Explaining the propaganda that is transforming our democratic way of life from freedom to servility:
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Burr and Reagan
On February 6, 1778, the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce were signed by the United States and France, signaling official recognition of the new republic. Exactly a decade later, the State of Massachusetts became the sixth in the union to ratify the new United States Constitution.
February 6 marks the birthdays of Aaron Burr (1756 – 1836), third Vice President of the United States and infamous Weehauken duelist, and Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004) 40th President of the United States.
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David Ricardo
Under a system of perfectly free commerce, each country naturally devotes its capital and labour to such employments as are most beneficial to each. This pursuit of individual advantage is admirably connected with the with the universal good of the whole. By stimulating industry, by rewarding ingenuity, and by using most efficaciously the peculiar powers bestowed by nature, it distributes labour most effectively and most economically: while, by increasing the general mass of productions, it diffuses general benefit, and binds together, by one common tie of interest and intercourse, the universal society of nations throughout the civilized world.
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Fired for Being on Parler
Is the desire to speak freely a bad thing?
In tweets now “protected” from public view, Jennifer De Chiara, president of Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency, professed distress upon learning “that one of our agents has been using the social media platforms Gab and Parler. We do not condone this activity.”
Her agency, she added, works “to ensure a voice of unity, equality, and one that is on the side of social justice.” So “Colleen Oefelein is no longer an agent at The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency.”
This announcement came some weeks after Oefelein reported (on Twitter) that she’s “now also posting on Parler. It’s a great platform with no censorship!”
Tech giants like Twitter and Facebook have become increasingly brazen about banning users for uttering wrongthink. Hence the appeal of pro-free-speech alternatives like Parler and Gab.
De Chiara and Oefelein certainly disagree on the exact reason for the firing. Oefelein says it was for being “a Christian and a conservative.”
Of course, their two explanations are not mutually contradictory.
Anyway, it is significant that De Chiara explains the firing by specifically citing Oefelein’s use as such of a pro-free-speech platform. Also significant is that her explanation includes nothing to the effect that Oefelein expressed anything even so much as politically incorrect . . . or, let’s note, that she was bad at her job.
One apt response to deplatforming is shunning, the boycott of (in this case) the Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency. If you are an author or agent working with the agency and you disapprove of such retaliation against the desire to speak freely, find another agency.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Joss Whedon
Xander: This is just too much. I mean, yesterday my life’s like, ‘Uh-oh, pop quiz.’ Today it’s ‘Rain of Toads.’
Willow: I know. And everyone else thinks it’s just a normal day.
Xander: Nobody knows. It’s like we’ve got this big secret.
Willow: We do. That’s what a secret is, when you know something other guys don’t.
Joss Whedon, writing credits for (and creator of) Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season One; Episode Two: “The Harvest,” March 10, 1997.
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Sir Robert Peel
On February 5, 1788, Robert Peel was born. He would become one of the most important of the United Kingdom’s prime ministers, ushering in some reforms that led to the liberalization of England in the 19th century.
Peel is also regarded as the father of the modern British police — the popular term “bobbies” refers to “Bob” Peel — and as one of the founders of the modern Conservative Party. Robert Peel died in 1850.
Reliable Sources, CNN’s media watchdog program, is hard to watch. It should be retitled Pot Calls Kettle to match host Brian Stelter’s teapot head, so often skirling from a full steam. To avoid all that, I read the transcript of his Sunday episode to take in his much-quoted tear defending Big Tech’s deplatforming of alternative media and attacking the three news channels he hates so much — OAN, Newsmax, and, especially and always, Fox.
You see, they’re liars!
He’s not, of course; CNN’s not, he says — without ever managing to acknowledge his job at CNN, deliverer of the Official Spin.
And ignorer of the laundry list of whoppers espoused by his own network.
Which Glenn Greenwald made clear in his response: “CNN lies and spreads conspiracy theories constantly. They’re a pro-Democratic Party outlet that barely airs any dissent from the DNC line. If @brianstelter’s standards for banishing Fox were applied equally, it’d affect all cable news outlets, not just one.”
Asserting that “disinformation” about the pandemic is “harmful” — while CNN’s slavish towing of the government’s incoherent, shifting line on COVID has not been??? — Stelter offers a “harm reduction” model. Deplatforming people he disagrees with? Why, that’s not an abridgment of “freedom of speech.”
All he itches for is to cripple his competitors’ “freedom of reach.”
But take a breath: extending the reach of one’s speech is why we have “the press.” This freedom of the press (“reach”) is also protected from government, to be valued even when we disagree with our opponents.
The idea that a few CNN hosts get to determine The Official Truth for everybody else, and that this should be institutionalized in some broad, society-wide way, would toll the death knell of America.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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First President
On February 4, 1789, George Washington was unanimously elected as the first President of the United States, under the new Constitution, by the U.S. Electoral College.
On the same date five years later, the French legislature abolished slavery throughout all territories of the French Republic.
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Yves Guyot
With the development of civilisation, man’s wants become more various, and his aptitudes more specialised. The consequence is, that he can produce more utilities than before; but these utilities are more limited in their nature; they are all of one kind. He now produces, not so much what he wants, as what others want. Hence it comes to pass that exchange becomes an ever more imperious necessity; for exchange consists in giving away what are to us superfluous utilities in order to obtain what are to us necessary utilities.
Yves Guyot, Principles of Social Economy (1892).
Mailchimp is an “all-in-one integrated marketing platform” that helps businesses send newsletters and other email to customers, prospects, and supporters. In January it blocked the Virginia Citizens Defense League from sending email to members about an annual rally in defense of gun rights and told the organization to get lost.
Some help.
According to the president of the Defense League, Philip Van Cleave, “There was no justification. They provided nothing. Basically, they just said we need to get our stuff and be prepared to move on.”
Well, Mailchimp’s boilerplate letter did also state that its “automated abuse-prevention system, Omnivore, detected serious risks associated with [your] account. . . . This risk is too great for us to continue to support the account.”
What risk? Oh, why bother to specify. The point is, the automated system detected it. I’m guessing that certain scary words were flagged, like “gun,” “Second Amendment,” “Constitution,” “rights.”
It seems that any kind of assembling on behalf of certain constitutionally protected rights or to petition for redress of grievances is to be regarded as a rationale for summarily ejecting politically right-leaning customers — at least by firms going along with this accelerating strategy to abet repression.
Mailchimp has violated the terms of service upheld by those who respect freedom of speech and do not respect arbitrary assaults on costumers. If you’re using it, look for an alternative.
The Defense League’s “Lobby Day” rally was peaceful again this year — as the group’s website informs, “just a lot of patriots sending a strong message to the General Assembly to keep their hands off our gun rights.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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