Category: general freedom

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First Amendment rights general freedom social media

Rumble Resists

Rumble, free speech, France

In a world of almost universal assaults on freedom of speech, it is heartening when an avowed defender of it refuses to relent under pressure.

Rumble’s reason for being is to help people “control the value of their own creations.” The company creates “technologies that are immune to cancel culture.” Their mission is “to protect a free and open internet.”

A mission statement is one thing. Abiding by it in the face of major opposition is another. But Rumble has just told the French government to get lost for demanding that it deplatform certain sources of Russian news.

Stressing its policy that users with unpopular views “are free to access our platform on the same terms as our millions of other users,” Rumble has disabled access for users in France rather than acquiesce to the government’s censorship demands. Rumble will go back online there if it wins a lawsuit challenging the legality of the demands.

Like Elon Musk, who said that he wouldn’t block Russian news sources at the behest of governments “unless at gunpoint,” Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski says “I won’t move our goal posts for any foreign government.”

Rumble started out in 2013. By late 2021, Rumble.com was being visited by an average of 36 million active users per month.

If Rumble loses France, it loses less than 1 percent of its current users — but also an opportunity for substantial growth. 

On the other hand, it holds on to what it is.

And what its customers value. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: This Week in Common Sense, the weekend wrap-up of this program, is published on Rumble as a video nearly every week. Last weekend’s episode is “It’s a Funny World.”

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general freedom

Happy Thanksgiving 2022

Thanksgiving 2022

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defense & war general freedom international affairs

Stuck in the Middle with US?

China, United States, Taiwan

Is Taiwan, the island democracy of 24 million, really caught in the nation-state equivalent of a lovers’ triangle?

“Taiwan is caught in the middle of escalating tensions between the U.S. and China,” is how National Public Radio headlined its recent story about Communist Party-ruled China “speeding up its plans to seize Taiwan.”

“Entangled in a geopolitical power struggle between the US and China, the wants of the Taiwanese people get overshadowed,” informs CNA, the Singapore-based English language news network, pitching its weekly hour-long news program, Insight, which sought to present “the Taiwanese perspective to being caught between giants.”

Nothing new. 

“As China challenges the global dominance of the United States,” NBC News reported back in 2020, “tiny Taiwan finds itself stuck, rather uncomfortably, smack dab in the middle of the conflict between the two international giants.”

The Taiwanese are no doubt uncomfortable. In a recent survey, nearly 40 percent now believe a Chinese military invasion, killing tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or more, to be likely. 

They are not torn, however, between two superpowers. Taiwan is — most assuredly — not preparing to defend against an armed attack by the United States. 

In fact, Taiwan is coordinating its national defense efforts with the U.S., hoping and praying for direct U.S. help in defending themselves from totalitarian China.

Taiwan is not stuck with us. Nor we with them. We are simply allies in deeply valuing societies where individual lives matter. 

Against a superpower for whom they don’t

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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defense & war general freedom international affairs

Getting Guns to Good Guys

China, Taiwan

No sooner had President Biden shared his somewhat soothing takeaway from a three-hour meeting with Chinese ruler Xi Jinping — Joe doesn’t think there is an “imminent” threat of China invading Taiwan — then here comes a report that Russian missiles have killed two people.

Not in Ukraine, where Russia is “arguably” at war, but in neighboring Poland, a NATO country.

I’ve repeatedly suggested we review all the military alliances and commitments our politicians and diplomats have entered into . . . “on our behalf.” But there comes a time (and it seems fast approaching) when it is too late for review and the U.S. will have to stand up and meet the commitments it has made.

While I have little doubt in the current generation of volunteer soldiers, I cannot say that about my generation of generals and politicians and bureaucrats. “We cannot manufacture and produce weapon systems fast enough,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) told Full Measure host Sharyl Attkisson.

Pointing to $3 billion in U.S. arms sales to threatened Taiwan, McCaul complained that it has been “three years and we haven’t delivered one of these weapon systems into Taiwan. . . . Remember, in Taiwan, they actually have purchased these weapons.” 

One step to fix this mess is the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022 (S.4428), which would allow the U.S. to transfer significant weaponry, “essentially to do for Taipei what is being done for Kyiv — but before the bullets start flying.”

Our best opportunity to keep Chinese guns silent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom

Minority Medical Opinion Squelched

covid, censorship, wrong think

The Bill of Rights was originally understood as curbing the power only of the federal government.

This began to change with the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits states from depriving persons “of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Thanks to the “incorporation doctrine” interpretation of this amendment, provisions like the First Amendment now apply as much to state and local governments as to the federal government.

Except that many officials, disdaining these protections, simply ignore them.

So although obliged to make no law “abridging the freedom of speech,” California’s government is abridging the freedom of speech of doctors. A new law authorizes state medical boards to penalize doctors who utter speech contradicting “contemporary scientific consensus” about COVID-19.

Doctors are suing the Newsom administration to block the law from taking effect. According to their complaint, this anti-“misinformation” law would impede their ability to communicate with patients.

The doctors argue that the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech applies to expression of minority views as well as majority views; indeed, that minority views “particularly need protection from government censorship.”

Also that nobody can ever know “the ‘consensus’ of doctors and scientists on various matters related to prevention and treatment of COVID-19.”

Of course, free speech rights should protect even persons who say the moon is made of green cheese, let alone of those who disagree with official pronouncements about a vexing new virus and what to do about it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability general freedom political challengers

Punching Fauci?

Mark Zuckerberg, Anthony Fauci, royalty

“This is just one of those things where things get taken out of context,” congressional candidate Hung Cao told WJLA in Arlington, Virginia, responding to his opponents TV ads, which charge that Cao said he “wants to punch Dr. Fauci in the face.”

Mr. Cao, a colorful fellow, came to America from war-torn Vietnam when he was just four. He graduated from the Naval Academy and served for 25 years — a combat veteran of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia.

“[T]he real quote was ‘if there’s two people I could punch in the face and get away with it, it would be Mark Zuckerberg and Fauci,’” explained Cao. “I’m not advocating violence. All I’m saying is we are so frustrated with people — unelected officials — making decisions for this country like Mark Zuckerberg being able to ban people based on speech and Dr. Fauci shutting down businesses.” 

Cao clarified that he is “all about law and order.” 

His opponents “are also tying Cao to January 6th in television ads,” notes WJLA.

“You know where I was on January 6?” Cao asks. “I just landed from my last combat deployment in Afghanistan and my kids voted unanimously to open presents after I returned. So, that morning . . . we were actually opening Christmas presents,” he said. “I was trying to keep my eyes open with toothpicks, because I was so tired from the jetlag. And . . . to superimpose my face onto January 6, and then, not only that, Confederate flags as if I’m some sort of white supremacist.”

His word for that: insulting.

While attacked as an extremist, however, Cao has not shied away from defending parents — including homeschoolers, like he and wife — from the real extremists running our schools, and opposing President Biden’s COVID vaccine mandates that are kicking “heroes” out of the military “like trash.”

He even has a commercial where, as a former kick-boxing champion, he invited voters to join him in kicking Congress! 

Sadly, as much as I want to, I cannot vote for Cao. 

I’m in an adjacent district.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: Asked to express the importance of “previous experience in government or politics,” Cao explained to Ballotpedia: “Career politicians are a cancer. Being a county supervisor or city mayor makes them no more qualified than a truck driver.”

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Common Sense general freedom meme

Statism

statism, freedom

Statism is the very
paradoxical idea that people
are inherently greedy and
self-interested and therefore
we should pick a handful of
them and give them all
the power.
– Spike Cohen

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom

The FBI Is Misinformed

disinformation, FBI, free speech, 1st Amendment

The FBI is misinformed if it thinks that prosecuting persons who misinform solely for misinforming is consistent with freedom of speech.

The utterance of false statements, whether unknowingly or willfully, is nothing new in human history. And such utterances are impossible to avoid in any kind of discourse — for example, political debates — in which people disagree with each other about facts as well as values.

Indeed, one often hears both true things and false things. We must evaluate claims as best we can, using observation, logic, common sense and so forth.

But, somehow, the FBI has decided that “misinformation” and “disinformation,” chronic in campaign ads, political pronouncements, and domestic quarrels, are a crime when communicated in the context of an election.

An FBI document leaked to Project Veritas wants to explain “What Are Election Crimes.” This document lumps misleading speech with such actual crimes as electoral fraud and intimidation of voters.

Robert Spencer has questions about this assumption for the FBI’s, ahem, Election Crimes Coordinator, Lindsay Capodilupo. For example, how does the FBI determine what is and is not misinformation? Will there be an appeals process given the fact that certain notorious so-called “misinformation” — like the once-upon-a-time contested claim that Hunter Biden’s laptop is indeed Hunter Biden’s laptop — has turned out to be true information?

And — most important — how can wrongspeak as such be classified as any kind of crime in light of the First Amendment?

Stay tuned for the FBI’s answers. But not with bated breath, okay?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom Second Amendment rights too much government

The Gun-Toting Ruling Class

elites

How to tell if you are part of the favored ruling class? If it is easy for you, but not most others, to obtain a concealed carry permit in your gun-controlling state.

It’s extremely difficult to carry firearms for protection in states like Illinois, California, New Jersey and New York — except for certain Very Special Persons — rich enough or connected enough for special treatment.

Thankfully, the judicial system — which has the benefit of various guiding principles from a long-gone time when the rulers wore red coats — is disallowing some of the nonsense.

Still, it’s a struggle to “de-class-ify” Second Amendment rights — that is, take gun rights from being a class issue favoring the rich and famous and allowing all peaceful citizens legal access to firearms.

“Two weeks ago, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against many of the restrictions on public possession of guns that New York imposed after the Supreme Court upheld the right to bear arms last June,” writes Jacob Sullum in Reason. “Unfazed by that warning, New Jersey legislators this week advanced a strikingly similar bill that includes a subjective standard for issuing carry permits and sweeping, location-specific restrictions that make it legally perilous even for permit holders to leave home with guns.”

Politicians in these blue states remain resolute: they aim to unconstitutionally restrict access to guns. They strongly resist the current individualistic (as opposed to class-based) trend in judicial interpretation of the Second Amendment. 

Their idea seems to be: guns for us, but not for them.

And we’re the Them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom national politics & policies too much government

Doctor Dead End

Anthony Fauci, covid, vaccines, masks

Dr. Anthony Fauci not only holds a smoking gun, he’s standing over the corpse and sniffing the barrel, grinning like a cartoon villain.

Last week we considered the gross indecency of this director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and lead member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force funding Peter Daszak and the Wuhan lab to do more research on bat coronaviruses — to the tune of “Six Million Dimes.”

And now that a Boston group has publicized its gain-of-function research, we should ask ourselves: is Fauci involved in this, too? The answer is: YES — to the tune of $2.5 million!

This group of researchers, jiggering with a bat virus and the Omicron variant’s version of the infamous spiked protein, made a new iteration that killed 80 percent of infected mice. Success? What?!? 

We had been told that gain-of-function was against policy.

But that wise policy is no match for Fauci’s mania.

Wait, you cry, at least they developed the vaccines! 

Well, to what purpose?

A few weeks ago, in a European Parliament hearing, a Pfizer bigwig admitted that when the multinational introduced its anti-COVID mRNA “vaccine,” it had not even researched the ability of the jab to reduce transmissibility of the virus. 

“We had to really move at the speed of science to really understand what was taking place in the market,” Pfizer senior executive Janine Small explained. “And from that point of view we had to do everything at risk.” 

Clear? As mud?

This is a scandal . . . except . . . not according to FactCheck.org, which states that “nobody claimed the vaccines — Pfizer’s nor Moderna’s — were tested for transmission prevention before they hit the market.”

But even the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s fact checkers admit that “some officials have overstated the transmission protection provided by the vaccines.”

Chiefest of these is Fauci, who said last year that by getting vaccinated we “contribute to the community health by preventing the spread of the virus throughout the community. In other words, you become a dead end to the virus.”

Fauci, at the top of the Big Gov/Big Pharma dung heap, is himself a dead end — to responsible medicine.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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