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« on: July 06, 2019, 05:23:07 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 6-20-2019
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
Jun. 20, 2019
https://patriotpost.us/digests/63778-mid-day-digest
THE FOUNDATION
“We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.” —Thomas Paine (1777)
https://patriotpost.us/fqd/63777-founders-quote-daily
IN TODAY’S EDITION
Leftists keep wrongly throwing around the “Nazi” label.1
What’s the solution to Big Tech censorship?2
Daily Features: More Analysis3, Columnists4, Headlines5, Opinion in Brief6, Short Cuts7, Memes8, and Cartoons9.
IN BRIEF
‘Everyone I Don’t Like Is Hitler’10
It’s nothing new for leftists to hurl the “ultimate” insult at conservative opponents — the inevitable comparison to Nazis generally or Adolf Hitler specifically. As we’ve noted before, they root this insult in decades of propaganda in American schools mislabeling the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis) as “right wing.” Wikipedia’s definition is both typical and particularly hilarious for its incoherence: The Nazi party “was a far-right political party in Germany … that created and supported the ideology of National Socialism.”
Read that again.
The bottom line is that leftists don’t want to be associated with ideologues who murdered millions based on race/ethnicity. Never mind that National Socialism’s leftist ideological sibling11, Marxist Socialism, resulted in the murder of tens of millions12 based on politics and power.
Thus, leftists accuse anti-totalitarian Republicans of being totalitarian Nazis. President Donald Trump has been slapped with this label more times than we can count, even though if he’s trying to be a Nazi, he’s doing it all wrong13. This week brought several new comparisons.
It all started with the obnoxious and ignorant representative from the Bronx, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who declared that the U.S. Border Patrol is “running concentration camps on our southern border.” For good measure, she added that Trump’s is “an authoritarian and fascist presidency.”
Likewise, CNN’s Don Lemon, while lecturing about Trump and race, said, “Think about the despicable people we’ve had in history. … Think about Hitler.” His argument was essentially that Trump and conservatives who say things he doesn’t like should be censored because they’re just like Hitler.
CNN’s Chris Cuomo — we can’t believe we’re saying this — got it right, firing back at Lemon, “Comparing anything to an extreme like a Hitler weakens the argument.” He added, “A guy who says things I don’t like … is not necessarily a step away from a genocidal maniac.”
As for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, she’s smart enough not to invoke the Nazis, but she did nearly everything but and didn’t exactly rebuke Ocasio-Cortez for her hateful hyperbole. Instead, Pelosi added to it, calling Trump’s plan to uphold the law by deporting illegal aliens “cruel,” “discriminatory,” “an act of utter malice and bigotry,” and “inflicting inhumanity.” She then had the gall to accuse Trump of “sabotaging good-faith efforts” to solve the immigration problem.
If it’s “good faith” to call Trump a Nazi — or even just the relatively mild epithets Pelosi hurled — we’d hate to see an ugly attack.
To tie this all together, it’s more than ironic that the Democratic Socialists are screaming that Trump’s enforcement of immigration law — never mind his agenda of deregulation and smaller government — represents totalitarianism, while it is their party advocating not just government control of our lives and redistribution of our income but censorship and punishment for all who dare disagree.
Who are the real totalitarians?
https://patriotpost.us/articles/63775-everyone-i-dont-like-is-hitler
Big Government Is Wrong Solution for Big Tech Censorship14
Big Tech has a censorship problem over which free-speech advocates particularly on the Right have been increasingly ringing alarm bells. But the solution to tackling this growing leftist threat to Liberty is hardly clear, nor is it easily agreed upon.
Free-market absolutists argue against any government action, suggesting that doing so only adds to an already oversized bureaucratic state when, given time, the market will eventually self-correct. While the concern over increased bureaucracy is valid, this argument naively contends that the problem is really a rather minor one if it’s one at all, and that what is happening in Silicon Valley is merely the free market at work. This presumes the market to be truly free from corrupt actors and practices if only left to itself.
However, what many conservatives have observed is the very real infringement on free speech through Big Tech’s increasingly active hostility — wrapped in the virtue-signaling guise of combating “hate speech.” As these Silicon Valley giants steadily have increased their market share in social media to virtual monopolies, they have in turn ratcheted up their efforts to censor conservative political speech.
In essence, the question is whether Google, Facebook, Twitter, et. al are carriers or publishers15. If they are carriers, they shouldn’t be censoring content. If they are publishers, they should be liable for what they carry. But they’re trying to have it both ways, claiming they’re not liable (carriers) while censoring content (publishers).
As the cries over Big Tech’s speech-squelching practices have grown louder, lawmakers are increasingly taking notice and, unfortunately, taking advantage. The latest example comes from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who recently introduced a measure to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. His measure, as Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown reports, “prevents individual users of internet platforms and the companies that run them from being treated as legally indistinguishable from one another.” That’s huge, she says, because, “Without it, digital companies and the users of their products (i.e., all of us) could be sued in civil court or subject to state criminal prosecution over content and messages created and published by others.”
“State attorneys general have been howling about Section 230 for more than a decade because it means that only the federal government can criminally prosecute internet intermediaries,” Brown observes. “Thus, state prosecutors don’t have the opportunity to seize assets and bring in big financial settlements themselves.”
Brown further contends that Hawley’s bill would give the government control over speech online, meaning the “solution” would be worse than the problem. Hawley’s bill essentially would resurrect the infamous “Fairness Doctrine,” which conservatives rightly condemn for its negative effect on free speech and its promotion of the establishment media over and against non-mainstream voices. The fact of the matter is that this is a government power grab — one that makes the free-market absolutists’ argument for them.
The big problem is censorship of free speech, whether it comes from Big Tech monopolies or Big Government bureaucracy. The solution needs to be one that guards everyone’s freedom of speech, while at the same time avoiding overregulation. As we have suggested, the enforcement of anti-trust laws to break up these massive tech giants may be the best solution.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/63756-big-government-is-wrong-solution-for-big-tech-censorship
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ON OUR WEBSITE TODAY
Featured Analysis: America’s Disunity Benefits Iran16 — There’s nothing moderate about the mullahs, no matter what Dems and the media say.
American Spirit: Utah Veteran Turning 101 Gets 5,000 Birthday Cards17 — “Frey said he had not expected to ever get so many cards.” Happy Birthday!
Video: Be Honest — You Just Don’t Want to Work18 — Check out Jason’s take on why so many young people are embracing socialism.
Video: Biden Supporters Shocked by His ‘Racist’ Quotes19 — Many students said they would reconsider their support after hearing his former words.
Don’t Miss Alexander’s Column
Read Observations From an Indignant Millennial20. Perspective from a bold young woman who has departed the lockstep leftist orthodoxy of her peers.
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