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Common Sense

Effrontery Propaganda?

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Buried within another, more innocuous-​sounding piece of legislation*, the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act passed the U.S. Senate last week. Introduced in March, the corresponding House bill is still in committee.

Designed to “counter foreign disinformation and propaganda,” especially but not limited to Russia’s, the law, if enacted, would set up what amounts to the ultimate fact-​checking outfit. But since, in politics, Nietzsche’s Law of Hermeneutics** holds — “there are no facts, only interpretations” — what it really would be is an anti-​propaganda propaganda house, described by critics as a “Ministry of Truth.”

From Senate sponsors Rob Portman (R‑OH) and Chris Murphy (D‑CT), however, it sounds a lot more noble. It seeks to develop “a whole-​of-​government strategy for countering foreign propaganda and disinformation” as well as “leverage expertise from outside government to create more adaptive and responsive U.S. strategy options.”***

You can see why government insiders would be concerned. After all, information (mis- and dis- and even correct) travels fast these days.

That is the way of memes — “mind viruses,” popularly called**** — in this age of the Internet.

One related meme is the phrase “effrontery propaganda,” repeated in Internet postings, which characterizes the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act’s mission as that of developing and disseminating “‘fact-​based narratives” to counter effrontery propaganda.”

Insiders in government and major media do see as “effrontery” the memes that so strongly captured our imaginations in 2016. But is it fakery that really bothers them? Or mere effectiveness?

In any case, effrontery is precisely the right word for any centralized, government-​run propaganda outfit.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Titled a “report”!

** This being about propaganda, I hone my philosophical chops and chutzpah by dubbing the infamous F. A. Nietzsche saying as a “law.” On the order of Murphy’s and Parkinson’s so-​called laws. Why not? Maybe it’ll catch on.

*** Specifically, the Senate version of the bill would expand “the authority, resources, and mandate of the Global Engagement Center” — an existing institution — to handle state actors (Russia, Russia, Russia, and China) as well as “help train local journalists” and seek to influence (and fund) NGOs and think tanks.

**** Richard Dawkins, in The Selfish Gene (1976; 40th Anniversary Edition, 2016), proposed a new science, memetics. Which has since been developed. See The Meme Machine, for example, by Susan Blackmore (Oxford University Press, 1999).

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Accountability ballot access First Amendment rights general freedom government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall media and media people moral hazard nannyism Regulating Protest too much government U.S. Constitution

Four Measures for Rogue Government

speech, anti-speech, NAACP, Supreme Court, First Amendment, Free Speech,

Rule of thumb: don’t enact today laws that, had they been obeyed by folks in the original 13 states of our union, would have prevented independence.

Voters in Missouri, South Dakota, and Washington have the “opportunity” to enact such laws this November.

In “Beware of Anti-​Speech Ballot Measures,” Tracy Sharp and Darcy Olsen, presidents of the State Policy Center and the Goldwater Institute, respectively, offer a warning. Focusing on Measure 22, the South Dakota Government Accountability and Anti-​Corruption Act, they show how dangerous notions like forcing “nonprofit organizations to report the names and addresses of their donors to the state government” can be.

Such disclosure would subject non-​profits “to possible investigation by an unelected ethics board that is given the power to subpoena private documents and overrule decisions made by the state attorney general.…” Rogue, star-​chamber government.

Fever dream?

No. Sharp and Olsen highlight a famous U.S. Supreme Court case that protected the NAACP from the state’s demand for the group’s funding sources. Both women also offer personal tales of how nasty the opposition (in government and out) can become when big issues are on the line.

I can personally attest.

These measures fly in the face of what really matters — encouraging robust public debate. Democracy doesn’t work when people dread participation. As our authors challenge, “[d]o we want America to be a country where government keeps public lists of law-​abiding citizens because they dare to support causes they believe in?”

Especially when, without the secret (unreported!) activities of the Committees of Correspondence, the USA would not have become united states in the first place.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Original (cc) photo by Michael Tracey on Flickr

 

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Accountability ideological culture media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

Gray Lady Casts Shadow

Gray Lady, New York Times, NYT, political correctness, free speech, illustration

Earlier in the week, I noted how media manipulation of presidential poll results by not considering the Johnson and Stein campaigns distorting the race. I speculated why journalists would do such a thing, but didn’t have space for an exhaustive list.

But it’s clear that one of the things journalists aim to do is retain their once-​vaunted position as gatekeepers, as the idea-​people and fact-​dispersers who define the terms of allowable debate.

By ignoring the competition, they narrow the terms of this year’s presidential campaign, allowing their inexplicable favorite, Hillary Clinton, an advantage going to the polls.

But poll taking and reporting is not the half of it. Tim Graham, writing at Newsbusters, notes how the Gray Lady rigs the intellectual field. “The New York Times appears to be playing games again with conservative authors, trying to keep them off its vaunted (and secretively manipulated) Best Sellers list. This has happened to Ted Cruz, to Dinesh D’Souza, and to David Limbaugh.”

And now, Graham tells us, it’s happening to Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel, whose new book, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech, has been doing gangbusters on BookScan’s bestseller list.

The new exposé is sixth on BookScan’s hardcover list. But it’s not even made an appearance on the Times’ “list of the top 20 hardcover bestsellers, despite outselling books that did make the list.”

Would the Gray Lady dare manipulate the figures … just to suppress an idea it doesn’t like?

That is, the idea that the Left suppresses speech.

It’s almost too rich to be true.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability folly general freedom media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

The Senator Intrudes

Sen. John Thune, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, fairness doctrine, censorship

We know that the media in general, and Silicon Valley, too, have strong anti-​conservative biases — even if, in another sense, the Fourth Estate serves as almost the embodiment of one understanding of the conservative impulse: relentlessly upholding established institutions, against all attacks. The American media strongly defends the modern state; every program, it seems, is sacrosanct: the only thing wrong with Big, Intrusive Government is that it is not as Big and Intrusive as it should be.

This week, several ex-​Facebook news curators alleged systemic “political bias” in how stories receive the top spot in Facebook’s Trending news section. So Sen. John Thune (R‑S.D.) intrudes. He wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in his official capacity on the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Communication. Thune says that if Facebook is, in effect, promoting stories by means of a hidden political agenda, this amounts to something like a public fraud, which lies within this committee’s purview.

I don’t see how. And I really would like such biases and pseudo-​frauds to be dealt with by consumer pressure rather than government whip. And that should be without regard to the partisan stripe of the bias — or the whip.

Anthony L. Fisher, over at Reason, notes that the senator has a logic problem: he rests his case for government oversight of Facebook rules and consumer relations on the infamous “fairness doctrine,” which is not operative at this time, and which Thune has previously and repeatedly opposed.

And for good reason: the doctrine produced government-​enforced muting of speech, not fairness.

But this all may mean almost nothing. I’d never even noticed Facebook’s Trending section.

Have you?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo of Sen. John Thune credit: Gage Skidmore on Flickr

 

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Common Sense crime and punishment First Amendment rights folly ideological culture meme Popular

Scientists for Censorship

Climate Crime, Paul Jacob, Common Sense, censorship, global warming

“You have signed the death warrant for science,” scientist Peter Webster wrote to a colleague, recently.

The recipient of this charge had signed onto an entreaty to President Barack Obama, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren — along with 19 fellow climate scientists. They asked for an investigation into companies and organizations that publicly express doubt about predictions of impending catastrophic man-​made global warming. Specifically, they urge the administration to pursue this line of assault using the oft-​abused RICO statute, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act.

Yes, the scientists are calling for harassment of dissenters and straight-​out censorship.

Ronald Bailey, over at Reason, calls this a “new low in politicizing science.” Climatologist Judith Curry, who quoted Webster’s above judgment as an epigraph to her post on the subject, colorfully characterized her reaction: “When I first spotted this, I rolled my eyes — another day, more insane U.S. climate politics.”

The 20 alarmists, for their part, draw a parallel to the tobacco RICO investigations that were so influential a few decades ago. But that original case was badly decided. Moreover, RICO laws are themselves an affront.

The anthropogenic global warming catastrophists have previously undermined their case — lies, conspiracies to hide data, misleading use of computer models, and a relentless campaign to turn scientific inquiry into “settled science” will do that. But now, the grotesque spectacle of scientists demanding that the full weight and force of coercive government come down on their “opponents” completely destroys any remaining shred of credibility.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly ideological culture media and media people

It’s a Disgrace

Crying Children

State-​powered Puritanism is alive and well in the west. And freedom of speech is in its death throes.

Or so it seems in Great Britain. And the U.S. isn’t far behind, suggests Brendan O’Neill.

O’Neill, editor of the London-​based Spike, recounts recent absurd assaults on freedom of speech, so frequent now in Britain as to be routine.

Consider the case of the malevolent hashtag. A hashtag is a label with a pound sign that Twitter-​folk use to flag and meta-​comment on their tweets. A soccer fan named Stephen Dodds thumbed the hashtag “#DISGRACE” to bemoan how Muslims attending a game were conspicuously praying during halftime. His tweet provoked an Internet uproar. Good. But Dodds was also reported to the police, who investigated his open hashtaggery for two weeks (!!).

And how about the case of the svelte-​model-​adorned subway ad that dares ask British ladies if they’re “beach-​body-​ready”? Uh oh. A direct psychic assault on those who will never be “beach-​body-​ready” in the super-​model sense of the word. After feminists vandalized the ads, something called Advertising Standards Authority lurched to investigate — not the vandals, no: the blatantly anti-​blobby sentiment.

Few opinions or postures fail to offend somebody.

What offends me is that we should ever be subject to arbitrary, government-​backed assaults on our rights launched to satisfy persons especially thin-​skinned and/​or especially eager to stomp on the rights of others.

As with all fake rights, foisting a fake right to not-​be-​offended can only violate genuine rights. #DISGRACE.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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