like Walter Duranty at this point.

[SQRLSY One]

JesseBahnFuhrer is more like Stalin at this point.

[R Mac]

Retarded squirrel should learn about Stalin, so he stops making himself look like such a retard.

[Gray_Jay]

No, Jesse. People paid, and cared to read what Walter Duranty had to write.

[SQRLSY One]

If you don't "care to read" what Reason.com writes... Then PLEASE move on! Bratfart LOVES your type, over THERE! THEY will tell YOU what YOU insist on hearing! God forbid that YOU should be exposed to pro-individual-freedom thinking, and that you would actually carefully consider it!

[soldiermedic76]

Are you a self proclaimed libertarians actually criticizing people for criticizing Reason? And asking them to stop?

[soldiermedic76]

Because libertariansim screams echo chamber and sycophantic thinking.

[soldiermedic76]

Actually, unfortunately in a lot of cases I am afraid it does.

[SQRLSY One]

I've had multiple jerks on these pages urge me to commit suicide! If they can do that, and advocate for authoritarianism, and worse, then I can ask them to please "move along", and stop contaminating these often pro-freedom thoughts on these pages! If they like Bratfart better, asking them to move to Bratfart is an EXCELLENT idea, IMHO, and so I am asking them to do so!

They use their freedom to advocate taking away the freedoms of others... Which is hypocrisy! Hypocrisy breeds hypocrisy!

"Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees", which is contagious hypocrisy! HOW do we fend it off, if we can't talk about it?

https://www.thebanner.org/features/2019/01/beware-the-yeast-of-the-pharisees
Beware the Yeast of the Pharisees

[Gray_Jay]

That was an unusual conversation to witness, Soldier. Are all of your voices in agreement now?

It gets difficult here sometimes, remembering which conversation you're replying to.

[soldiermedic76]

I may the type of person that always realizes what I should have stated after the conversation is over. Or a better point.

[Cyto]

Is it really possible that 5,000 attorneys signed such a letter? I mean, there are a lot of stupid attorneys running around. But 5,000 who thought that signing such a thing was a good idea? And how do you get together 5,000 people in the first place? It's not like they've had enough time to circulate a petition. I'm calling BS on the 5,000 attorney thing.

[Gray_Jay]

I can see it. The Plaintiff's Bar, and law students desiring to work in same, would likely put it on their CV. Curious what the breakout is between practitioners, students, and law school professors.

[mamabug]

I believe it. It said 'law school graduates' not 'practicing attorneys.' A lot of those graduates go on to work in politics.

[a libertarian]

Why am I not surprised to see all the pro-Trump "libertarians" suddenly throwing the concept of freedom of association out the window because they don't like the outcome in a particular scenario? You people are all Big Government progressives. At least the ones on the left will admit it.

[ThomasD]

The libertarian concept of freedom of association died with the Civil Rights Act, and the countless court rulings extending it's mandate to anything favored by the leftists and/or statists.

A. Where the fuck have you been?
B. Now bake the fucking cake you lying statist shit.

[sockpuppet catcher]

fuck off sarcasmic

[mad.casual]

You people are all Big Government progressives. At least the ones on the left will admit it.

So, if we categorize the parties as unashamed authoritarian dictators and ashamed authoritarian dictators, guess which side you're not only defending but (hint: unashamedly) pledging feilty to?

[JesseAz]

LOL. Mob attacks on the minority is just freedom of association don't you know. Deplatform them. Take away their jobs. Threaten their families (yes, CPS has been used by Democrat politicians to attack the right).

Good on you for removing your mask.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Sort of like "libertarians" being willing to accept Chinese authoritarianism in exchange for saving $10 on a power drill at Lowe's.

[Overt]

"all the pro-Trump “libertarians” suddenly throwing the concept of freedom of association out the window"

I am not pro trump, and I am explicitly condemning the behavior of the Tech Community. There was a time when the left rallied behind individuals who were marginalized or silenced by private entities- Businesses that would fire, and shun homosexuals or Jews.

Do I think the government should intervene here? No. But that doesn't mean these actions are a good idea. Decent people should absolutely condemn any company that attempts to limit free speech- and ESPECIALLY companies that attack free speech platforms.

[a libertarian]

"Do I think the government should intervene here? No"

I was referring to the significant majority of posters here who do

[soldiermedic76]

Examples? And by majority show percentiles

[loveconstitution1789]

Poor Commies at unreason, MSM and in Silicon Valley.

Wall Street should pull Amazon, Apple, and Google's abilities to use the stock market. Watch the Commies squirm when their businesses cant get capital to fund these schemes.

Notice Commies always want to use public infrastructure and protections of law but then claim PRIVATE COMPANY when they literally attack Americans and their freedoms?

[JesseAz]

I also see Reason is completely ignoring the attempts of the left and Cori Bush to expel members who used the same certification tactics the left did in 2001, 2005, and 2017.

From constitutional law professor Dershowitz:

It is a mistake, however, to cast blame on public officials who were exercising their constitutional rights to protest the election at rallies and on the floor of Congress. Both the First Amendment and the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause are crucial elements of our democracy. Their limits were tested on Wednesday by Trump’s speech to his supporters, and by those of Senator Ted Cruz and others.

ADVERTISEMENT
Neither the First Amendment nor the speech and debate clause are limited to communications with which we agree. They were designed to permit controversial speech — even dangerous speech — so long as it remains within the constraints of the law. Yesterday’s speeches, however disturbing or worrisome to so many, were well within those constraints.

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/533148-our-constitution-passed-a-difficult-stress-test

Reason is now a joke.

[JesseAz]

Other libertarian sites recognize the actual issues here.

https://mises.org/wire/capitol-riot-wasnt-coup-it-wasnt-even-close

Reason does not.

[Ron]

the left has essentially claimed that violence is protected free speech through their support of riots all year long and even AOC and others said protest have to scare people

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Left-wing violence is protected free speech. That's the double standard at work here. And the MUH PRINCIPLZ crowd are happy to go along with it because they actually think private companies are sacrosanct entities who can do no wrong as long as they're chasing profits.

[I, Woodchipper]

Their limits were tested on Wednesday by Trump’s speech to his supporters,

Please. Trump's speech was run of the mill rhetoric you hear at any political rally for any party.

[Moonrocks]

I'm surprised Reason is even talking about the great purge.

[JesseAz]

It is support. That way they won't get purged.

[loveconstitution1789]

unreason has been practicing good "anti-against the wall" propaganda for years.

[ThomasD]

This.

May their chains sit lightly upon them.

[Ron]

but soon they will not talk about the purge since that acknowledges the purge. History must be re written

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

With the most tepid of condemnations.

Even the ACLU is more against this than Reason. That should speak volumes.

[JesseAz]

Biden just a few days ago.

As President, I pledge to continue to work together with Congresswoman Giffords, and with survivors, families, and advocates across the country, to defeat the NRA and end the epidemic of gun violence in America.

He wants to end both gun rights and the rights to assembly and free speech for the NRA.

Reason condones.

https://buildbackbetter.gov/press-releases/statement-by-president-elect-joe-biden-on-the-10th-anniversary-of-the-tucson-shooting/

[Gray_Jay]

Why wouldn't they, Jesse? You know what a pain in the ass it is to own---nevermind carry!---a firearm in D.C. Not an issue that's 'local enough' for them to give much of a shit. Besides, they are under the delusion, judging by Tuccille's article a few days ago, that surely the Federal Government won't push a gun ban when so many new gun owners bought guns this last year. LOL.

[Bill Godshall]

As one who acknowledges and supports most of Trump's achievements (but not most of his rhetoric) as President, I hope Pelosi impeaches Trump a second time due to partisan hatred, as doing so will make it even more difficult for Pelosi to impose her party's left wing anti American agenda in the next two years.

Many Americans who tolerated (and even supported) Pelosi, Schiff, Nadler, Waters, Jeffries, Hoyer, Clyburn, AOC, her squad and other left wing Democrat House members during the past four years will be repulsed by another nonsensical impeachment inspired by hatred.

[loveconstitution1789]

Trump is already the best president in US history. No other president has had to endure so many internal enemies to America AND Trump has fulfilled many of his campaign promises AND rolled back many Commies policies.

[Sevo]

And cut my taxes.

[TJJ2000]

And had an entire committee on De-Regulating.

[Earth Skeptic]

United we stand, but Divided we riot (and make better news).

[TJJ2000]

I think you're giving the left WAY too much credit here. I've been saying for years there is no way American people would support a Nazi party but here we are today.

--- MOST Americans (by popular vote anyways - if not fraud-ed) are not just supporting National Socialism they are demanding IT. Speech censorship, Cancel Culture, Racism, Sexism... We've had a whole 2-years of the left acting like entire wack-jobs and fitting the Nazi agenda to a T only to have them take the entire legislative and executive government on a re-election term......

No sorry; If it wasn't election fraud there is no other excuse for this short of being entire and completely POWER-MAD...

[JesseAz]

What is hilarious is watching the left accuse others of the state they are in as a party. You can literally make direct parallels to the SS, Red Guard, or whatever other authoritarian regime you wish to choose.

[mamabug]

The one thing the fascists got wrong 80 years ago was in choosing to out-group people based on ethnicity. It appears it is far more effective to out-group them only partially on ethnicity, but mostly on ideology.

[mad.casual]

Moreover, their streamlined and baseless impeachment will make it easier to correct any mandates their candidates may or may not have won.

Of course, in practice, they'll cry foul and make it near impossible to use against them, but logically/logistically, they'll have made it feasible to impeach a President practically in the moment for virtually any civil unrest.

[Sometimes Bad Is Bad]

Section 230 didn't save parler and it won't save reason

[loveconstitution1789]

Ironically, Section 230 wont save Google, Amazon, and Twatter either.

[soldiermedic76]

Twitter already is tanking. Users are fleeing it after they banned Trump, Facebook is still doing okay, but they definitely have the possibility of becoming the next MySpace. It is just a matter of time. Unless the government intervenes to stifle competition (which is already stifled by the government but can be worked around, even if difficult).

[TJJ2000]

They...... like Pelosi think they can CANCEL our president and pretend it's 'those' people trying to take over the government. I'm telling you the left has an amazing ability to project.

[mad.casual]

Facebook is still doing okay, but they definitely have the possibility of becoming the next MySpace.

There's a case to be made that between Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. they should've been MySpaced 10 yrs. ago.

[soldiermedic76]

The problem is that none of them offered enough of a difference to show a better product. And today none of those offer enough of an ideological difference to attract people who are opposed to Facebook's current actions (especially instagram as FB now owns it). Facebook was a marked improvement over MySpace and thus consumers began drifting towards it. At first many people had both a MySpace and a FB, and MySpace really didn't do anything to counter FB. They tested on their laurels. FB is convinced nothing can compete with them, they are doing little to improve their services while taking their consumers for granted. Thus they are riper than at any time in their existence for the emergence of a true competitor. The difference however, is today the big tech companies appear to be United in stifling competition.

[mad.casual]

The problem is that none of them offered enough of a difference to show a better product.

I disagree but a bit of my point is that it's a chicken v. egg issue. Pornhub, to this day, outperforms YouTube in terms of self-standing business revenue. There isn't an essential technology or feature Facebook has that didn't originate elsewhere or hasn't been effectively cloned plenty of other places. Their 'technology' is the same as when they were a college-only match.com; they're popular.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

The problem is that none of them offered enough of a difference to show a better product.

And Facebook was just a shitty MySpace clone until it got angel investment from Peter Thiel, whose company Palantir has been on the CIA's investment portfolio since the beginning, and Jim Breyer, a lobbyist with known ties to the CIA and DoD.

Why are you laboring under the delusion that Facebook's rise was because they had such an awesome product? They are big precisely because the government has allowed them to do so (and as Snowden revealed, in order to make it easier to spy on people), not because their product was so revolutionary.

[soldiermedic76]

Your explanation could be true it doesn't change the argument that barring some outside force (which could be government) that FB is ripe for a MySpacing. Precisely because they have decided they don't need to respect their customer base.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

The argument is based on a scenario that isn't applicable, though. Yes, if Facebook or Google didn't have sponsorship or investment from the feds, they'd be ripe for a fall from competitors.

But as long as these guys are working arm-in-arm with the government, they will never be MySpaced into oblivion. The feds have too much money invested in them to let it happen. And the feds don't give a squirt of piss for the company's "customers," and as such, neither will the company. Why should they give a shit if people leave to a competitor when, as we've seen just in the last week, they can choke off access to that competitor with the government's blessing AND money, and then strangle it to death?

[Nardz]

It's amazing that you still can't see where we're at.
There is no more market. There is no more law. There are no more rights.
There is only The Party.

[soldiermedic76]

The fee market is definitely hackled. But you are wrong that it is all over nd we should retreat to our bunkers.

[Gray_Jay]

Who said anything about retreating?

[soldiermedic76]

That is how I interpret his constant cries that it is all over and when I offer any different approaches his response that it won't work because it is all over.

[Overt]

"Unless the government intervenes to stifle competition "

Why do you think Dorsey and Zuck have been spending so much time on capital hill? They are literally begging the government to impose restrictions on them that are so onerous as to practically cement their position as the worlds' speech platforms.

[soldiermedic76]

Which I agree is their desired outcome.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Parler was painted as a broadly conservative answer to Twitter, a place where free speech reigned. In reality, it attracted a certain strain of conservatism—that which worshiped President Donald Trump and often trafficked in wild conspiracy theories...

"In reality" suggests those two things are necessarily at odds. Theories, proven, provable or none of the above, are speech.

[Mickey Rat]

If that is a legitimate reason to completely shut that kind of speech off from any kind of platform, then we do not honor the concept of free speech.

[Fist of Etiquette]

In the Trump era and likely beyond, there are few unwavering free speech defenders remaining.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Parler isn't really a competitor for Apple, Amazon, or Google, and Parler's head displays a fuzzy conception of free markets if he thinks it means big tech companies must contract with apps and businesses they don't wish to, for whatever reason.

Completely missing the obvious collusion in restraint of trade that these companies engaged in.

[JesseAz]

Private Companies colluding is no longer anti free market according to Reason.

[Overt]

In the past, free companies colluded to shut out many "deplorable" people. Homosexuals, Jews, Mormons, Communists- they were all victims of private institutions exercising their right to free association.

And they were (rightly) condemned for their intolerance. If ENB's article were re-written for those times, it would read something like this:
"Backdoor Books was painted as a broadly liberal answer to traditional bookstores, a place where freedom of expression reigned. In reality it attracted a certain strain of deviancy- that which strived to the base immorality and sinfulness of men and often trafficked in disgusting and exploitive porn."

Rather than a weak "I guess this behavior isn't great" followed by a firm invocation of the right to associate, ENB would be doing the exact opposite if it were some cause she supported. She would say "Sure, businesses ought to associate with who they choose, but we should absolutely call them out when they operate counter to the philosophies of open and free expression."

The fact that she is so obviously uncomfortable even criticizing these stifling maneuvers is not surprising to me, but still quite dismaying. And I think it explains why so many people guffawed when Nick called her out as the "most libertarian" person he knows.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

She's revealing herself more and more as a Bill Maher-type libertarian--someone who's into it primarily for the hedonistic practices it supports, rather than as an overarching socio-economic dedication to the philosophy.

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

Yeah, it was clearly coordinated collusion.

Removed from 2 app stores, the only 2 that matter, then kicked off the web completely within 36 hours. And at the behest of Democrats who’ve been calling for the obliteration of conservative speech for 4 years. It started with the flags of “missing context” and “fact checks”, then moved to de-platforming individuals who say things they don’t like, then blocking legitimate news stories from circulation simply because it would hurt team blue optics, and now to disappearing entire platforms because the people they would not allow speak on existing platforms decided to move to their own platform not under the control of existing gatekeepers of acceptable speech.

This is the type of action that monopoly policing powers is supposed to stop. These companies have literally made their competition disappear overnight.

This is fucking insanity.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Any libertarian who thinks this is going to be solved by "free market principles" is delusional. The government and its media/BigTech allies have made it quite clear that they are going to work together to squash anything that dissents from the left-liberal consensus. It might take a while longer with more established voices, but people on the margins, or Inner Party members, like you and me? They're going to get cut off immediately.

The hysterics going on about "the People's House" supposedly getting invaded was the establishment quaking at the possibility that their corrupt asses might have been in real, actual danger.

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

The hysterics going on about “the People’s House” supposedly getting invaded was the establishment quaking at the possibility that their corrupt asses might have been in real, actual danger.

Yep. Pols, for the first time in their lives, even if only for a few short minutes, were in fear of those they represent. They will not allow a second time.

[Gray_Jay]

What Muzzled said. What I've been saying.

Green Zone D.C. is coming. It just needs a few more sacrifices, like any other demonic summoning ritual.

[mamabug]

In many ways, the big tech environment is very similar to the unrestrained capitalist environment that emerged after industrialization.

What exactly is the problem with me owning all the stores and all the houses in the town built around my coal mine that is 100 miles from anywhere else? If I fire an employee for saying my daughter is ugly, shouldn't I be able to evict them from their home, ban them from the stores, prevent the local coachman from taking them to the next town, and asking my fellow coal mine owners to not hire him? It's just freedom of association. What's wrong with you - do you hate private property and freedom?

[Mickey Rat]

"It's not a First Amendment issue, of course, and it's perfectly within Apple's, Google's, and Amazon's rights as private companies to make these choices. But it also looks a lot like they're making Parler a sacrificial lamb to political pressure to do something about people talking too uncontrollably online."

If the Big Tech companies did this under political pressure, then it is a 1st Amendment issue, as that implies members of the government are using political pressure on private institutions to circumvent the 1st Amendment.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

Doesn't matter, nobody complained during operation choke point

[JesseAz]

Old Reason did.

[JesseAz]

https://reason.com/podcast/2015/08/21/operation-choke-point-the-governments-co/

This is new and improved Reason.

[TJJ2000]

"members of the government are using political pressure on private institutions" --- lol... When were they not?

Obama: ‘Google, Facebook Would Not Exist’ Without Government Funding
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-google-facebook-would-not-exist-without-government-funding

[Unicorn Abattoir]

It's not a First Amendment issue, of course...But it also looks a lot like they're making Parler a sacrificial lamb to political pressure

So it is a 1A issue. In the People's Republic of Jersey, an Assemblyman openly called for websites and conservative networks to be shut down.

[sarcasmic]

It becomes a 1A issue when the government uses force. Simply calling for websites to be shut down isn't a use of force.

[soldiermedic76]

It is when they threaten the companies with actions such as anti-trust and then make the call. Harder to prove but the effect is the same. It is the political equivalent of the mob enforcer telling a businessman, "nice business you have here, be a shame if it burned down".

[sarcasmic]

Are they taking those threats off the table for doing their bidding? Seems to me like the threat is still there, regardless.

[soldiermedic76]

The mob doesn't ever take the threat away either, even after you pay protection money. Again, not a great counterargument.

[sarcasmic]

It was a question, not a counterargument.

[soldiermedic76]

No, it was a counterargument that you posed as a question and then tried to play the wounded part. You are doing a lot of playing the victim this year. It is getting really tiresome watching you complain everyone is bullying you who dare disagrees with you or calls out your unsophisticated trope.

[sarcasmic]

The fuck? You can't even answer a question without writing a paragraph about how I'm attacking you, and then you claim I'm playing the victim? You used to be one of the sane ones. Now.... not so much.

[soldiermedic76]

The self evident dishonesty of your weak "it was just a question and you are bullying me by calling out the self evident dishonesty" routine it getting pretty worn. As is your pathetic "you used to be one of the sane ones". It is as infantile as your mean girls trope a couple months ago. It is a blatant attempt to dehumanize anyone who dares calls out your sophomoric routine. You didn't just ask a question. You always create qualifiers, just as you did above with the second sentence. The first sentence was a question but by adding the statement afterwards, you indicated to anyone with above room temperature IQ what the direction of your thinking was.

[sarcasmic]

Tu quoque much?

[soldiermedic76]

Should I write it at a 3rd grade level for you? Poor Sarcasmic, long words scare or hurt him.

[soldiermedic76]

Shorter for you, you okay childish games and then get upset when people use the same tactics against you.

[sarcasmic]

I'm sorry my questions offended you. Jeez.

[soldiermedic76]

It didn't offend me. Your stating it did, and it wasn't the question but how you asked it as I pointed out, is a Sophomoric attempt to once again discredit my criticism as merely historionics rather than legitimate criticism. Even if I am mistaken the criticisms are not necessarily overreactions to how you phrase "just asking a question" as the majority of people would also come to conclusions similar to what I have, especially given your style and user name.

[R Mac]

Poor sarc, more and more of the commentariat realize you’re broken. Please engage in some self reflection.

[JesseAz]

So you completely ignore the exchange of leaderships in SV and the DNC? They are working in concert.

When did you become such an apologist for authoritarianism and fascism?

[sarcasmic]

When did you stop beating your wife?

[R Mac]

Poor sarc. Just here for some honest debate, and everyone else is out to get him. Victimhood is a helluva drug.

[sarcasmic]

Oh look! A little flag! Let's see what happens when I.... The gnat is gone!

[R Mac]

Tired of me owning your ass, I see.

[Mickey Rat]

If the government can do that, then the free speech/press clauses of the 1st Amendment are hollow and a dead letter in fact.

[sarcasmic]

That was basically my point. I'm glad you said it. If I did soldiermedic76 would write a paragraph about how I'm personally attacking him before accusing me of playing victim.

Dude has lost his mind.

[soldiermedic76]

You have attacked me multiple times and then played the victim card when I respond. And once again you did it. You don't debate in good faith, by your own admissions multiple times, but cry about being attacked when people use the same tactics you do.

[Overt]

Sarc, you really need to calm down, man. I am worried about your blood pressure.

It is one thing to have a disagreement in a thread and even bitch about it in the thread. But then taking that grievance from thread to thread for hours or days is getting old.

I am the first to admit that I am not perfect, but if we don't start making some effort to fix things, this place will never get better.

[sarcasmic]

Excuse the fuck out of me for being confused when I'm told, in several paragraphs, why a simple question is actually a calculated personal attack, and then trying to get an answer to the simple question.

[soldiermedic76]

I never said a personal attack I said dishonest debate style calculated to discredit others opinions. Again, misrepresenting what I stated.

[soldiermedic76]

Yes, the government directly intervening to force fairness is an assault on the 1A, but their use of threats to achieve the same results is just as undesirable. It truly is a catch 22. But let's not pretend that that isn't exactly what they are doing.

[soldiermedic76]

The best option is to point out that their threats are also a violation of the spirit, even if not a technical violation, of the 1A.

[sarcasmic]

You could have just said that instead of going into a diatribe about why my questions offended you.

[soldiermedic76]

It didn't offend me. Once again misrepresenting what I have said. You didn't ask a simple question, stop pretending otherwise. No one buys it.

[sarcasmic]

Once again misrepresenting what I have said.

LMAO! That's what you've been doing to me in enough text to fill a page! Do you have any self awareness at all?

[soldiermedic76]

You were the one who decides to use the least desireable option when offering a question. The majority of people would draw the same conclusions I did. Your response has been to state I am overreacting. And your defense of using the least desirable outcome repeatedly is fairly weak. And your constant drum beat about the length of my posts, as if laying out my argument in a thorough manner is undesirable, is pretty juvenile.

[soldiermedic76]

And the first time you did that, ask a question and offer the least desireable option, it is possible I was mistaken. However, once I pointed out why I felt it was disingenuous to do such if you are truly trying to elicit an honest response, to ask a second question in a similar style leaves two options. Either you are incapable of changing your style to elicit a true response. Or your protests of my classification of your style is disingenuous. There is a third option, which is that you don't care enough about an honest response to change, and that indicates you weren't honestly trying to solicit a response the first time either.

[sarcasmic]

You were the one who decides to use the least desireable option when offering a question.

Then what are all these other options that I didn't consider? Seriously! I asked that question because I don't fucking know what other options you could present! So instead of offering other options, you opt to parse out my question as something like "Do you still beat your wife" and then go on multiple diatribes about how I've got all this malicious intent and this and that.

CALM DOWN!

Let me try this again.

Other than government force, how else would you propose solving this problem of politically motivated censorship on private platforms?

Is that better?

Fuck.

[soldiermedic76]

Yes, to a degree it is. Only took two hours but better phrasing. And you tell me to calm down. The fact that you don't know what other options are available or chose not to recognize that I may be advocating for them or simply not offering any options but rather calling out bad behavior speaks volumes. But however, in the spirit of honest debate, using social pressure and market pressure to convince them to change their behavior can be accomplished without government intervention. In fact, simply calling out their behavior, if done by enough people could easily prove enough. Which was my point about being libertarian isn't simply limited to government actions. No need for the private business defense, calling them out for their actions should not need a qualifier.

[sarcasmic]

The fact that you don’t know what other options are available or chose not to recognize that I may be advocating for them or simply not offering any options but rather calling out bad behavior speaks volumes.

Now you're explicitly doing what you claimed I implicitly did.

In fact, simply calling out their behavior, if done by enough people could easily prove enough.

Good luck with that. The people who would call it out have been labeled as white supremacists, racists, conspiracy theorists (that's not far off the mark), haters, and violent revolutionaries.

No need for the private business defense, calling them out for their actions should not need a qualifier.

Nor will it have any effect at all.

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

You couldn’t be a bigger idiot. JFC, you’re stupid.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

When you're using a company as your proxy, it is absolutely the initiation of force.

[OneSimpleLesson]

Just like Trump implying that Ukraine might not receive aid money... And that was an impeachable offense? Was that a threat, or use of force?

This is leagues worse.

[Michael S. Langston]

Simply calling for websites to be shut down isn’t a use of force.

lol - no it isnt, but according to you calling on people to protest is sedition, treasonous, etc, etc, etc....

Your mask just fell off.

[John F. Carr]

I used to work for a company that provided a cloud service on AWS. Amazon tries to get you to integrate with other Amazon services to make it hard for you to migrate elsewhere. It's not a simple job of pushing your system image to a new provider. You have to replace a lot of integrations.

[JesseAz]

Luckily parler said they had intentionally not used those services because they were already wary of what Amazon would try to do at some point.

[Overt]

Even worse, Amazon applies the roach motel business model- you can check in but you cannot checkout. They will happily let you transfer all your data to them, but when the day comes to actually extract that data, they charge you through the nose for that egress bandwidth. Indeed, even if you need that data for some corporate systems in your own datacenter, they make it so hard and expensive to get that it is nearly worth it to re-architect legacy systems to get them to the cloud.

[mamabug]

If I were building a business model that relied on AWS I would be rethinking it at this point. Amazon has shown that it has full control to destroy your business within 24 hours if it so chooses. If it works for Parler, how long until the mob demands a company completely unrelated to politics be deplatformed for some perceived sin?

[Unicorn Abattoir]

For anyone who watched Nick DiPaolo on Youtube before he was banned - he has a daily show on thecomicsgym.com. Artie Lange and a few others are there, too.

BTW, that website was shadowbanned on Google.

[Bill Godshall]

“I like the 25th Amendment because it gets rid of him, he’s out of office, but there is strong support in the Congress for impeaching the president a second time. This president is guilty of inciting insurrection. He has to pay a price for that,” the speaker replied.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/01/10/did-pelosi-just-reveal-the-motive-behind-her-desperate-last-minute-attacks-on-donald-trump-n1328906

So Pelosi admits her goal is to prevent Trump from lawfully running for reelection in 2024. Looks like the Dems are worried they won't be able to manufacture 10 million fraudulent votes again.

[loveconstitution1789]

It was a one time steal.

How many Kungflu hysterics can be created out of thin air for election cycles 2022, 2024, 2026....

Georgia state legislature is already closing 3+ means they used to steal election 2020. I think the big one is that the state legislature will no longer be out of term during the certification periods of presidential elections. This way, the state legislature can send official electors they chose if there is election fraud again.

[loveconstitution1789]

GA GOP Senators Outline Plans for ‘Fixing’ State Election Law

We are calling upon the elections officials to engage the GBI to investigate any and all fraudulent activities, including those which were brought to light during Senate committee hearings on December 3, 2020.
We insist that all counties immediately preserve all data from the November 3, 2020 General Election in order to conduct a forensic audit. We also call on these counties to perform a signature audit. We call on the State Elections Board to oversee and monitor that closely.
We will continue to conduct public hearings up to and through January 5, 2021 to ensure that fraud and misconduct do not taint the next election.
We will fully fund the Secretary of State’s call to investigate out-of-state residents who attempt to move here for the sole purpose of voting in our run-off. We will make sure that these criminals are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
We call upon the Secretary of State to immediately release a certified list of all voters in the November 3, 2020 General Election and a certified list of all newly registered voters in Georgia from October 5-December 7, 2020.
As soon as we may constitutionally convene, we will pass legislation to reverse the detrimental effects of the consent decree which was entered into in March 2020.
As soon as we may constitutionally convene, we will reform our election laws to secure our electoral process by eliminating at-will absentee voting. We will require photo identification for absentee voting for cause, and we will crack down on ballot harvesting by outlawing drop boxes.

[Bill Godshall]

"I think the big one is that the state legislature will no longer be out of term during the certification periods of presidential elections."

That was a problem in PA, as Gov. Wolf refused to call the GOP controlled legislature into session after the election to respond to the election fiasco that was created by Gov. Wolf and his left wing Democrat allies in the PA Dept of State, cities, counties and the PA Supreme Court.

[Mickey Rat]

The 25th Amendment was not created for this type of situation. It was to provide a procedure for a transfer of power if the President is medically incapacitated. Pelosi is looking for a shortcut that puts the responsibility on someone else.

[loveconstitution1789]

All Trump has to do is respond and it requires a 2/3 majority to state that Trump cant resume his powers until Jan 20.

Impeachment requires 2/3 majority to remove.

Democrats tipped their hand as to how crazy they are. Some RINOs fell for it by not challenging massive Democrat election fraud. I doubt they will fall for it twice. Either way, those RINOs are going to be Primaried out of office. If you cant count on Republicans when he Democrats are trying to coup a President, when can you trust them?

[Number 2]

The problem is that the president remains out of office, and the VP serves as acting president, until Congress votes, as long as the VP responds to the president’s response within four day.

The 25th Amendment was designed to deal with a president who is incapacitated. To convert it into a form of “no confidence” vote by the cabinet is not only to violate the intent of the Amendment, but also to open the door to abuse and palace coups. It would be yet another example of an emotional “let’s-do-something” response that we will later come to regret.

[ThomasD]

Then Pelosi is an idiot. Offices of honor, trust or profit are not elected offices. If the framers/ratifiers meant elected office they would have said so.

[Fat Mike's Drug Habit]

Oh get over it, it's clear the Framers had a poor grasp on the English language. Just look at how they used words like "keep", "bear", "arms", "infringed" and "peaceable". Pretty obvious they had no idea what any of that meant.

[I, Woodchipper]

This president is guilty of inciting insurrection.

Saying it doesn't make it so.

[Jefferson's Ghost]

"The resolution will call on Pence to respond within 24 hours and, if not, the House would move to impeach the President."

Trump is an idiot. Okay. And his behavior following the election was similar to a nine-year-old's temper tantrum. We get it.

Attempting to impeach him is just plain stupid. Why not use this moment to start a meaningful conversation about reining in some presidential powers which might avoid another "forever war" or declaring immigration a "national emergency" to divert funds from national defense, or the whole "pen and phone" thing and ignoring the laws by using executive orders? Oh, wait... these are politicians.....

[soldiermedic76]

I heard on the news on the way to feed my cattle this morning some Representative saying he needs to be impeached for divisive rhetoric, and any legislature that echoed any of his rhetoric needs to be expelled (see the move to disbar Cruz and Hawley as well). Rhetoric is protected by the 1A, unless they specifically called for violence, which doesn't appear so (all claims that state they did require you to interpret their statements a certain way and can easily be interpreted another way). If we start impeaching and ejecting elected officials over rhetoric the 1A is officially dead.
As for divisive rhetoric, Obama, Biden, Harris, Pelosi, Schumer, Waters etc all are also guilty of divisive rhetoric. But I guess that is okay because their rhetoric was aimed at conservatives and that is allowed I guess, but don't you dare say anything about progressives.
Do they not understand that this double standard is what got Trump elected and if they keep it up they will only create another Trump, but this time it may actually be someone who is competent? Or worse someone who is the dictator that they always accused Trump of being?

[Jefferson's Ghost]

+

[Nardz]

The 1a is dead.
They are trying to do all they can to prevent the possibility of losing power ever again.
It took war for nazi Germany to fall.
The Soviet union last for nearly a century.

[soldiermedic76]

Yes the 1a is dead if we all copied y

[mad.casual]

Why not use this moment to start a meaningful conversation

Because Trump is an impulsive 9-yr.-old in a room of sociopathic 7-yr.-old girls who've learned to point, make doe eyes, and say "He's scaweing me!"?

[Jefferson's Ghost]

"...a room of sociopathic 7-yr.-old girls..."

As I said, "politicians." Thanks for the more accurate description, though.

[soldiermedic76]

Branding Parler as something only frequented by Pro Trump is definitely biased. A number of people who didn't vote for Trump (myself) started Parler accounts because of the blatantly one sided censoring of the big tech companies. Also, I support the concept of free speech (I know don't throw out the canard about the 1A not applying, I am talking about the concept of free speech not the 1A) and applaud Parler for the current stance on not moderating user content.
Defenders of Section 230 have long argued that if you don't like it start your own company. Parker did, but like many start ups didn't have the funding necessary for all the infrastructure and thus relied on web hosting from Amazon and access to Google and Apple playstores. Now we see that the start your own business model isn't feasible if the big guys don't let you, or unless you happen to have huge financial backing. I was happy to see this morning that Parler is looking to build its own web hosting, maybe they found some investors who support them? And the moves by Apple, Google et al will drive more Trump and even moderate rights to Parler. On the day Google and Apple announced their actions Parler was the number one download by leaps and bounds. It has consistently been the top since the elections. Twitter stock is dropping like a rock, and I expect if Parler is back up soon, that Facebook stock may drop. I am not leaving Facebook at this time, mainly because I run part of my ranch direct marketing through Facebook, and it doesn't make financial sense to leave Facebook, but I am definitely tempted. I think I will go in and officially close my Twitter account, haven't logged on in almost a year.
Libertarians should be supportive of groups like Parler, because libertarian ideals should not be simply limited to government. Authoritarianism traits is not simply to government. And what Google et al is doing is trying to force another company to adopt the same one sided moderation that they implement or else... That doesn't seem very libertarian to me. Anyone applauding Google et al is in my opinion not acting very libertarian but is doing so simply because Orange Man bad. Sqrsly I am looking at you.

[sarcasmic]

And what Google et al is doing is trying to force another company to adopt the same one sided moderation that they implement or else… That doesn’t seem very libertarian to me.

What's the alternative? Use government to force Google to host Parler?

[soldiermedic76]

I didn't say that. Or anything of the sort. Stop projecting arguments not made. And it is getting harder and harder to defend 230 or anything of the sort. What I said is Libertarians should voice their displeasure and maybe even look at leaving the companies that have done this, if possible. It shouldn't be a shrug and "eh, it's a private business". True libertarians don't just fight government authoritarianism. There is a middle ground between accepting these actions and calling for the government to control everything. The fact that your automatic assumption that I am calling for government control shows how myopic your world view is.

[sarcasmic]

I was asking a question, not projecting. Take a sedative.

[soldiermedic76]

No, you were projecting and now are retreating like you always do. It is self evident. If you were simply asking a question, you didn't need to add the qualifier about government. The fact that you did was a self evident attempt on your part to create a condition that you knew many would reject, as a way to discredit my statement. If you were simply curious or looking for a meaningful discussion you would not have used that form of rhetoric. And your use of the sophomoric insult "take a sedative" isn't sarcasm, it is just another attempt to belittle anyone who doesn't toe your line.

[sarcasmic]

The "Take a sedative" was an honest suggestion, being how reflexively hostile you are to a simple question. Calm down.

[soldiermedic76]

Not hostile at all. And it wasn't a simple question and your peurile attempts at dissembling are self evident. You set the parameters by adding in the qualifier about government intervention. You dictated the options. And your attempt to paint my response as hostile is a transparent ploy to deflect blame from yourself and to discredit my arguments. It is pretty weak and not very sophisticated.

[sarcasmic]

I offered an option. You could have simply said "No" and then gone on with what your alternative was, instead of parsing out why I'm a terrible person for asking the wrong question. Jeez, dude. Not everything is an attack.

[soldiermedic76]

You didn't need to offer an option and the fact that that was the option your chose is telling. You are retreating and trying to act the faulted party because you got called out for it. Everyone sees that.

[Overt]

I am reminded of Serenity and Mal's first interaction with The Operative:

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds : [the Operative has politely asked Mal to return River] You have to open with payment.

The Operative : That is a trap. I offer money, you'll play the man of honor and take umbrage; I ask you to do what is right and you'll play the brigand. I have no stomach for games.

[R Mac]

It’s important to note that all weekend long he did the same thing. I actually answered him the first time he did it to me, and it didn’t change a thing. So when he says you could have answered it and move on, he’s lying.

[Cyto]

You are not asking a question, you are shifting the goalposts.

let me break it down for you. The argument is, what these tech giants are doing is wrong. That is the point of discussion. They should not be censoring people's political views. That is the universe we are operating in.

Your argument is that it is perfectly fine for them to do that, and as a bolster for this argument you want to move the discussion into what form of government regulation do we support to stop them.

So, in one fell swoop you have switched the discussion from whether or not it is right to censor political opinions you disagree with to a discussion of what authoritarian regime someone wants to implement to prevent this. You have dragged the goalpost a hundred miles.

if you wanted to participate in the discussion, a good place to start would be with whether or not a free and open debate is a good thing.

Seeing is how you spend many hours a day posting your thoughts online, one would imagine that you are a supporter of free speech. Well, at least free speech for yourself.

For any libertarian, it is pretty easy to jump from free speech for themselves to free speech for everyone else too. That's kind of how we roll.

I can say that cursing at an old lady is wrong without calling for the death penalty for it. I can say that insulting someone for being overweight is wrong without calling for a hate crime law to punish transgressions. See how easy that is?

The collusion between the left and the press and the tech giants to suppress political opinions they disagree with is wrong. Full stop. No need for any further clarifications or qualifications. It is just wrong. Any right thinking libertarian knows this.

[sarcasmic]

So, in one fell swoop you have switched the discussion from whether or not it is right to censor political opinions you disagree with to a discussion of what authoritarian regime someone wants to implement to prevent this.

Then lay down all these options that don't involve government force.

If the only answer to the question is "You're a poopy-head!" then I wonder how much thought they've put into this.

[soldiermedic76]

Why do we have to lay down options? Isn't pointing it out and calling it out an option? It is social pressure. And companies work in the market where social pressure is a legitimate option. No need to present options. The very act of calling it out is action in and of itself.

[soldiermedic76]

As has been pointed out to you multiple times.

[sarcasmic]

If you say so. Though I will say that the number of people outraged over this is small enough that the companies will shrug it off.

From their point of view they're not censoring political speech, they're censoring hate, racism, white supremacy, and incitements to violence. Not saying their point of view is correct, but that's what it is.

[soldiermedic76]

Considering Parler has been for three months the most downloaded app on both google nd apply stores, I would say your assumption is probably not correct. Also, calling it out, even if not popular and pointing out why it is wrong is far better than accepting it and far more likely to achieve a desirable outcomes if you truly oppose undonng Section 230 you would call out bad behavior for being bad behavior rather than "eh, private business, who cares" because when people feel they are being wronged and no one is listening they resort to drastic actions. As libertarians and libertarian leaners, we should call out bad behavior because to remain silent can only result in either a continuation of the status quo or likely something even less desirable.

[sarcasmic]

As libertarians and libertarian leaners, we should call out bad behavior because to remain silent can only result in either a continuation of the status quo or likely something even less desirable.

Call out to who?

[sarcasmic]

For that to work you'd need enough people willing to end their relationship with these platforms to get their attention. I don't see that happening.

[Michael S. Langston]

Call out to who [sic]?

To whom and the answer is self evident.

For that to work you’d need enough people willing to end their relationship with these platforms to get their attention. I don’t see that happening.

So we should all just give up, say nothing, and use whatever services Google and the political ruling class deems appropriate.

[soldiermedic76]

You oppose government intervention, you know how you get govermen intervention? Pretend like there isn't a problem and dismiss people who point out the problem.

[sarcasmic]

And here I thought you got government intervention when you complained about a problem, real or imaginary, and demanded that somebody DO SOMETHING.

[soldiermedic76]

Which is the result of a problem festering because others ign

[sarcasmic]

I'm still wondering how you propose to "fix" the "problem" of private companies refusing to host content that they find to be objectionable.

[soldiermedic76]

Market force, letting them know that it isn't just Trump supporters who oppose their actions. But I understand that in your world there is only shrug it off or full government intervention.

[sarcasmic]

You tell me I'm putting words in your mouth, and then go and tell me what I think and believe? Seriously?

[soldiermedic76]

You were the one who created the dichotomy by asking what my alternative was and then only offered the possibility of government force. You created that paradigm, not I. Since you created that paradigm, which was not supported by my original statement, it is logical to conclude that your automatic response to my statement was to believe I was advocating for government actions. Therefore, I am not putting words in your mouth so much as drawing a conclusion based upon the parameters that you yourself created.

[sarcasmic]

You read way too far into things. Waaaaay too far.

[soldiermedic76]

No, I am basing it on what you said today, and my long familiarity with the way you operate on here. Remember you once told me you don't try to debate in good faith, and to refer to your user name. So this, taking your own past words, and based upon your "option", which we the most distasteful one possible, my conclusion is certainly evidence supported. People who are truly curious don't offer the least desirable option as part of their question. That is a common tactic people use to discredit others arguments.

[sarcasmic]

Remember you once told me you don’t try to debate in good faith, and to refer to your user name.

No, I said I'm rarely serious. Not the same thing.

People who are truly curious don’t offer the least desirable option as part of their question.

Unless they're trying to draw out other options. Ever think of that?

That is a common tactic people use to discredit others arguments.

Maybe so, but that wasn't what I was doing.

I'm done with this. If I can't ask you a simple question without you freaking the fuck out, then there's no point. Have a good day.

[soldiermedic76]

If you asked a simply question you would have a point. But you didn't. And no, you don't offer the least desireable option to draw out other options. Because human nature is to assume anyone doing that is doing exactly what I concluded you did. As for being done with this I notice you had to get in one more insult, before saying you were done with it. Do you think anyone at this point doesn't see your style for exactly what it is?

[sarcasmic]

And no, you don’t offer the least desireable option to draw out other options.

Whatever. There's no point in trying to talk with you if you're going to tell me I'm wrong about what I think, what I believe, and why I do things, because you know better.

[soldiermedic76]

I didn't say you were wrong for what you think. I stated that if that is truly your desire you chosen style is the least likely to draw an honest response. It is constructive criticism if you are true about wanting an honest response.

[sarcasmic]

It is constructive criticism if you are true about wanting an honest response.

Well it sure didn't come off that way. I rephrased the question above.

[R Mac]

Same argument, different day, different commentator, same playing of the victim by sarc at the end.

It’s really becoming a tiresome act sarc.

[TJJ2000]

I just deleted my facebook. Some things are more important than convenience. Anyone found a good desktop competitor yet???

[R Mac]

Parl... never mind.

[Michael S. Langston]

Minds.com

[JesseAz]

Contract law. This has been explained to you many times stupid. These companies are acting in an unconscionable manner. In a manner not allowed in any other industry. They utilize the ability to change terms of contracts at whim to achieve capture then change the rules at a later date. They happily accept millions and millions in push advertising for people, then at a whim kick those people off their platforms without a refund.

You applaud this because you hate Trump.

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

No, but they, along with Apple and Google, face a HEFTY antitrust penalty.

[Ken Shultz]

Incidentally, this wouldn't be happening if you, and more people like you, had voted for Trump.

[Lord of Strazele]

Said every wife beater ever.

[soldiermedic76]

Stupid rejoinder.

[mad.casual]

So did you say it and, if you haven't, when are you going to?

[JesseAz]

But enough about Senator Warnock!

[Gray_Jay]

The own goals have been funny to read today.

[soldiermedic76]

Trump won my state by 20% points, my vote for Jorgenson had no impact on his loss.

[KillAllRednecks]

Because it is full of inbred rednecks. You live in the asshole part too!
I'm sure there are lots of mormons out there because the shit kickers are so stupid.

To be fair other than your Mormon loving you seem like a reasonable dude. If only you could see how dangerous they are.

[soldiermedic76]

You aren't reasonable at all. And it isn't that I support Mormons so much as I detest your calls for genocide. And because you call for genocide I cannot conclude you are reasonable about anything.

[KillAllRednecks]

Hopefully one day you aren't kicking yourself for not listening to me. However if the mormons don't stop I think you will be. Or your children will.

[soldiermedic76]

Yes, because 2% of the population will soon over take us all. Especially as the average size of even Mormon families is decreasing and their percentage of population even in heavily Mormon states is decreasing. How sinister, they are taking over secretly by decreasing as a proportion of the population. I see it now.

[KillAllRednecks]

Whatever ya say buddy!

You take it easy friend!

[Michael S. Langston]

And you don't, you repulsive genocidal bigot.

[Ken Shultz]

Incidentally, this wouldn’t be happening if you, and more people like you, had voted for Trump.

----Ken Shultz

No, it wasn't just your vote, and it wasn't just your state, but if more people like you, all over the country, had voted for President Trump, we wouldn't be in this mess.

[Jefferson's Ghost]

"Libertarians should be supportive of groups like Parler, because libertarian ideals should not be simply limited to government."

I have never visited Parler, and probably never will, but yes.

[JesseAz]

Wrong. Libertarians should fight any and all attempts at limiting ones freedom whether it comes from the government, from culture, or from multi national corporations.

[JesseAz]

For example, under your scenario you would applaud indentured servitude. Even if they acted unconscionably such as adding fees/fines for the person to never be able to leave the servitude.

[Jefferson's Ghost]

"For example, under your scenario you would applaud indentured servitude. Even if they acted unconscionably such as adding fees/fines for the person to never be able to leave the servitude."

What? Uh, no JesseAZ. I just support their right to TALK about it.

[soldiermedic76]

Which is what both of us are saying. Knee jerk reaction. Almost as bad as Sarcasmic above.

[sarcasmic]

You write paragraphs parsing out why a simple questions constitute personal attacks, and then accuse me of having a kneejerk reaction? Really?

[Nardz]

Your argument is the exact same as Obama trying to sell the Iran nuke giveaway as "it's this deal or war"

[soldiermedic76]

Once again, play that victim card. And it wasn't a simple question. You added the one you knew was the least desirable option. Not out of curiosity, but to disqualify my argument. It simply isn't intellectually honest to ask a question and offer as the only option the least desirable one. And that kind of actions are knee jerk. It shows that you assumed that was what I was arguing for. As is your assumption that my response is out of hostility towards you. Rather than calling out your dishonest style.

[A Cynical Asshole]

"Next," Pelosi said in a letter to Democratic colleagues, "we will proceed with bringing impeachment legislation to the Floor."

[…] Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell previously made clear in a memo that even if the House moved in the coming days to impeach Trump, the Senate would not return to session before January 19. That would place the start of the trial on January 20 -- the date of Biden's inauguration.

IOW this is all just political kabuki theater and the crazy broad knows it. The funny part is that after all this shit she'll be probably be out there unironically calling for "unity" and "coming together as one nation" or some such horseshit in about, oh..., ten days from now. What a fucking clown show. I don't think she knows or care anymore how stupid and insincere she appears to anyone with half a brain.

[Jefferson's Ghost]

+

[Lord of Strazele]

There's no meeting the psycho/fascist treason caucus halfway. They were 100% wrong. They owe America an apology and should repudiate their insanity then we can talk about common ground.

[soldiermedic76]

Fuck off. Labeling political opponents fascist and psycho just shows it is all about tribalism on your part and that you lack the critical thinking skills necessary to offer thoughtful rebuttals because you lack the mental capacity to truly and accurately understand your opponents stances. As a result of your shallow understanding you are forced to argue against simplistic, and often mistaken, interpretations. This is the problem with many Americans, a myopic view, a false dichotomy, of what their opponents believe.

[soldiermedic76]

And in your case I suspect you pack the mental curiosity to try and develop any empathy or deeper understanding beyond my side good, the other side evil. You are the problem. Not Trump supporters, albeit many of them also suffer from this problem, but people like you who are so assured of their own virturesness that they automatically assume anyone not with them 100% is evil. It is really peurile.

[Sevo]

You might have missed this:
Ken Shultz
January 10 at 11.14AM
“…We often think Tony, Shrike, and ChemJeff are being dishonest–especially when they don’t seem to learn anything from having their arguments shredded and smeared in their faces everyday for years. But the fact that they don’t seem to learn anything–knowledge wise or in terms of critical thinking–may be consistent with the hypothesis that they’re just not that bright. And we shouldn’t necessarily assume that Binion, Boehm, or Britschgi are fundamentally different from them.
Maybe the reason they try to make us feel is because they’re incapable of making us think. It is beyond their capabilities…”

Assuming lefty shits like pod here are dishonest is crediting them with brains they lack; pod is simply incapable of thinking as we understand it.

[soldiermedic76]

Seems a plausible hypothesis.

[R Mac]

The constant shrieking of “You just want government force you fascist!” in response to most of us wanting to have a legitimate discussion about our concerns about what has happened since Wednesday, supports this. Their poor, weak little minds only function in an either/or argument. This topic is just too complex for them to participate in.

[A Cynical Asshole]

You are the problem. Not Trump supporters, albeit many of them also suffer from this problem, but people like you who are so assured of their own virturesness that they automatically assume anyone not with them 100% is evil.

^This^

It's the entire problem with modern politics, and the reason why our political system has devolved into a tug of war between two factions whose primary goal is to use the massive power of the Federal government to punish their political enemies.

This is why I truly believe that the best outcome in the long run may be for the United States to cease to exist as we know it and let the 50 states go their separate ways. It would be extremely painful in the short term, but probably for the best in the long run.

[Gray_Jay]

"This is why I truly believe that the best outcome in the long run may be for the United States to cease to exist as we know it and let the 50 states go their separate ways. It would be extremely painful in the short term, but probably for the best in the long run."

On the extremely painful part: the Partition of India in 1947 seems like a somewhat decent comp for what a split of the US into two or more states would look like. Per the wiki, it resulted in 12 million people moving, and anywhere from 200,000 to 2 million dead. I'd heard about one million, when I looked at it 20 years or so ago. Total population of the affected area was about 350 million.

It would be an incalculable tragedy.

[Sevo]

"...psycho/fascist treason..."

This from a lefty shit barely capable of writing a sentence.
Fuck off and die; the world deserves to be smarter.

[A Cynical Asshole]

The fact that you unironically call other people "fascist" is fucking hilarious.

[TJJ2000]

Not even the half of it ---
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Rules Committee Chairman James McGovern (D-MA) unveiled the rules for the 117th Congress on Friday, which contain “future-focused” proposals, including the elimination of gendered terms, such as “father, mother, son, and daughter.”

to........ "promotes inclusion and diversity"

[DH]

Did i read this right. That all along maga supporters have been plotting riots. Makes sense with the last year of violence and all the destruction they caused....oh wait, that was the left. Keep the TDS up Reason.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

You misunderstand - protesting in the capitol is "domestic terrorism". Physically assaulting a U.S. Senator (Rand Paul) on a D.C. street is "peaceful protest".

[TJJ2000]

Lobbying to CANCEL the sitting President is just a "peaceful protest" too I guess...

[Longtobefree]

As always, "it depends".
If there is destruction of PRiVATE property, it is only a mostly peaceful protest.
If it actually has political motivation, involves redress of governmental grievances, and PUBLIC property happens to be the site, it is a riot and rebellion. Oh, yeah, as long as the end goal is fascism, it's all good.

(perhaps those WERE the droids we were looking for)

[soldiermedic76]

The ironic thing is the latter example, as much as I condemn the violence and vandalism last Wednesday (partially because it was a strategic mistake that played right into the left's hands), the protests and calls were exactly what the 1A was created for. While I disagreed with their views, they had the right to protest what they felt was a stolen election. I don't have to agree with them to defend their right to protest. I also don't have to agree with the senators and representatives that voted against certification, however, there is a reason that the Legislature votes on certification. It is a final check and balance. It is not meant to be a purely symbolic act. Just because certification has never been defeated doesn't mean the process should not be undertaken. Those who condemn the ones who voted against certification seem not to understand why the vote is held in the first place. Also, I keep hearing, from both sides, that if it hadn't been certified that that would have made Trump the automatic winner, but that isn't how the process works. At all. It wouldn't overturn the results, it would just have required more steps.

[MikeM]

Incidentally, this provides the anti-Section 230 crowd with a better glimpse of what a world without Section 230 would look like all the time, not just in the wake of incidents that rattle us.

I’m not sure this is the case, and I think this incident gives the anti-230 crowd another argument to repeal or revise the law.

Apple and Amazon here enjoy 230’s protections. But instead of responding “hey, we don’t like what Parler is doing, but go talk to them. We’re just a service.”, Apple literally tells Parler, according to the NYTimes, that Apple will hold Parler responsible for any user-generated content on their service.

So these oligopolies get to take advantage of the protections of 230, but they don’t have to extend similar protections down to their customers and users.

Is this a better situation than having a free-for-all? Or having politicians and courts have to work out what companies and individuals should and shouldn’t be responsible for online?

[soldiermedic76]

The "it can only get worse if 230 is repealed" argument may be the latest argument offered. Yeah, it is a distinct possibility it could get worse, and less likely it would get better. But if things are already shitty, people may be willing to gamble on that possibility.
It is sort of like some who opposed the Revolution. Yeah the crown and parliament suck, but it could be worse. Not a strong argument. I personally am fairly agnostic on 230. I see and agree with arguments from both sides. But last week's actions by the big three make me less willing to support 230 and the "it can get worse" argument is not convincing.

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

This. In its entirety. I’ve been on the fence because I value both an open society and private property rights.

But this collusion is just plain fascism. They’re literally doing the bidding of Team Blue for “the good of the nation.” And I guarantee it doesn’t stop here.

[soldiermedic76]

And see boehm's article just a little while ago about dB locking out rom Paul. It is sort of the "first they came for the Jews..." feel to it.

[Moonrocks]

Incidentally, this provides the anti-Section 230 crowd with a better glimpse of what a world without Section 230 would look like all the time, not just in the wake of incidents that rattle us.

Holy shit, is that actually in there? After checking, yes, it actually is.

Let me rewrite that for accuracy:
Incidentally, this provides the anti-Section 230 crowd everyone with a better glimpse of what a world without with Section 230 would looks like.

[Sevo]

"...Plenty of digital platforms—including those much bigger and more mainstream than Parler—provide a place for conspiracy theorists, MAGA riot organizers, and threats of violence, as well as the politicians who back and encourage these forces..."

ENB's trying out for script-writing at CNN.

[Gray_Jay]

She should be so lucky. OTOH, McArdle and Weigel made it...

[Ron]

1.If only Parler claimed to be gay then all the host would be required to support them.

2. second impeachment is as political and baseless as the first.

[Ron]

3. where were all these law school alumni when the democrats refused to certify Bush twice and Trump.

back to reading the article and comments

[loveconstitution1789]

+100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

[KillAllRednecks]

[phone] dead mormons

[Michael S. Langston]

Says the genocidal bigot.

[Outside the Box]

If they were hosting gay posts instead of illegal posts calling explicitly for violence, they would not be in violation of their contracts with AWS etc, so, yeah, they would not have been taken down.

This wasn't a conspiracy; this was Parler being irresponsible by not taking down clearly nasty, illegal posts. If Parler allowed kiddie pornographers to organize, solicit, and spread their filth, you'd be cheering the tech companies for shutting them down. It's the *material*, not their political persuasion. Google does not censor email that is conservative; Amazon sells all sorts of conservative books; Twitter does not censor all conservative tweets.

[Michael S. Langston]

Please provide citation(s) for the illegal posts.

[Ken Shultz]

I maintain that there is a fundamental contradiction in, on the one hand, criticizing the antitrust actions against Facebook and Google by the Justice Department and the FTC, and, on the other hand, pretending that the deplatforming of Parler is entirely appropriate--because the right of private parties to freely associate should be protected.

The contradiction is that Google's (and the actions of both the other big tech companies, generally, and the big social media companies, specifically) is that their actions against Parler are in reality being pushed by the Democratic Party.

There are three main reasons why this is happening to Parler:

1) The Democratic Party has recently put a tremendous amount of pressure on social media and tech companies to rid their platforms of what amounts to conservative voices.

2) The Democratic Party has two antitrust actions against the biggest players in tech, which is expected to result in a consent decree that governs all of them and, effectively, requires them to censor conservative opinions.

3) Because Trump is no longer in the White House and the Republicans lost control of the senate, the big tech companies have nothing to fear from the Republicans for doing what the Democrats want over the next two years--and the big tech companies have good reason to fear what the Biden administration and the Democrats will do to them if they don't do what the Democrats want.

In short, big tech colluding against Parler under threat of forced company breakups and other forms of reprisal at the hands of the Biden administration and the Democrats in congress is not an excellent example of private parties exercising their freedom of association.

The legitimate purpose of libertarian government is to protect our rights, and IF IF IF antitrust law has any legitimate libertarian basis, it is only to protect our rights from collusion--especially when the collusion in question is being driven by the threat of government reprisals against those who fail to collude.

The Supreme Court should intervene in this to protect the rights of Parler and its users from the government, here, but I doubt they will--because if the Supreme Court isn't afraid that the Democrats will use the Court protecting Parler as an excuse to pack the Supreme Court, they sure as hell should be!

[Sevo]

"...In short, big tech colluding against Parler under threat of forced company breakups and other forms of reprisal at the hands of the Biden administration and the Democrats in congress is not an excellent example of private parties exercising their freedom of association..."

Nice little company you have there, Mr. Bezos; shame if something happened to it.

[Ken Shultz]

And they're openly calling for Google to be forced to sell YouTube, sell its app store, and sell its advertising business.

And two years from now, that antitrust case will be over, and the resulting consent decree will be in place.

Once the Republicans have some influence on policy again, two years from now, it won't matter anymore.

[R Mac]

“Once the Republicans have some influence on policy again, two years from now, it won’t matter anymore.”

This statement could be applied to far to many subjects at the moment. And that’s assuming they’re able to have any influence in 2 years, which is debatable.

[mad.casual]

2) The Democratic Party has two antitrust actions against the biggest players in tech, which is expected to result in a consent decree that governs all of them and, effectively, requires them to censor conservative opinions.

Hey Ken, how's that analogy between Big Tech and Big Tobacco coming along? Still convinced that Section 230 is critical to preventing government takeover?

[Ken Shultz]

I actually just wrote pretty extensively on the state of Section 230 below.

Section 230 was a bulwark against a government takeover of moderation standards--since the smaller social media companies of today (and in the future) can't really survive without protection from liability--unless they sign onto a consent decree that protects them. If that consent decree is negotiated by the progressives and Section 230 is gone, new social media companies will have no choice but to sign onto the consent decree.

As I point out in my post below, however, Section 230 might as well be dead. It hasn't gone splat yet, but it's accelerating towards the ground at 9.81 meters per second squared without a parachute. The fact that it's a bulwark against government speech codes is beside the point when it's death has been utterly assured.

But, yes, when the only way for social media companies and websites to protect themselves from being sued by every Shrike because John called him a pedo is for them to sign onto speech codes in a consent decree, they will sign onto the speech codes in the consent decree. Why wouldn't they?

[mad.casual]

As I point out in my post below, however, Section 230 might as well be dead. It hasn’t gone splat yet, but it’s accelerating towards the ground at 9.81 meters per second squared without a parachute. The fact that it’s a bulwark against government speech codes is beside the point when it’s death has been utterly assured.

Ken "So far, so good" Schultz.

Compuserve didn't need S230 to protect them, the courts did it. A parachute won't prevent you from dying after being dropped off a 5-story building. The solution is not to wind up getting dropped from a 5-story building in the first place.

[Ken Shultz]

For the hundredth time, the aspect of Section 230 that's especially valuable isn't about protecting social media companies from liability. It's har to win a libel case against the person who didn't write the comment by your own admission.

The valuable part of section 230 is that it protects them from necessarily frivolous lawsuits.

You could go broke winning lawsuits. Social media companies are not in the business of defending themselves against thousands and thousands of lawsuits. There isn't any profit in successfully defending yourself against a frivolous lawsuit.

Incidentally, Biden is promising to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act for the same reason.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Lawful_Commerce_in_Arms_Act

Because it's hard to connect a gun manufacturer to liability for a mass shooting perpetrated with one of the rifles they manufactured--since they neither sold the rifle to the criminal in question nor shot anyone themselves.

That doesn't mean people won't PI lawyers won't sue them every time someone gets shot and try to get a nuisance settlement. If they can't operate their business profitably because of those lawsuits, they'll stop making rifles that are likely to get them sued.

If you want to sue someone because you were shot [libeled], you should sue the person who shot [libeled] you. There certainly isn't any good libertarian reason why people should be forced to answer in court to charges that don't even allege that they're the person who did the harm.

[Ken Shultz]

P.S. None of this matters anymore.

[Ken Shultz]

Incidentally, this push to purge conservative voices from the public square will only end in tears.

The Democrats are trying to crush all forms of protest against their policy agenda--including mass protest in Washington DC. The reason they're going after Parler is specifically because they don't want conservatives organizing protests.

When people have no representation in government and no way to express their opposition to controversial policy, they will turn to violence--as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow.

And we should take this action, along with Pelosi's recent actions attempting to push Trump out of office, as an indication of how far the Democrats are willing to go to implement their policies.

For those of you who are still unaware, when Pelosi was going around pushing for her impeachment vote, she contacted the Joint Chiefs of Staff and asked them for their support and to remove Trump from the presidency. Seeking impeachment is well within her constitutional rights as Speaker of the House, but asking the military to remove a sitting president from power in a military coup isn't just unconstitutional. It's sedition. She should be investigated for sedition at the very least.

If she's willing to do that, then why should anyone imagine that the Democrats won't pack the Supreme Court or give themselves a permanent majority in the House and the electoral college by admitting new states?

We are in uncharted territory in terms of the Democrats willingness to go beyond and above what politicians have done in the past. It's time to push the panic button.

[Commenter_XY]

The Second Civil War has already started, Ken.

[Bill Godshall]

Ken wrote:
"If she’s willing to do that, then why should anyone imagine that the Democrats won’t pack the Supreme Court or give themselves a permanent majority in the House and the electoral college by admitting new states?"

But the only way Dems can pack the SCOTUS or add new states is by first eliminating the filibuster in the Senate.

Although Joe Manchin is now softening his opposition to statehood for DC and/or PR, he reaffirmed his opposition to eliminating the filibuster, which would (if Manchin keeps his word) prevent the Dems from adding states or packing SCOTUS.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2021/01/11/joe-manchin-statehood-n2582920

Jon Tester may also oppose eliminating the filibuster.

[R Mac]

And I’ve said before: Democrats and the media have spent the last year making it clear that political violence from the left is acceptable, with little consequences. So get back to me after the angry mobs start showing up at Manchin’s and/or any of his family or associates, homes and places of business.

[Gray_Jay]

Ken, violence is the point. Violence leads to disorder, and an inability to interfere comprehensively with international affairs, and when the violence gets inevitably crushed (as the Galaxy Brains predict it will be), it provides the perfect excuse for sweeping changes in governance and relationship between rulers and ruled.

They either think they won't be affected, or they're literally too stupid to see that implication from their actions.

[jomo]

take a step back here and think about this. Everything you said sounds big and scary until you realize the greater context. Just weeks ago you were vociferously defending Trump meeting with Michael Flynn to discuss among other things, having the military move in and "re-do" the election. And we all know that only one outcome from such a "re-do" would be acceptable to him/them.

And I know you don't and cannot bring yourself to see it this way, but days later we have Trump throwing Pence under the bus HARD before telling people to move to the capitol area and Giuliani literally saying "trial by battle" (go ahead and try to deny or "context" that away). And there was the Lafayette Square thing in the recent past. And all those SecDefs writing that letter.

So, is it really that insane to maybe just check with the military to make sure its leaders aren't lining up to support Trump's next big idea of how to still be President come Jan. 20th?

[Outside the Box]

If this was a push to silence conservative voices, why is it going to be only a week until Parler is back up? Are the "pushers" that incompetent that they didn't think "well duh it's not that hard to replace 500 servers?"

Correlation is not causation.

[lap83]

There is something I'm confused about, so maybe someone else can shed light on the subject for me.

On the one hand, I know Parler is full of crazy Q conspiracy theorists who get giddy every time the power goes out or they see extra military camo in DC because they think the Insurrection Act is coming. Normal, mainstream people stay away from them and no Republican or blue check wants to be associated with them or their poorly designed graphics.

On the other hand, they are apparently such a great and dangerous threat that all of the tech companies simultaneously decided to silence them at once. The media is also in broad agreement that they were seconds from taking over the government, using guerilla tactics like breaking windows and sitting in Nancy's chair, with the buffalo hat guy as their leader.

So, I guess I'm having trouble reconciling these narratives. I genuinely do think Q people are ridiculous and delusional, but I'm apparently also supposed to be severely intimidated by them and they must be immediately crushed like an elite Nazi uprising even though they can't even afford real design software for their Trump/lion/eagle collages.

[mad.casual]

I thought we eliminated all the buffalo-hat-wearing threats to democracy in the 19th Century? At least the Progressives aren't being culturally-appropriative hypocrits when they persecute and drive the natives from their territory.

[Moonrocks]

That's not good. If you can't doublethink hard enough you might be taken to room 101.

[soldiermedic76]

If it was only Q conspiracy nuts it would be a small company almost no one has heard about before (much like Qanon itself was not widely known until the Dems started talking about it as some deep threat). However, Parler has been for months the number one downloaded Ap in the US. Those signing up can't all be crazy Trump supporters. So any journalist using that descriptor, or implying it (looking at you ENB), is either intellectually incurious enough to investigate or being willfully disingenuous.

[lap83]

Incredibly, I saw a link to an article on the Microsoft Edge homepage about Sidney Powell and Gen Flynn being kicked off Twitter. It referred to them as members of Q.

Yes, in the HEADLINE, because a former federal prosecutor and famous attorney and the 25th United States National Security Advisor are BEST KNOWN as being part of a kooky online conspiracy group? I'm sure those don't consider themselves to be Q supporters at all, although they probably had plenty of Q followers.

The media and the left must be attempting to discredit the Trump administration but all they do is lend credence to the conspiracy kooks.

[A Cynical Asshole]

So any journalist using that descriptor, or implying it (looking at you ENB), is either intellectually incurious enough to investigate or being willfully disingenuous.

Or both.

[R Mac]

“implying it (looking at you ENB), is either intellectually incurious enough to investigate or being willfully disingenuous.”

Well done, you got ENB in a nutshell.

[jomo]

It's more likely a mix of:
actual Q people

people that are Q/coup curious
people that want to just lurk and "keep an eye" on the Qs
and
people like my uncle that has been conned into believing that DOnald Trump personally cares about him and that his past can al be absolved and fixed by the great leader who speaks the "truth" on a site where there is no alrternate perspective allowed

when will you guys see that Parler is not more free....they are even MORE rejecting of alternate viewpoints. Like a Breitbart comment section. ANYTHING that questions Trump gets you attacked en masse on there

[Michael S. Langston]

Being attacked != being banned

[Zeb]

Many on the left, especially the SJW types seem to believe that certain ideas and ways of thinking are so dangerous that they are not to be tolerated. Maybe the idea is
But if they are actually dangerous (I think they are mostly just a bunch of goofballs) then the last thing you want to do is force them into the shadows and exclude them from polite society.

[soldiermedic76]

Yep, transparency is almost always better. The Klan wore hoods, even in the segregationist south for anonymity.

[mad.casual]

Yep, transparency is almost always better.

This is what blows my mind wrt 'election reform'. How, in 2020-2021, votes get counted out of boxes under a table and behind closed doors is mindblowing and the fact that Democrats seem to want to keep it that way in order to effect a Great Reset makes them every bit the fundamentalist conservatives, longing for an apocryphal era, they project their opponents as being.

[Fat Mike's Drug Habit]

I was thinking earlier that banning them from the clear internet is just going to drive them to the darknet, and God only knows what kinds of mischief they'll get up to once they realize all the shit that's available there.

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

That’s just a good excuse to have a War in The Dark Web, fought with all of the majesty of the wars on terror and drugs.

[R Mac]

^

[R Mac]

The War on Domestic Terror has already been coined, and Reason has already jumped on board with using it.

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

And, ironically, fought against most vociferously, by a progressive.

[Cyto]

Civil rights attorney Robert Barnes has a pretty good theory on Q.

He says the whole thing is a psyop operation. He doesn't say it, but he insinuates that this is a Brennan thing. He points out how professionally designed everything is, the mix of fact and fiction designed to misdirect. The entire point was to ensnare, misdirect, and discredit political enemies. He compares it to the things that the CIA does in other countries.

He said that he warned Sidney Powell and her team that they were being catfished with all of these experts on the voting machine thing. He has turned off quite cynical over the last year.

[Gray_Jay]

LARP that got co-opted to distract MAGA-types from organizing or mounting pressure on Trump to do things like investigate/jail Hillary, get to the bottom of the riots, etc...

"Trust Sessions...." Hilarious.

[Ken Shultz]

Some of the people who were at the ruckus in the Capitol apparently organized on Parler.

They don't want the kinds of people you're talking about organizing "protests", like the one in the Capitol, on social media.

[Gray_Jay]

They really don't want another Lobby Day protest. 20,000 plus, armed peaceful protesters.

[Outside the Box]

So good LAP83... thank you.

[snarling_dog]

“It’s not a First Amendment issue, of course, and it’s perfectly within Masterpeice Cake Shop, Westboro Baptist Church, and Sweet Cakes by Melissa rights as private companies to make these choices. But it also looks a lot like they’re making them a sacrificial lamb to political pressure to do something about uncontrollable religious freedom.”

[soldiermedic76]

It looks more to me like Parler was quickly threatening one of their own so they banded together to protect Twitter. Also, it didn't hurt that they oppose some of the things some Parler users believe. And some of the most egregious examples were from newly created accounts using over the top hyperbole that had the distinct possibility of being trolls and or false flag accounts. I am not certain if this is the case or even if true it was a significant amount but also don't discount Parler's spokesman who made these charges.

[mamabug]

"It looks more to me like Parler was quickly threatening one of their own so they banded together to protect Twitter. "

This. It is becoming apparent to me that Big Tech has found a better way to Cartel - give each an area to monopolize and collude to protect each other's turf.

[soldiermedic76]

The ironic thing is the monopolies that early progressives fought against did exactly this in the late 19th century and early 20th century. If you study the so called robber barons this is exactly how they operated.

[mamabug]

The inability of libertarians to effectively address the problem of Cartel forming is one of it's weaknesses. That and freedom of association restrictions on businesses is one of the two places I end up being a bit more progressive (in the pre-2000's understanding of the word)

[JesseAz]

Parler created their own bakery. The other bakeries colluded to have their landlord close on them, their suppliers stop supplying them, etc.

But good attempt I guess.

[TJJ2000]

Reality here; The federal government's ignorance of the people's law over it and activist judges who make B.S. popularity contest calls on it is WHY there isn't a free/open market left.

The government runs EVERYTHING these days. They have 30% to 80% of every citizens labor/money legally stolen (i.e. slavery) and an uncountable number of dictation agencies.... I remember reading a news report of a reporting asking every member in congress how many agencies the U.S. Government has.. Not one of them knew! Some reporters even claim up to 28% of working Americans work FOR the government. What produce comes form the government again???

It's time for a Convention of States to put this monster back in it's place.

[Ken Shultz]

"Incidentally, this provides the anti-Section 230 crowd with a better glimpse of what a world without Section 230 would look like all the time, not just in the wake of incidents that rattle us."

I'm sorry to be the one that has to inform you, but Section 230 fell out of an airplane at 35,000 feet without a parachute. Section 230 hasn't hit the ground yet, but there is not good reason to believe that Section 230 will survive the fall. I believe in Section 230; I defended Section 230; I want Section 230; I support Section 230; but Section 230 is an ex-parrot.

What we want, and what should happen doesn't matter anymore--because Biden won the White House and the Democrats control both the House and the senate.

The Democrats will repeal Section 230, and something like Section 230 will be reintroduced by way of the consent decree that results from the antitrust cases.

For those of you who aren't aware, a consent decree is the ultimate objective of almost every antitrust action. The government will agree to drop their antitrust action against Facebook and Google and provide them with liability protections similar to Section 230 in the consent decree--if Facebook and Google agree to certain stipulations in the future. Those stipulations will include censoring "hate speech", "conspiracy theories", and "violent threats". What's more, they'll open the consent decree up so that other social media companies can sign onto it when they wish to do so--and all of them will wish to do so just as soon as congress repeals Section 230. There won't be any way to survive the slew of lawsuits that will flood every social media company of any size that fails to sign onto the consent decree and abide by its tenets. And the First Amendment won't matter, just like it didn't matter in the tobacco settlement, because the consent decree is entered into consensually.

This isn't my opinion. This is the way antitrust works, and this is the way things are. If you disagree that this is the way antitrust works or you imagine that there is some other reality in effect, you're wrong. If you believe that things should be different, you'd be right about that to a certain extent--except the other part of the new reality is that the way things should be doesn't matter anymore--at least not for the next two years.

Things could have been different. If President Trump had been reelected, then the resulting consent decree would be different. Instead of banning opposition to abortion as misogyny, banning opposition to gay marriage as homophobic, banning support for a border wall as xenophobic, and banning opposition to affirmative action as racist, the consent decree would have forced social media companies to tolerate all that speech. Instead of banning pro-Second Amendment arguments as violent threats against the government and banning talk of Hunter Biden selling influence on behalf of his father, we'd be free to talk about these things on social media . . .

But again, why talk about the way things could have been or should be? That doesn't matter anymore!

"The government" is now synonymous with the Democratic Party, and the leadership of the Democratic party doesn't give a shit what libertarians, Republicans, or even Democrats think about anything anymore! They have the power to do what they want without any consideration for what anyone else thinks, and they plan to inflict their policies on us--and not only regardless of what we think but also, in many cases because we don't want things like speech codes!

The only influence we (the American people) might have on national policy over the next two years is making a massive protest in Washington DC to demonstrate our opposition to packing the Court or the Green New Deal, but I'm not sure that can really be organized anymore. I don't think they'll tolerate that anymore. If you can't even express yourself on big deals like that, what's the point of talking about whether we like or don't like Section 230 anymore?

It's over.

[A Cynical Asshole]

It’s over.

Yep, America had a good run but at this point politics is just all about who gets to defile the corpse and it looks like the Democrats get that honor.

[Ken Shultz]

If we conservatives and libertarians can't even express our opposition to try and influence things like the Green New Deal or packing the Supreme Court anymore--much less our support for Section 230--then do you feel any remorse yet for bringing this situation about with your petty criticisms of Trump's tweets?

This outcome, this situation, was not only foreseeable but also foreseen! There was no mystery about what would happen if Trump lost the White House and the Democrats took control of the senate. We are in this situation because too many of our fellow Americans failed to vote for Donald Trump, and to whatever extent you contributed to this situation, by failing to vote for Trump yourself or discouraging others from doing so, you are responsible for this outcome.

It is of crucial importance for you to take personal responsibility for your contribution to this outcome because although nothing you think or do will make any difference over the next two years, two years from now, there will be only one way to save us from the Democrats heaping even more authoritarian and socialist policies on us--and that will be voting for Republicans and encouraging your fellow Americans to do likewise.

If you still haven't come to terms with the fact that voting for the Republicans was the way to prevent this horrible anti-libertarian, anti-capitalist outcome, will you have figured out two years from now that there are only two possible outcomes in control of the Congress, and only one of them isn't the progressive socialists?

Okay, despite all the signs and warnings, you decided to shoot yourself in the leg--because you thought that was a good idea. You made a mistake! I've made mistakes, big ones. Believe me. But now that you've shot yourself in the leg, and you understand all the negative consequences of that, you're not planning to shoot yourself in the leg again two years from now, are you?!

Lab rats learn from their mistakes, and you can, too. I believe in you. Please don't shoot yourself in the leg again next time, okay?

[Mother's Lament]

There's not going to be a choice two years from now. The coup is complete.

By the end of the week we're going to see a very different internet.
I would be astonished if Reason doesn't pull the plug on the comments very soon.

I doubt that they'll give notice or an excuse after, just one day the comments button will be gone.

So I may as well say now, before we disappear, that I enjoyed reading your posts Ken. Any idea where you'll post after?

[Ken Shultz]

I don't know. I'll still be Ken Shultz somewhere, but where do we go?

I'll probably be on Mastodon.

Hope you stay "Mother's Lament"!

[Mother's Lament]

The name was pulled from the air when I switched from Fancylad for reasons, and I never really liked it, but probably for a while.

[Gray_Jay]

"I would be astonished if Reason doesn’t pull the plug on the comments very soon.

I doubt that they’ll give notice or an excuse after, just one day the comments button will be gone."

This. We're a large embarrassment to their donors. That is, if anybody reads what we have to say. It'll be some threat that'll be the excuse. (I thought some of bereft's posts might have done it a few days ago.) No way they put up with another woodchipper fiasco.

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

No way they put up with another woodchipper fiasco.

Agreed. Reason fought fast and hard during that. My guess is they’d lay down now. Without so much as a whimper of protest.

[Gray_Jay]

Complete cooperation, to include honeypotting whoever the Feds wanted to specifically find.

Sigh. All things come to an end.

[Bill Godshall]

Ken wrote:
"And the First Amendment won’t matter, just like it didn’t matter in the tobacco settlement, because the consent decree is entered into consensually."

As one who successfully encouraged the Clinton DOJ and many State AGs to sue the large cigarette companies, but then successfully convinced the US Senate (via Judd Gregg's leadership) to reject Sen John McCain's federal legislation to implement the 1997 settlement that would have protected cigarette companies (under the guise of protecting children) by giving Big Tobacco legal immunity from being sued by injured smokers in the future, and then unsuccessfully sued the PA AG and Big Tobacco (and urged suits in a half dozen other states) to block the subsequently negotiated (in 1998) 46 State AGs settlement with Big Tobacco, I'd like to read more of Ken's views about the tobacco settlements.

[MachineGunBodine]

What, no blazing headlines about speech suppression? No articles defaming the police for murdering an unarmed woman? What a surprise.

[Mother's Lament]

It's almost like Reason doesn't have an actual interest in libertarian issues outside of those supported by the DNC.

[Mother's Lament]

"Plenty of digital platforms—including those much bigger and more mainstream than Parler—provide a place for conspiracy theorists, MAGA riot organizers, and threats of violence, as well as the politicians who back and encourage these forces."

She glosses over the facts and later deflects, but kudos to ENB, anyway. This is more than I ever expected from her.

What ENB is hinting at here, is that the MAGA protesters organized on Facebook, not Parler.
Parler doesn't have the ability to form groups and communicate in the manner implied by Amazon, Google and Apple. Those three companies are deliberately lying about their motivations but don't care. They know it and so does everyone else.

Parler is going to sue and win handily, but Amazon, Google and Apple don't care. They can afford it, and the media won't report it.

[Moonrocks]

I'm not so sure Parler will win. I'd be surprised if the courts will even allow that they have standing to sue.

[Moonrocks]

Just heard that Parler's legal team has walked off. Now I'd be surprised if this will even get to a court to be dismissed.

[R Mac]

I’m sure all the threats to people working with Trump at having their careers ruined had nothing to do with it.

[JesseAz]

Glen Greenwald this amazing thing called journalism over the weekend and showed not a single person arrested owned a Parler account.

[R Mac]

I’m sure ENB will clear that up shortly.

[Mickey Rat]

The Washington Post lends credence to Capitol Hillconspiracy theories.

"One such article — titled “Kid glove treatment of pro-Trump mob contrasts with strong-arm police tactics against Black Lives Matter, activists say” — was published Wednesday evening, just hours after the chaos subsided. It quotes a number of Black Lives Matter activists who misrepresent the day’s events to suggest that the police went easy on the pro-Trump rioters because they were predominantly white. The four reporters whose bylines are listed on the article didn’t bother to fact-check any of the false claims.

The article ignores, among other pertinent facts, that a Trump supporter was fatally shot by police and that the D.C. mayor initially requested that National Guard on the scene have a “narrow, unarmed mission.”

“There was no shooting, no rubber bullets, no tear gas,” Lezley McSpadden, the mother of Michael Brown, told the paper. “It was nothing like what we have seen. Nothing like what we have seen.”

[nobody 2]

"Incidentally, this provides the anti-Section 230 crowd with a better glimpse of what a world without Section 230 would look like all the time, not just in the wake of incidents that rattle us."

What makes you think the anti-Section 230 crowd would care if the rules that apply to non-leftists all the time start getting applied to leftists?

[CE]

Huh? This just happened with Section 230 in place. How can it be a warning sign of what repealing Section 230 would lead to ?

Sounds like the drug warrior logic -- we can't end the war on drugs because then people will abuse drugs!

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Parler was painted as a broadly conservative answer to Twitter, a place where free speech reigned. In reality, it attracted a certain strain of conservatism—

This may be the weirdest collection of words and syllables put together on these pages. It was a place where free speech reigned... but in reality it had icky people on it?

The 'but in reality' doesn't contract the preceding statement.

Lemme tell you something right now, what's going on with the tech companies is very dark. Very dark. And the fact that we can't get a defense of free speech from ANY major news platform is frankly terrifying. Facebook banned the #WalkAway group which hosted ~500,000 members, many of the members' personal accounts were also deleted-- a completely peaceful group with moderated posts who simply gave testimonials on why the left the Democratic party.

If Reason cannot produce a forceful condemnation of this behavior from this oligarchy of tech companies, and do it without any equivocating, or to-be-sures, then this publication may be fucking dead to me. Your move, Reason.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

contradict*

[Ken Shultz]

This is why we can't have freedom--because you people just won't do as you're told.

[Union of Concerned Socks]

Can we still have nice things?

[Fat Mike's Drug Habit]

Nice things are a manifestation of the racist, patriarchal society we live in.

[R Mac]

So, yes?

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Freedom is the oppression that we all do together.

[soldiermedic76]

It really is telling how ENB chose to address this. I waited all weekend to see how they would address it and the actions by fb against walkway (which she ignored completely). I hope Robby writes a piece, because despite his to be sures I suspect it will be a much more damning piece. If Parler hosted sex workers, I bit ENB would have denounced this much more critically. Many commenters keep assuring me Reason will get better once Trump is defeated and or gone, but so far I see little movement in that direction.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

The fact that you had to wait 2 days on something like this tells you what ENB thinks.

She's probably looking forward to the day when Reason's host demands the comment section be purged.

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

This.

And Reason as a whole. Not a single peep about the obliteration of the free exchange of ideas in 2 days. This is the largest attack on the principle of free speech in a very long time, and it involves the collusion of all of the major tech companies and the Democrat party, and the best reason could go is a tepid denouncing of it 2 days after it all started.

This is fucked.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

If I were the editor of Reason, I would have waited until Monday AM, because as Free Speech news goes, this may be the biggest story in the country right now, and I wouldn't want the article to fall on a sleepy weekend. I would want it forceful, out, and bold where the maximum number of eyes will see it.

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

Fair enough. It also allows a bit of time to gather some facts and form an argument.

But it’s pretty clear that’s not the angle Reason took. They took the other way. Wait 2 days, then deliver a flaccid “this is potentially problematic” response. They’ve dropped the ball. This is not the move of free minds or markets, but collusion between big tech and Democrats to expunge the internet of conservative voices.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

It's worse than that, it's the expunging of any voice which speaks against the establishment (which yes, admittedly most reflects DNC talking points). But they've been expunging these voices for years now, and as the Free Markets and Free Minds ideal goes, they went and built their own Twitter, built their own Youtube, and in every case, those platforms have been banned or deplatformed, through certificate registrars, or app stores, or payment processing, or content delivery networks, or cloud hosting services-- because those platforms became the landing place for the dissident voices. I don't give a shit of Parler had an outsized presence of MAGA people. It should be allowed to operate, period. Any contorted argument that attempts to legitimize what happened here is a disservice to all Americans.

[Tony]

Parler should be allowed to operate... on servers owned by other people?

You think you're talking about something you have a principle on. You don't have a principle about this other than private companies can do whatever they damn well please.

If you want to make an exception to this, I have a list of about a thousand things we can negotiate, and maybe some day we can get to whether private companies have to be forced to host terrorist propaganda.

[Outside the Box]

oh shit that's twice in a few minutes I've agreed with Tony.

[Michael S. Langston]

...private companies have to be forced to host terrorist propaganda.

This partial sentence is why most people should and do ignore you.

[Outside the Box]

And if Parler hosted child porn, I'm sure she would be much more for it.

Make sure you look at the posts that were cited as violating AWS policy or otherwise you're just talking out of your arse. They were awful, illegal, incitements to violence, and not only did they not take them down, they said "we don't even have a mechanism on our system to take them down."

And not having access to 500 servers does not in any way "shut you down," because it's a trivial amount and there are any number of providers who could give them that, or they could just buy their own servers. That's why they'll be up in a week. If you think a week is "shutting someone down", you must not think much of the brainiacs behind this. If I hired 3 mega corporations to shut an opponent down and they came back and said "well we think we shut them down for a week," I'd fire them.

[Tony]

You have never had a right to force a private company to host your bullshit.

You have all the same free speech rights you had a week ago. You just apparently don't understand what those rights are.

Fucking libertarians whining about private companies doing what they think is in their best interest.

"But it's the principle of the matter!"

Fuck you. Then the minimum wage is $35.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

What has nothing to do with what he said, but you knew that.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Fuck you. Then the minimum wage is $35.

And a loaf of bread is $17.

[Outside the Box]

It's a first: I agree with Tony.

[Outside the Box]

It wasn't fucking "icky" Dianne. It was illegal; in violation of contracts signed by Parler; and awful, explicitly calling for and planning *violent* acts. Not "icky" acts, *violent* acts.

Libertarianism isn't against "icky" but sure as fuck is against "violent". Or have you forgotten that in your conspiratoid fantasies?

[Michael S. Langston]

Can you please provide citations for all the violent acts called for?

[Uomo Del Ghiaccio]

There is a gofundme for Parler if you are so inclined.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/parler-bringing-free-speech-back-to-america

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

No way of donate to that.

There’s no way that doesn’t get pulled by EOB.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I'm not sure a sympathy donation to another profit-making company is a route I'd want to go. Want I want to see is more people waking the fuck up to what's going on here. And the so-called "Guardians of the First Amendment" can kiss my ass with their complete support of this.

[Tony]

From another perspective, private companies were far, far too permissive with right-wing terrorist chatter, and now they're correcting the problem since it led to a fucking terrorist attack.

Either way no libertarian has any justification for whining about private companies doing what they want to do.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

now they’re correcting the problem since it led to a fucking terrorist attack.

Funny, the last time that happened at the Capitol, your ally ended up getting a Presidential pardon.

[Tony]

I keep waiting for a link to the clause in the constitution or US code that says "I can commit a crime if I can point out a lesser crime that happened 30 years ago."

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

The BLM riots last summer would certainly suffice. They're your allies, too.

[Michael S. Langston]

Poor little Tony....must be tough being wrong about everything.

[A voice]

Are there anti-trust issues here. The idea of a group of companies coordinating a response to another company is problematic. I guess Amazon, Apple and Google can always say it wasn’t coordinated, but it sure looks that way. I don’t use the platform, so I Abe nothing good or bad to say about it. It is concerning that big tech companies seem to be locking themselves in as the conduit for information services.
I remember Reason, a number of years ago, writing a piece praising Twitter for its lack of aggressive moderation. Shortly after that piece, Twitter began to increase its “moderation” over content. These are troubling times for the exchange of ideas.

[Muzzled Woodchipper]

One could definitely make an antitrust argument with this.

But considering it was a gift to the demands Team Blue has been making for years, and Team Blue now has full control over the government, they have nothing to fear unless they go against party demands.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

In my opinion, 100% yes. This was a collusion between companies, with vested interests in one another.

[Tony]

Or they all came to the same conclusion about not wanting to be sued to death for hosting terrorist plotting.

[mamabug]

I thought we all agreed that Section 230, as it stands now, protects them from that?

I'm less on the 'at the direction of government' side than somewhere between 'wanted to get ahead of the mob' and 'taking the opportunity to remove a competitor to their Cartel.'

[Tony]

It doesn't protect them from all liability, especially not for stuff like terrorism. Do you know what went on on Parler? It's where they plotted this terrorist attack.

If it was called Allah-al-DeathtoAmerica.com you wouldn't give a shit, would you?

[Michael S. Langston]

lol - terrorism, terrorist attacks, you are just too funny today.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

*nodding and smiling*

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Wrong.

[Outside the Box]

Embarrassing. These companies have complicated relationships that are as much competitive as cooperative. And *none* of them have boards of directors that would be willing to sacrifice their hard earned profits and market positions to make some sort of lame, ineffective political move against a tiny tiny player. Really? Parler? They care about Parler at a political level? Like, killing Parler somehow turns the tide of liberalism vs conservatism? They aren't even *Killing* Parler: it's trivial to get 500 servers and be back up. If you think these companies are some sort of super powerful tech companies with great ideas, boy, that sure was a *terrible* idea on their part.

There's just no way this holds up, despite ENB, despite Parler's CEO saying it does. Cause, you know, he's a reliable and objective voice in this.

[Outside the Box]

Correlation (in this case in time) does not imply causality.

Typically, it implies a common cause, in this case, that Parler's refusal to remove clearly illegal posts "inciting to violence" triggered similar contractual clauses.

I realize it's more fun to imagine some smoky backroom conspiracy but the idea falls apart as soon as you put 2 seconds into thinking it through.

[BigGiveNotBigGov]

With their favorite social media denied them, MAGAts are sinking to even lower lows to promulgate their messages.

"The agency is reportedly seeking information on the manatee after a video showed the animal with President Donald Trump’s name branded on its back:"

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/federal-officials-to-investigate-florida-manatee-with-trump-etched-onto-its-back-yes-a-manatee/

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Execution of unarmed black teenager by BLM/Antifa security.

[mad.casual]

You know the manatee situation is dire because there are barnacles on the 'etched' portions and there's no scarring or blood. Imagine finding a cow covered in mud and shit that somebody had used their hands to scrape the mud off to spell the word "Trump" on its side.

Next up, investigations into a rash of defacement of government vehicles. Persons sought for clues as to which Trump supporters etched "Wash Me" in the dirt on the side of the Federal F&W vehicles.

[R Mac]

Too late! The manatee already swam up to the Great Lakes and told me where the next white supremacist riot will be. Check-mate bitch!

[raspberrydinners]

To all the idiots out there- you have no freedom of speech on a private platform.

You think this would go without saying on a "libertarian" site.

[BigGiveNotBigGov]

This is a libertarian site, but the comments section is a Trumpkin daycare. These toddlers do not care that the tablet was yours, and they only care that they broke it because it went dark and stopped making the noises that made them giggle and drool.

[soldiermedic76]

So don't call out blatant bias from companies that claim to honor opposing views. Just accept it. Don't call it out. Because it is a private company. One of the libertarian arguments against accommodation laws has long been that the public square will be enough to police bad actors, that the government is not needed. You are criticizing people for calling out bad actors. Note many of us have stated we don't want government actions but that tech companies policies are repugnant and shouldn't be ignored simply because they are private companies. Are you surprised that those who have been pointing this out for year, while being ignored or dismissed, are incensed enough to now advocate for other more dire measures?

[soldiermedic76]

The thing about what has happened to Parler seems to suggest that there is no free market solutions. That will lead more people to support other solutions that are not desirable from capitalists and libertarians.

[R Mac]

You’re responding to a left wing troll that clearly just scrolled over 600+ comments without reading any of them to expose himself as a simpleton.

[Tony]

I'm just wondering why you never piped up when they censored child porn or ISIS propaganda.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Yes, right-wing opinions are the same as pedophilia (not sure why you're arguing about that in the negative, considering the gay community's record on grooming) and using Facebook to recruit fighters for an Islamic caliphate.

[Tony]

Lol at the homophobia. You people can't see the actual problem, because you are the actual problem:

Turns out this was just like ISIS propaganda, only white rightwingers have killed far more Americans than ISIS ever has.

[Michael S. Langston]

You are hilarious. A one man riot. You should take your show on the road.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

It's not homophobic to point out the grooming that goes on in the gay community. Even Takei admitted it.

Turns out this was just like ISIS propaganda, only white rightwingers have killed far more Americans than ISIS ever has.

Pretty sure black gangbangers have the record on that.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Yeah, this discussion stops at the activity that occurs within the product known as facebook.

[Carter Mitchell]

We need to pull the plug on Amazon. I'm starting by canceling my Prime membership. If a sizable portion of the 80+ million Americans who voted for President Trump or against fake-President Biden were to do the same, maybe Jeff Bezos would get the message.

In addition to canceling Prime, I'll be getting any future books from B & N or elsewhere, as well as moving as much on-line ordering as possible from Amazon, even if the cost is higher on other platforms.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

If a sizable portion of the 80+ million Americans who voted for President Trump or against fake-President Biden were to do the same, maybe Jeff Bezos would get the message.

Like I said above, you really think Bezos gives a fuck if there's a (short-lived) boycott of Amazon?

Get it through your head--HE DOESN'T HAVE TO CARE. He is sponsored by the federal government. He has a $600 million contract with the CIA to use his cloud service. All those other companies you're looking to do business with likely use his software and operate out of AWS, too. That whole system was set up specifically to monopolize online commerce. There's literally nothing that would break him down at this point other than a Teddy Roosevelt who didn't give a fuck what the billionaires thought, and rabble-roused the public to support breaking these guys up, or an extinction-level event that completely obliterated the last 300-400 years of global social and industrial development.

[Outside the Box]

I suggest you dig deeper and look at what actually happened, instead of listening either to Parler's version or ENB's uninformed and ill-thought out version. Amazon documented 98 posts that are in violation of AWS terms of service, the exact same TOS that they have used many times to pull the plugs on other AWS customers. And it is *trivial* for Parler to replace the 500 servers they were using, which is why they will be back up again in a week (if that). This is just Parler's CEO whining about "whoa is me", and look how well that "everyone is out to get us" narrative is working with his customer base... You just fell for it.

Meanwhile, if Amazon, say, let a child pornography ring post child porn using AWS servers, you'd be (rightfully) livid. They have to have policies against illegal activity, and the kinds of posts that were left up by Parler were clearly illegal and awful, calls to kill this person and that person, not like "Too the moon Alice" calls to kill, but like serious "hey guys, anyone live near Mike Pence that owns a gun? Let's get together and figure out how to kill him" type posts. Those are awful, and even then: if Parler had its own servers, then that would be between Parler and the government. But Amazon has not only no compulsion to support that kind of thing, but is legally and contractually required to not support it.

[JFree]

Parler isn't really a competitor for Apple, Amazon, or Google, and Parler's head displays a fuzzy conception of free markets if he thinks it means big tech companies must contract with apps and businesses they don't wish to, for whatever reason.

FFS. Do you assholes at Reason truly believe that 'free markets' are defined by whatever the existing companies decide it is? This is what really angers me about modern libertarian shit. In particular anything that descends from either the plutocratic Randian turd or the ancap Austrian douche.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

They're literally arguing for a corporate oligopoly rather than a free market.

[Outside the Box]

Libertarianism isn't about "free markets", it's about property rights.

[Michael S. Langston]

lmao - that's funny. To help your child-like brain understand, one of those things requires the other.

[Outside the Box]

The problem with ENBs statement is that, at least in Amazon's case, they didn't decide not to do business with Parler "for whatever reason," they did it for a very clear and public reason: Parler was told that they were in violation of AWS' terms of service, were given a chance to comply, and not only did not comply but also said "we are not going to comply in the future." 98 cases of posts left up on Parler even after being notified were cited by AWS in their letter to Parler. But Parler's CEO is a conspiratoid pussy who just assumes that anything that doesn't go right is because everyone is out to get him, and you suckers fucking fell for it hook, line and sinker. Take a little personal responsibility Parler.

[Outside the Box]

The problem with this entire article and narrative is that it ignores that Amazon has clearly-specified policies about how AWS can be used, it documented 98 cases of violations of this policy by Parler, it gave Parler a chance to show that it could do something about it, and ultimately pulled the plug on Parler because not only did they not remove the policy-defying posts, but simply do not even have a mechanism to do so, meaning that they could not policy their own platform in the future as well.

On top of that, the narrative falls down because Parler's use of AWS is *tiny*, around 500-1000 servers according to Parler's CEO (for a sense of scale: AWS had 1.3M servers *in 2014*. I cannot find a more recent number), which is exactly why they will be back up in a week... If you think this is Amazon's big play to "shut down conservative freedom of speech," you must think they are fucking incompetent if this is all they can manage.

I would argue that what Parler needs to do is simple: provide a mechanism by which the truly bad posts can be flagged and pulled down. Even in AnCapistan, there's not going to be some sort of "freedom of speech" clause that allows you to say illegal things (like "I'll pay you $10,000 to kill this guy I don't like: hey, that's just speech, right?"). If you have a platform, you may or may not be ok with allowing people to say illegal things, but that doesn't mean that other companies are in any way compelled to support that. In contrast, if Parler wants to use their own servers, Amazon has nothing to do with that.

[Tony]

You bring up a great point. They wanted to test the idea that "free speech" and "anarchic speech" were the same thing. A bit of a libertarian experiment, if you will, with predictable results.

Libertarians should see the bigger picture and ask themselves what an experiment in quasi-anarchy that falls apart at this scale says about their desire to inflict it on the rest of society.

[Outside the Box]

"You bring up a great point." Umm, thanks, but if you think my point was one against anarchy: I'm a hardcore AnCap. I admit I don't follow your post though.

[Tony]

You bring up a great point that is unintentionally an argument against your worldview.

You don't have to walk very far from your front stoop before you will find reasons that letting people have significantly more freedom than they already have, under the supposedly totalitarian thumb of the United States, starts to ruin your day.

Even a modest experiment in ultra-free speech, one of the things that should be among the least regulated things in existence, led to a violent attack on the rule of law and ignominy for the experimenters. What's going to happen if we deregulate Wall Street, or restaurants?

[Michael S. Langston]

I’m a hardcore AnCap.

I wished you had pronounced that sooner, as given those terms are mutually exclusive, I would've known to ignore you much more quickly.

[TheZeitgeist]

Looks like Cloudflare axed Gab. So they'll just go after you're very existence on the internet looks like.

You can cheer for Trump's impeachment all day Reason, the socialists will still be coming for you.

Might be kissing this site good bye in a year or so.

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