Parallel Lives
Good fences make good neighbors - and that's better than the hatred and fighting we're seeing.
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As the chasm that splits America in two continues to grow ever wider and deeper, the Capitol Riot provides both the illustration and the impetus. A few hours of actions by a few dozen criminals and a few hundred looky-loos, causing damage that was mostly cleaned up over a weekend, amounts to an armed insurrection to be crushed by all forces available, whereas months of nightly rioting that burned whole city blocks to the ground was justified mostly-peaceful protests that should continue indefinitely.
And, the crushing began forthwith: not only has the sitting President of the United States been banned from all social media outlets - even email - but the Tech Lords have taken switch action to expunge conservative discourse from all national channels. Twitter, of course, long notorious for banning conservatives for no reason while tolerating calls for genocide and murder from the left, redoubled its efforts to muzzle half of America. Want to use some other service instead? Nope: Google and Apple, which control the systems of just about every smartphone in the world, have now yanked Parler, the leading free-speech competitor.
Major news media are publicly calling for third-party communications networks to refuse to carry news channels viewed as conservative, such as Fox, OneAmerica, and Newsmax. It won't belong before those same communications networks, which also provide Internet service to most Americans, are called on to block access to whatever conservative sites are still operating after Amazon, Microsoft, and the other major cloud hosts pull the plug on them.
It's moved beyond corporate monopoly warfare and opinion silencing though. Have a seat, brace yourself, and read this pronouncement by Randall Lane, Chief Content Officer and Editor of the long-respected Forbes business magazine:
Let it be known to the business world: Hire any of Trump's fellow fabulists above, and Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie. We're going to scrutinize, double-check, investigate with the same skepticism we'd approach a Trump tweet. Want to ensure the world's biggest business media brand approaches you as a potential funnel of disinformation? Then hire away.
Don't Let the Door Hit You
Have the members of Trump's administration told lies? Of course they have; in a world that utterly rejects any absolute standards of truth, it's inherent to politics.
Did Forbes exert similar pressure on those who promulgated 2013's Lie of the Year, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it"? Of course not - because that Big Lie was told by Barack Obama, the Lightbringer and, more to the point, a Democrat.
The only way that such luminaries as Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kayleigh McEnany, and even the much-maligned Sean Spicer can be categorized as psychopathic liars this way, is if conservative views are themselves lies. Which, of course, is what the Left, media, and elites believe and now enforce.
Indeed, Mr. Lane specifically cited pointing out the transparent, abundantly-evidenced (if not fully proved) fraud that was the 2020 election, as being the inflammatory lie that brought on this policy. So not only are we now required to tolerate a stolen election, we aren't even allowed to publicly question it without being thrown out of employment?
It's obvious that we no longer live in a free country, or a capitalist one. We are net, yet, living in full Communism however. That means that Adam Smith's invisible hand, though splinted and shaking, still moves with power. And, as the media bemoans, half of America voted for Donald Trump, and more than half if you believe in the Big Steal.
This means that, maybe not half, but certainly a large proportion of America's money is controlled by Trump supporters and others generally on the Right. Why, then, are we giving our money to our sworn enemies?
More than that: If the Left refuses to employ qualified, skilled, well-known people because of their political beliefs, doesn't that create a business opportunity for those who are more fair-minded? Consider what Mr. Lane said about how he'll view any company that hires, say, Ms. McEnany: he'll assume that it is a fraud and a scam.
Which of course it may be, as the tale of Bernie Madoff reminds us. But maybe not - indeed, probably not!
Thanks for the Spotlight!
If Forbes magazine automatically dismisses companies that hire conservatives, doesn't that provide a prime investment opportunity for conservatives themselves? A well-run company should be able to make money, grow, distribute profits, and do all those other things that make capitalism great and bring about American dreams.
There is plenty of money available in conservatism, and still enough economic freedom remaining, for us to set up our own parallel structures. Google's Android smartphone operating system was famously built on top of the widely-used Java development platform owned by Sun. Physical smartphones are computer devices which can run any software; how hard would it be to stand up another similar, largely-compatible operating system that doesn't censor conservatives?
Parler already provides a replacement for Twitter. There are a few giant cloud-processing companies, but are there truly no others that might reap competitive advantage by providing services to conservatives without bias?
Conservatives already listen to their own radio and TV shows and watch their own podcasts. Why shouldn't they do this using their own software that's designed, like Tor browser, to route around censorship? Mozilla, which produces the Firefox browser, has called for even more than deplatforming. But, their work is open-source - why shouldn't we simply deplatform them, spawning off a free-speech branch of their browser baseline?
It's been obvious for years that the Tech Lords are the sworn enemies of conservative thought. Yet, the virtual worlds in which conservatives move are almost entirely controlled and operated by those same sworn enemies? How insane is that? Amazon abruptly pulled the plug on Parler, but with luck, they are big enough to find a new home under conservative control quickly. Where they go, all others of like views must follow with all speed.
If this week's actions aren't a wakeup call to action, while conservatism still controls sufficient financial resources and influences to go independent, perhaps our side really is so stupid it deserves to lose. There may even be experienced tech executives available to help.
Clearly we can't live together; it's time to live apart, immediately, as much as possible, or not at all.
In the meantime, if any of the many, many conservative multi-billionaires spies an opportunity to start a competitor to Forbes, that will objectively analyze companies and industries without succumbing to the lies of the Left, well, there's no shortage of skilled, experienced writers on this side!
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What does Chinese history have to teach America that Joe Biden doesn't know?
we won't be living in a *communist* dystopia, but it *will* be a socialist one. most people don't realize that fascism is the other flavor of socialism, and is actually the more modern, and usually more successful, variant of same. it was only because the communists allied themselves with the free nations that they survived the Great Patriotic War. had hitler waited to attack the USSR until after he defeated the UK, history would have taken a drastically different turn. furthermore, uncle joe was shocked to the core when his fellow socialist attacked him.
the nazi party was a *socialist* party, as was the fascist party in italy. every single fascist and nazi leader either started as a socialist, or as a syndicalist. the thugs who took over advanced through the ranks because they delivered better results faster than the more-moderate socialists, and it didn't really matter to them whether or not their actions were "socialist" enough. in the end, so long as the serfs obeyed their betters, they could be allowed to own businesses, save money, and do all the other things that capitalists did. the same fear that the communist-dominated serfs felt due to the commisars infected the serfs of the fascist socialist dystopias and kept them in line. the part that worked better was that there was a carrot as well as a stick; the commies were all about sticks, and offered no carrots.
i see the progressives, the american version of fascist socialism, first arresting mr. trump and his immediate subordinates and trying them for nebulous hate crimes. next will be the doxxing of all the lower-level functionaries, so that they can't hold down *any* job. finally, once we're accustomed to rule by fiat rather than rule by law (the latter has been ongoing for several months now), hate crime "laws" can be extended to fine and/or arrest mouthy conservatives. in the end will be the general roundups, when .45-caliber re-education is more widely applied.
if we are lucky, we'll have a second civil war that free people win. if we're not so lucky, we'll lose, and the nation will fly apart because of all the disgruntled groups the left has created. and in that case, the many nations created from the carcass of the republic will never again come together to be one free nation. maybe some time in the far future - perhaps in a couple of thousand years - some free nation will arise someplace else, and with a smidge of luck, they may actually be aware of our downfall so that they can avoid it. one can only hope and pray for a better outcome.
As I’ve said before, what the understands and maybe the only thing it understands is power. We’ve been debating and countering with logical, rational arguments for years to no avail. I believe the best way to avert a civil war by technical dominance or other means is protest, protest, protest. Peaceful of course.
Yes, let’s develop our own software platforms and the like. But in the meantime, protest, protest, protest.
It’s also time to start reclaiming the language. The actions were seeing by big tech is Fascist, and nothing less.
I do have a question — what to make of Bitcoin’s rise and how this will play out. It’s not tethered to trillions of dollars of debt. But this means of exchange of value is controlled by big tech.
Also, I wouldn’t count out Trump just yet. A strategy I heard alluded to was that he would use any impeachment process as a broadcast stage to air The Hunter - Joe Biden corruption. The ample evidence for which provided Trump ample reason to believe election fraud was not above Joe’s character. My guess is that Jill B. (She’s is something of an enabler of Hunter) will tell Joe to cave on the impeachment, Joe will go to Pelosi and tell her the same, and the issue will sink back into the swamp.
When I clicked on the email link to this article, I got a webpage telling me the site I wanted to see was "unsafe and to go back."
I clicked through anyway because I know and trust this site but new potential readers would have most likely not done that.
I tried to duplicate that page to show you but your site now loads freely.
We are in the middle of a server move, which will lead to some updates and additional future changes. You probably ran into a transition effect. Glad it's working now!
Dan Bongino has been saying for a few years now that we are going to need a parallel economy for conservatives.
And how prophetic does Glenn Beck look now. He saw the writing on the wall years ago, left legacy media and started Blaze TV. Streaming on-line. Genius.
The CCP virus has shown us lots of things when it comes to personal lifestyle. Yes Amazon has been convenient as all get out, but at what cost? I think now that people have experienced the range of inconvenience to downright hardship because of the lockdowns, it won't be such a leap to stop shopping at Amazon. I would rather spend a few more dollars for shipping and give my money to a small business than to give Amazon one more cent.
I gave up Netflix over their hypocritical "stand" on the Heartbeat Bill in GA (they are disgraceful giving money to the Obamas, and then coming out with child porn Cuties. What have we become?) I will give up Amazon. 100%.
I gave up Firfefox and wrote them a letter when they fired the head guy for donating money to fight Proposition 8 on gay marriage in CA. That was the beginning of the dominoes of cancel culture. Better known in China as disappearing. I use a VPN. The left upper echelon are shrewd, and vicious. The people are gullible, and have been gaslit into believing exactly...conservatism is a lie. That is so sad and disturbing I can hardly stand that realization as I read it in this article.
I believe we need to move on the Convention of States - get term limits. It is a solid, constitutional, way we can get involved in something as a start.
Search out this movement and see if you think it is a good idea. It has gotten traction with quite a number of states.
Parler's model of minimal moderation is not sustainable, as every social media company has learned the hard way. This phenomenon is best described as the Nazi bar problem: if a bar owner lets Nazis meet in the bar, then that draws Nazis and sympathizers to the bar, but causes those who hate Nazis to take their business elsewhere. (The choice of "Nazis" is just for the analogy - if you like, substitute "communists" for the same point.) That increases the proportion of Nazis in the bar, which in turn causes more people who don't want to hang out with Nazis to leave, and so on until no one is left but the Nazis and the bar goes out of business.
This analogy makes sense on social media when talking about actual Nazis and other stuff that most people don't want to see (spam, shock site images, etc.). But given the partisan divide, it may be the case that each side views the other as Nazis in the bar. So it may be that Parler can survive as a conservative platform, since unlike with a bar, geography is not a constraint and so smaller groups can support the service. But if it does, it will have to be by doing what you would consider censoring left-wing content (and doing something about aforementioned unwanted content). Essentially, it will end up as nothing but a somewhat less awful version of 4chan.
@RP - that's an interesting point. But, if you have a bar full of Nazis, and you go in there and offend them, you're likely to wind up out on the street on your backside (at best). Which, more or less, is what's happened to conservatives on Twitter/FB.
If Parler becomes the conservative hangout, I'd imagine the same would happen in return to liberals who venture there. Most of us don't really enjoy being cussed at and called Nazis, so we'll go elsewhere to find a more sympathetic audience.
Pretty good definition of Fascism here:
Does The Definition Of 'Fascism' Apply To The Biden Administration?
https://thefederalist.com/2021/08/20/does-the-definition-of-fascism-apply-to-the-biden-administration/