Tag: freedom

Left-Winged Wikipedia

Wikipedia — the free online, once freely editable encyclopedia — started out upholding a principle about “neutrality.”

According to Wikipedia, this means that Wikipedia content “must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV) . . . representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.”

NPOV isn’t the same as objectivity, which is about getting at the truth by honest observation and logic, not primarily by balancing viewpoints about what’s true. But if good objective work by “reliable sources” has been done about a subject, Wikipedia’s neutrality standard requires that both the sludge and the good work be included.

Somebody new to the subject has a fighting chance to be steered in the right direction.

NPOV still guides many Wikipedia articles where it is not really necessary, articles about elms and carburetors. The standard is now often ignored, however, in articles about controversial subjects. Like politics. Or socialism.

As I write, Wikipedia’s article on socialism mentions the kill list of “suspected high-ranking Communists” drawn up by Indonesia’s Suharto but not the many millions slaughtered under the commie-socialist regimes of the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, et al. Critiques of socialism are barely touched on. No NPOV here.

Such agitprop is guarded by non-neutral left-wing Wikipedia editors. Britannica is one alternative. Conservapedia was launched in 2006 as “a conservative, family-friendly Wiki encyclopedia,” and appears to be going strong. Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger, harshly critical of Wikipedia’s centralized propagandistic turn, is developing an alternative called Encylosphere.

It’s even mentioned in Wikipedia.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags freedom, wikipedia

international affairs

First-Class Freedom Fighting

Post author By Redactor
Post date March 18, 2021
1 Comment on First-Class Freedom Fighting

Just seven years ago today — March 18, 2014 — Taiwanese students began a 23-day occupation of the country’s legislature, in what became known as the Sunflower Student Movement. They were protesting the rushed and opaque passage of a Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement with China.

Trade deals usually aren’t so explosive, but China is a neighbor 58 times larger than Taiwan’s 24-million population and one that regularly threatens military invasion. Furthermore, the agreement was negotiated in secret and initially passed by the Legislative Yuan in 30 seconds.

Obviously without debate.

Opponents of the deal argued it would allow China to effectively “purchase” Taiwan, and to economically leverage and then strangle Taiwan’s vibrant democracy, which like Hong Kong’s aspirations constitutes a terrible affront to the anti-democratic Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ruling over more than a billion silenced, disenfranchised Chinese.

The students’ concerns for transparency and safeguards connected with the Taiwanese public, which put enormous pressure on the government.

Ultimately, the spring Sunflower Movement in Taiwan helped influence the autumn Umbrella Movement protests in Hong Kong as well as energizing the 2016 win for Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party and far less Beijing-friendly President Tsai Ing-wen (who won a second term last year).

In these last seven years, the world has come a long way in recognizing the threat posed by totalitarian China. For that I give those students in Taipei a lot of credit. Their standing up kept Taiwan free — and helped us all begin to stand up to the Chinazis (as Hong Kongers call the CCP).

The other aftermath? Le Monde’s report on students finally leaving the Yuan, noted it was “not without having thoroughly cleaned the building.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags China, Chinazi, freedom, Taiwan

ballot access national politics & policies

The Incumbency Fraud

“There’s nothing that shortening the period by which people can vote early does to combat any perceived fraud,” Democratic Party attorney Marc Elias said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. “It’s really just a cover for what they’re really trying to do, which is to make it harder to vote.”

At issue is a new law courtesy of Iowa Republicans, along with numerous bills pending in other states, addressing what Republicans call “election integrity” and Democrats call “voter suppression.”

Host Chuck Todd informed viewers that a poll found two-thirds of Floridians wanted more early voting days. Not fewer.

Hardly surprising, since that’s easiest for voters. And while voting should be easy, ease is not the only consideration.

The Iowa “law shortens the early voting period to 20 days from the current 29,” the Associated Press reported, “just three years after Republicans reduced the period from 40 days.”

Here’s why I support that change, though it would be better even shorter*:

We should vote together. Not weeks apart. With three, four, six weeks of early voting, election day ballots can be cast with a different set of facts than those cast so many weeks earlier.
The longer the time during which ballots are cast, the greater the expense in running for office. Candidates must be in touch when voters make their decisions. Since incumbents hold an average four-to-one spending advantage over challengers, more expensive campaigns give incumbents an even greater advantage.

So, while early voting doesn’t cause fraud, by making elections more expensive it fosters what we might call “the incumbency fraud.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* One provision in H.R. 1, which passed the U.S. House on a party-line vote, requires that states allow at least 15 days of early voting. The overall bill is terrible; plus, we are better off with the states as laboratories of democracy, rather than marionettes of Washington. But my preference would be not more than 15 days.

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Tags campaign finance, democracy, freedom, incumbency

insider corruption national politics & policies

Dystopia de la Brazile

“When will the check arrive?”

That’s what “voters want to know,” former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace yesterday.

Not whether President Joe Biden is dodging the media’s questions, as Wallace had inquired of his panel of Washington experts, after explaining that Biden now holds the modern record for longest time as president without facing reporters in a news conference.

“Well, it’s no surprise,” offered Jonathan Swan, national political correspondent for Axios. “It’s an extension of what he basically did throughout the campaign, which was very minimal — he basically didn’t subject himself to extended, tough questioning.”

GOP strategist Karl Rove went further, arguing, “he’s just not up to it … at the age of 78 he’s lost a few steps and he’s not going to look good in a news conference.”

But Brazile was having none of it. Citizens are laser-focused, she contends, on being shown the money … and really aren’t too concerned as to whether their commander-in-chief, the sleepy fellow in possession of the nuclear codes, might be suffering something approaching early dementia.

People do like money. But to what degree is she really correct? With palms greased will the public look the other way? How many votes have Democrats bought?*

Don’t think Brazile is alone, either; as I pointed out recently (“Big Bucks Buy Votes”), too much of Washington actually thinks purchasing apathy, support, votes is how Washington should work.

They marvel as modern political statecraft transcends the hubbub of bread and circuses with electronic direct deposits of spendable cash into bank accounts. But with the same hoped-for result.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* And ask the same question of Republicans who voted for sending similar checks to everyone when they controlled the Senate and the White House last year.

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Tags bread and circuses, freedom, government, Juvenal, tyranny

general freedom ideological culture

Jeep & Freedom

“Bruce Springsteen issued a call for common ground, unity and political centrism,” CNN reported, “in a 2‑minute long ad for Jeep [that ran] during the Super Bowl on Sunday.”

The Detroit Free Press called the commercial a “healing message.”

Not so much over at The Federalist, a conservative outlet, where Mollie Hemingway listed three main problems:

1. The Messenger Is Known For Hating Republicans

2. The Images Were All Off

3. The Argument For Unity Was Not Made Well

I don’t disagree with her. Springsteen, after all, said he would leave the U.S. if President Trump were re-elected; he has long supported Democrats and bashed Republicans.

But, nevertheless … I heard something that rang true.

“Now fear has never been the best of who we are,” spoke Mr. Springsteen. That’s a truism.

But the Boss added, “And as for freedom, it’s not the property of just the fortunate few; it belongs to us all. Whoever you are, wherever you’re from, it’s what connects us. And we need that connection.”

Yes. We. Do.

Freedom unites us … because we can do our own thing.

Whether Born in the USA or recent arrivals to these shores, let us celebrate not what government can legislate, mandate, or make us do, but what those in power cannot make us do, that we are free to speak truth as we see it and to dream, build and achieve a better tomorrow of our own making.

It all sure fits with Jeep’s “Go Anywhere. Do Anything” slogan. And I have no doubt they mean “anything” as long as you don’t impinge on anyone else’s rights.

Just note that the slogan applies to us, not our politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Bruce Springsteen, freedom, Superbowl, unity

social media

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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