Category Archives: Law

UPDATE II (12/21/021): NEW COLUMN: Centralize Liberty: The Solution To Wicked, Woke Tech (Part 3)

Free Speech, Individual Rights, Justice, Labor, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Natural Law, Political Philosophy, Private Property, Republicans, Technology, The Courts, THE ELITES

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NEW COLUMN: “Centralize Liberty: The Solution To Wicked, Woke Tech,” is now on WND.COM, The Unz Review, CNSNews, and The New American.

This column is Part 3 of a 3-part series. Read Part 1, “Big Tech’s Financial Terrorism And Social Excommunication” and Part 2, “Justice Thomas’ Solution to Big Tech’s Social And Financial Excommunication.”

An excerpt:

It is inarguable that by financially crippling and socially segregating, and banishing politically irksome people and enterprises—the Big Tech cartel is flouting the spirit, if not the strict letter, of the Civil Rights Act.

For how do you make a living if your banking options are increasingly curtailed and constantly threatened, and your ability to electronically communicate with clients is likewise circumscribed?

Do you go back to a barter economy (a book for some bread)? Do you go underground? Cultivate home-based industries? Do you keep afloat by word of mouth? Go door-to-door? Return to stamping envelopes? How can you, when your client base is purely electronic?

Telling an individual he can’t open a bank account on account of the beliefs and opinions swirling in his head teeters on informing your innocent victim he might not be able to make a living, as do other, politically more polite Americans, and despite his innocence: Our only “offenses” as dissidents are thought crimes, namely, speaking, or typing or wafting into the air unpopular, impolite words.

“[I]n assessing whether a company exercises substantial market power,” Justice Clarence Thomas has argued, “what matters is whether the alternatives are comparable. For many of today’s digital platforms, nothing is.”

To paraphrase this Supreme Court jurist: Sure, there are alternatives to The Big Tech, but these make a mockery of the outcast. It would hardly be hyperbole, in driving home Justice Thomas’s point about comparability, to put it thus:

With respect to financial de-platforming, barring someone from PayPal is like prohibiting a passenger from crossing the English Channel by high-speed train, via ferry and by means of 90 percent of airplanes. “Have at it sucker.”

By Deep Tech decree, some Americans are worth more than others, based not on their actions, but on the voiced thoughts in their heads. This cannot stand.

The letter of the law needs changing. Do it.

Civil Rights Act

Thus, the preferred remedy to Deep Tech depredations would build upon existing Civil Rights Act jurisprudence.

As a reality-oriented conservative libertarian, I inhabit and theorize in the real world. From the conservative-libertarian’s perspective, Barry Goldwater got it right. Civil Rights law is an ass, for it infringes on property rights. But the onus is on flaccid Republican lawmakers to ensure that that ass can be ridden by all equally (with apologies to adorable, much-abused donkeys for the cruel metaphor).

These are existing laws that are already enforced. I see no reason to reject the application of civil rights solutions to wicked, woke bullies because existing laws that’ll never be repealed go against my core beliefs. What is libertarianism? The art of losing in life because of a slavish devotion to theoretical purity? …

… NEW COLUMN, “Centralize Liberty: The Solution To Wicked, Woke Tech,” can be read now on WND.COM, The Unz Review, CNSNews, and The New American.

UPDATED (10/26/021) I:

UPDATE II (12/21/021) II: “Berenson v. Twitter“:

Twitter is indisputably a messenger service. A longstanding California law regulates messenger services as “common carriers.” This means that they must accept all messages they receive. Twitter thus must accept all tweets it receives. It has no First Amendment rights to refuse them on the basis that it does not agree with them.
A federal law commonly called Section 230 “preempts” the California law, giving Twitter the right to reject tweets or ban users. (Whether that right is universal or whether Twitter must act in “good faith” in restricting service is a separate question; whether Twitter acted in “good faith” in this case is still another question. But put those issues aside for the moment.)
Section 230 is what enables Twitter to claim a First Amendment privilege that supersedes the California law and restrict my own First Amendment right to speak; thus federal courts have the right to review 230 on First Amendment grounds.

MORE.

NEW COLUMN: Big Tech’s Financial Terrorism And Social Excommunication (Part 1: The Problem)

Business, Economy, Individual Rights, Law, Paleolibertarianism, Political Economy, Regulation, Republicans, Technology

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NEW COLUMN is “Big Tech’s Financial Terrorism And Social Excommunication (Part 1: The Problem).” It is currently on WND, Towhnhall.com, The Unz Review, and CNSNews.com

Excerpt:

Republican solutions to Big Tech tyranny do not begin to address financial de-platforming, the cancellation of citizen dissidents en masse, including the infringement of the right to partake in the public square and make a living.

In their weak case against Deep Tech (“Deep” to denote enmeshment with The State), Republicans are still defending only some speech on the “merits,” rather than all speech, no matter how meritless.

In a sense, the statist anti-trust bills—targeting especially Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google—being pushed by lawmakers are worse than useless.

The anti-trust impetus is misguided as it conflates corporate size with anti-competitive practices: the larger, the more monopolistic. However, reducing the size of an entity–a corporation–doesn’t necessarily alter its nature.

When a malignant cell divides, it doesn’t grow less potent. To the contrary, it innervates and enervates more spheres. Likewise breaking up Big Tech. Smaller malignancies metastasize and kill just as well.

The habitual failure of the representatives sent by Deplorables to D.C. to prevent cancellation en masse–the Orwellian nightmare from unraveling–cannot be understated. On the line is dissidents’ ability to speak, publish, partake in society; sell our cultural products, and transact financially over the country’s major online economic and social arteries.

No wonder the Tech crooks appear periodically on The Hill to make fun of the country’s comical representatives and their gullible, pliable voters. The richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, has no qualms about letting his delivery drivers, who, “operate under severe [app monitored] time constraints,” urinate in bottles for fear of losing their low-wage jobs.

Do you think the dim bulbs in Congress, posturing for the cameras, scare his ilk?

Do not forget that anti-trust busting or the repealing of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act are solutions the GOP had failed to implement when in control of both chambers and the presidency.

It was under Republican control that de-platforming (of a president, no less), the banning of legions of powerless dissident citizens, including detrimental financial de platforming, “occurred.”

Given this incontrovertible reality, The People have an obligation to quit the “my party, right or wrong” unconditional love, and demand the GOP work to unban ordinary, innocent folks, the crooked politicians be damned….

... READ THE REST. NEW COLUMN is “Big Tech’s Financial Terrorism And Social Excommunication (Part 1: The Problem).” It is currently on WND, Towhnhall.com, The Unz Review, and CNSNews.com

UPDATED: My solutions, presented next week, are not going to exist, as I like to say, in the arid arena of pure thought.

*Image courtesy WND.

UPDATE II (7/19 No Nuance Allowed) NEW COLUMN: South Africa Shames U.S. Democrats By Uniting Against Criminality

Crime, Democrats, Homeland Security, Justice, Law, Morality, Multiculturalism, Nationalism, Nationhood, South-Africa

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NEW COLUMN IS “South Africa Shames U.S. Democrats By Uniting Against Criminality.” It is currently featured on WND.COM, The Unz Review, CNSNews,  Townhall.com and American Renaissance.

I expect to see the column in Junge Freiheit, a German weekly of excellence, which published my column for some years.

This column is quite a departure from my usual gloom about my homeland. However, when juxtaposed against the pervasive degenerate moral tone set by progressives in the USA—South Africa stands out positivity.

As I said in the column’s coda:

“For everything there is a season under the heavens,” Ecclesiastes teaches. “A time to break down, and a time to build up.”

I’ve cried for the beloved country—to conjure Alan Paton’s poignant tale titled “Cry, the Beloved Country” (1948), which was to apartheid South Africa what Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was to antebellum America.

Now is the time to comfort, praise, and build the beloved country up.

An excerpt:  https://tinyurl.com/seh4cyc3

… in 2020, America erupted in race riots. Cities across the republic were sacked, citizens left defenseless. The camera panned out across the country to reveal policemen and guardsmen caving.

Against the backdrop of “Mad Max”-like dystopian destruction–a portend of things to come–American men in uniform all collapsed to the pavements like yogis to the command of their black tormentors. Bringing in the feds was a must since the protection of individual natural rights trumps federalism. However, while the national guard was galvanized, the cavalry was sent to race-riot hotspots to protect not the citizenry, oh no, but federal property.

As bad and as broken as my poor former homeland is, South Africa’s ruling elites came out with powerful declarations of shared moral values. There was no blame game–no allusion to systemic racism. The system of apartheid was not conjured from the past as causality for criminality. Whites were not demonized as the Evil Other. Over 2000 criminals have hitherto been arrested and 117 killed, I imagine, some by cop. Five thousand soldiers are already on the ground.  …

… By the thousands, South African authorities have been arresting rioters, not right-wingers. Stateside, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is proceeding energetically not against our BLM domestic terrorists, but against Trump-voting Deplorables…

… whereas riots make “Sippy Cup Joe (Biden)” weep for the rioters and wail for police reform, not for policing the rioters–Ramaphosa has sent a clear and moral message: “We will stand as one people, united against violence, unanimous in our commitment to peace and to the rule of law.” …

…MORE  “South Africa Shames U.S. Democrats By Uniting Against Criminality” is currently featured on WND.COM, The Unz Review, CNSNews,  Townhall.com and American Renaissance.

https://tinyurl.com/drumc543

UPDATE I (7/17/021): No Nuance Allowed:

Here, in “South Africa Shames U.S. Democrats By Uniting Against Criminality,” I didn’t naively praise poor South Africa. I largely compared the moral tenor of the response to riots in South Africa to the moral tenor of the response to riots in the US. South Africa came out on top.

Smart readers welcome nuance, in general—and, in particular, from a writer who has been way ahead of them and their favorite talkers and merciless regarding South Africa for over a decade!

Alas, readers want their dose of mindless monotone. The Second-Handers will you give you that. Here you get the truth. South African authorities have been arresting rioters; American authorities have been arresting right-wingers.

UPDATE II (7/19:021): Experts in America:

 

UPDATED (7/3/021): NEW COLUMN: Mad, #MeToo Matriarchy Ensnared Bill Cosby

Criminal Injustice, Feminism, Gender, Justice, Law, Sex

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NEW COLUMN is “Mad, #MeToo Matriarchy Ensnared Bill Cosby.” It is currently on WND.COM, The Unz Review, Townhall.com and American Greatness.

Excerpt:

… The same myopic, malfunctioning media are currently choosing to focus on how the Cosby verdict has been overturned on a procedural or technical matter

…. don’t allow the due-process oversight, indubitably important, to distract you from the nub of the matter.

The Cosby prosecution, as I pointed out at the time, rested on he-said, she-said hearsay evidence, on facts that can’t possibly meet the rules of evidence (the ones the United States once abided), or be corroborated for the purposes of a just prosecution, in accordance with the legal standards of Western law (of blessed memory).

The tainted evidence was solicited decades too late, with utter disregard for the statute of limitations. It came from unverified “prior bad act” women (“witnesses”)–unhinged #MeToo hysterics loosed in a court of law–who acted and sounded as though they were demented. Why, even the date of “the crime” could not be established.

The Law must engage in a search for truth. Ultimately, however, courts of law do not deal with what happened. Their judgments must rely on what can be proven to have happened.

Prosecutorial power to bring charges against a person is an awesome power, stress Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton in The Tyranny of Good Intentions. Backing him, the prosecutor has the might of the state, and, consequently, he must never “override the rights of the defendant in order to gain a conviction.”

Prosecutorial duties are dual. While acting as the plaintiff, the prosecutor must also take pains to protect the defendant’s rights.

This is why the #MeToo judicial “philosophy” undergirding the prosecution of Bill Cosby and many other men is so terrifying.

“Always Believe the Victim” is a ditzy, made-in-Hollywood dogma that goes against the stellar Anglo-American common law legal tradition.  …

…MORE. NEW COLUMN is “Mad, #MeToo Matriarchy Ensnared Bill Cosby.” It is currently on WND.COM, The Unz Review, Townhall.com and American Greatness.

* Image: Bill Cosby’s accuser, courtesy BBC News. Note that Mr. Cosby is legally blind NOW, but I don’t believe he was blind when he allegedly went for this apparition.

Stephen Sacks On Facebook:

Bill Cosby & Harvey Weinstein are almost in the top five sleaziest guys in Hollywood, but we don’t typically imprison boorish louts for immoral behavior.
Immoral is not necessarily illegal.
Just like one can’t yell fire in a crowded theater, a prostitute, err, I mean, sex worker, shouldn’t be allowed to yell rape in a crowded brothel.
Read the transcripts from both trials.In an alternate universe the ACLU would have filed Friend of the Court briefs in both cases to protect the integrity of our legal system.