Strip Social Media’s Social Engineers Of Their State Grants-Of-Privilege

Argument, Business, Conservatism, Free Speech, Law, libertarianism, Republicans, Technology, The State

As ever, the political caste, in general, and “the party of industry and commerce,” in particular, has shown itself to be arrayed against Middle America.

How so?

An army of Covington Kids ought to have advanced on social media’s loathsome moral crusaders and censors. It can’t, because stripping the tech trolls of their state-grants of privilege has slipped down the order of business.

Depriving social media’s social engineers of their state grants-of-privilege seems more than reasonable.

Nobody conservative is arguing that “government should regulate content moderation of social media,” CATO Institute.

What is being advocated is that social-media censors be deprived of their state-grants of privilege and protections against liability. For social media are collective frauds. While acting as editors and social engineers, they are legally safeguarded as mere platform providers.

Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, tech companies currently enjoy broad immunity from civil lawsuits stemming from what users post because they are treated as “platforms” rather than “publishers”.

Trump’s executive order is designed to pressure regulators, including the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, to come up with new rules that would curtail that immunity. It is likely to face legal challenges. (The Guardian)

Look, laws exist. Too many of them. It would be great were there fewer of these laws. However, whether intended or not,  the upshot of corporate libertarianism is that laws only ever hamper the little guy and gal, never the multinational shyster and fraudster.

Naturally, conservatives must agree that unfettered speech is just that.  They can’t start carving out pet exceptions.

UPDATE (4/13/021):  The Civil Rights Act route is way better than Section 230 repeal—although that, too, must be tackled.

NEW ON YouTube: ‘Systemic Racism Or Systemic Rubbish?’

Logic, Race, Racism, Reason

NEW ON YouTube: “Systemic Racism Or Systemic Rubbish?” By ilana mercer:

I’ve embarked on a series of columns deconstructing the term racism, systemic or other. The first is “Systemic Racism Or Systemic Rubbish?” You can imagine on what side I fall.

Essentially, the “systemic racism” refrain is a meaningless abstraction. Has anyone cast the nebulous racism expression in vaguely measurable, quantifiable terms? I didn’t think so!

Until you have done this work, “racism”—systemic or other—remains nothing but thought crime:

Impolite and impolitic thoughts, spoken, written, preached, tweeted, or whatever.

Thought crimes are nobody’s business in a free society. …

MORE:

Systemic Racism’ Or Systemic Rubbish?”
“Racial Violence Isn’t a One Way Street”

UPDATE II (12/5/022): If They Can’t Kill Directly, US Neocons Steal From Iranians To Starve ‘Em

Argument, Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Iran, Justice, Middle East, Military, Neoconservatism, Political Economy

If they are not permitted to invade countries not theirs, US neoconservative, Deep-State establishments, like the U.S. Justice Department, find ways to kill indirectly.

From their standpoint, American men and matériel should be allowed to reach all corners of the world. If they can’t move in directly for the kill, these mercenaries will find ways to kill indirectly.

The neoconservative faction is unperturbed by the fact that Iran has been crippled economically; that millions live below the poverty line there because of constant economic sanctions, cheered by chubby Michael Pompeo, US secretary of state.

Likewise, under Barack Obama’s reign of terror abroad—the Iranian currency lost 65 percent of its value and endured a SWIFT and devastating eviction from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.

Iranians are starving, due to sanction. So, what does the US do? Steal the oil they own and are trying to sell to stay alive.

On Friday, the DoJ announced the U.S. had seized more than 1.1 million barrels of petroleum, owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, from four merchant tankers bound for Venezuela.

“The government announced today that it has successfully executed the seizure order and confiscated the cargo from all four vessels, totaling approximately 1.116 million barrels of petroleum. With the assistance of foreign partners, this seized property is now in U.S. custody,” reads a statement from the Department of Justice.
“These actions represent the government’s largest-ever seizure of fuel shipments from Iran.”

… A seizure order for the cargo from all four vessels was issued by U.S. District Court Judge Jeb Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia,” reads the statement.

The nature of the political dispensation in Iran is none of America’s business. Poverty and hunger are widespread in “rich” America. Iranians do not fix on invading us and replacing our immiserating leaders.

Image: 57 Million Below the Poverty Line

UPDATE (8/17):
Facebook has censored my anti-starving-Iran post: https://lnkd.in/grX-57k My anti-starving-and-stealing-from-Iran blog post is here. Who would have thunk? It’s a pretty conventional, anti-starving-Iranian position, common among principled libertarians

Iranians have not killed and maimed and terrorized Americans; Saudi Arabians have!! For another, why suddenly such belief in what US intelligence “says” a/b anything? Lastly: regional conflicts. Let Israel & Saudis police their neighborhoods.

UPDATE (12/5/022) : And, we freeze Iranian assets. Why of course. We are America The Good. Ask Dinesh D’Souza. He’ll tell you in his hermetically “tight” argumentation style that because we are good, we can steal from other nations. I’m convinced. You?

Iranian frozen assets in international accounts are calculated to be worth between $100 billion[1][2] and $120 billion.[3][4][5] Almost $2 billion of Iran’s assets are frozen in the United States.[6] According to the Congressional Research Service, in addition to the money locked up in foreign bank accounts, Iran’s frozen assets include real estate and other property. The estimated value of Iran’s real estate in the U.S. and their accumulated rent is $50 million.[1] Besides the assets frozen in the U.S., some parts of Iran’s assets are frozen around the world by the United Nations.[1]

UPDATED (8/14): NEW COLUMN: America’s Race Reality: Inhuman, Insane, Incoherent

Crime, Criminal Injustice, English, Justice, Law, Paleoconservatism, Paleolibertarianism, Political Correctness, Propaganda, Race, Racism

NEW COLUMN IS “America’s Race Reality: Inhuman, Insane, Incoherent.” It appeared on WND.COM, The Unz Review, American Renaissance, Newsroom For American And European Based Citizens, The Saker.

The column, called Racial Violence Isn’t a One Way Street,” is now a feature on American Greatness, which, under the intrepid leadership of Julie Ponzi and her colleagues, has fast become the leading, cutting-edge paleoconservative publication.

Excerpt:

Racism is a lot of things. One thing it is not:

A white child, aged five, executed by a black man with a shot to the head, as the tyke rode his bike. Ask the cultural cognoscenti. They’ll tell you: That’s never racism.

Otherwise, almost anything involving the perpetually aggrieved black community counts as racism.

Students hoist a “thin blue line” flag in solidarity with police: racism.

A black male is asked for his driver’s license: racism. Of course it’s systemic. Are you stupid, or something?

A white politician proclaims that “all lives matter”: Come again? Are you kidding me?!

A museum curator fails to commit to the exclusion of the art of white men, including, presumably, the Old Masters: not racism; white supremacism. Be gone with you, Rembrandt and Vermeer.

A black student struggles with English grammar. English grammar is ruled racist. Take that, Dr. Johnson!

This, even though, logically, it is more likely that our student is not up to the task or hasn’t tried hard enough; that his tutor is not up to the task and hasn’t tried hard enough—or all of those things combined.

As you can see, accusations of racism are seldom grounded in reason or reality.

Racism, then, is just about anything other than the point-blank execution of little Cannon Hinnant (white), on August 9, by Darius Sessoms (black), and the rape, the other day, by Dejon Dejor Lynn, 25, of an old lady: his 96-year-old neighbor.

From the media industry’s modus operandi, we may comfortably deduce that the raped lady is almost certainly white.

How so?

Fully 73 percent of the residents of Ann Arbor, Michigan, are white. If the race of an unnamed victim of black crime is withheld, she’s most likely white. Were the victim Hispanic, the media industry would say so, and would forthwith withhold the picture and race of the “suspect,” so that the crime became an attack against a “minority.”

Similar black-on-white atrocities are a daily occurrence, documented, “in moving images,” by “the fearless and indefatigable journalist Colin Flaherty.” They are either ignored by the media industry or described as racially neutral.

In a powerful responsorial that is almost religious in cadence, Jack Kerwick, a FrontPageMag.com columnist, and occasional American Greatness contributor, commands us to “say their names”: …

READ THE REST. Racial Violence Isn’t a One Way Street” is now featured on American Greatness

UPDATE (8/14): Marc Train at WND:

MarcTrain • 5 hours ago @WND Comments:

Man …this woman is the ONLY conservative writer who will touch this with a million ft. pole. Tucker Carlson does a little but she hits it out of the park …