Can’t violate the First Amendment? Outsource it!
Congressional Democrats have discovered a way around the Bill of Rights. Sure, they can’t violate the First Amendment, but that doesn’t mean they can’t demand private companies do their dirty work for them.
And that’s exactly what they’re doing.
In an effort to silence anyone these Democrat legislators disapprove of, they are outsourcing the job to Big Tech companies.
And they’re not even hiding it.
This is, as I called it back in April, government censorship by proxy.
And that is why the “But these are private companies! The First Amendment doesn’t apply to them!” people irritate the living crap out of me.
Apparently those folks live in a fantasy world where elected officials sworn to uphold the Constitution would never ever dream of urging private companies to violate the First Amendment on their behalf.
But I live in the real world.
And in the real world elected members of Congress are begging tech companies to violate the First Amendment on their behalf.
Of course the tech companies will happily comply because they and the Democrats in Congress are in symbiosis. They both want the same thing – complete and total control over what allegedly free citizens are permitted to hear, say or report.
Why do you think the New York Post got suspended from Twitter for reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop? Unless they were willing to violate the First Amendment, elected Democrats couldn’t silence them. But their outsourcing partners could.
And boy, are their outsourcing partners taking on the job with a renewed sense of purpose.
Google Play has removed the Parler App from its App Store.
Apple, likewise, is threatening to do the same if Parler doesn’t agree to censor its users the way Twitter does.
Over the last couple of days Twitter has been banning accounts with wild abandon. I only followed about 970 people on Twitter. As of this morning, I am only following 806. I didn’t unfollow anyone. They’ve been purged.
And one of the people I followed that was among those purged? President Trump.
Yesterday, Twitter nuked the President’s account over these two tweets claiming they violated their “Glorification of Violence” Policy:
“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
If you’re hard-pressed to see the glorified violence in those two statements, you aren’t alone.
But see, Twitter believes, and I quote, “these two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks.”
You understand? Twitter believes some might interpret Trump’s innocuous tweets in a way that might make them react violently. And because these yet unknown people might read into those statements something that might appear to be inciting violence, Trump had to go.
Because apparently Twitter has an algorithm that allows it to read people’s minds.
Odd that it didn’t occur to Twitter that some people might see Twitter banning Trump and be mobilized to commit violence. Or did their mind-reading algorithm not factor that in?
But their “reasoning” is nothing but a pretense.
Democrats and “The System” wanted Trump off Twitter, so Twitter concocted a flimsy excuse to do it for them.
On a side note. I’m not a legal expert or an expert in government record keeping, but isn’t there a law about preserving government records? By erasing the entirety of President Trump’s tweets, has Twitter violated this law?
And another thing. Remember when Trump started blocking the most obnoxious of his Twitter antagonists? Angry that they could no longer pester him a thousand times a day, they took him to court over his blocking them. In the end, the judge ruled against Trump. The reason? As an elected official, Trump had no right to block citizens from seeing his tweets. In the end, Trump had to unblock them by court order.
Now Twitter has blocked every citizen in the country from seeing tweets from the President. Could we reasonably conclude that Twitter violated that judge’s order?
I could be wrong. Like I said, I’m not a legal expert. But I do think these are valid questions.
Anyroad.
Back to my column.
I said yesterday (and Thursday) that the events at the Capitol would result in a widespread crackdown against those on the Right. And, because I don’t hate saying “I told you so” – I told you so.
Nearly every aspect of our economy now runs through Big Tech. And if Congress is willing to violate our First Amendment by outsourcing that to Big Tech, what else could they conceivably outsource to them?
I mean, what better way for the cretins in Congress to deprive half the country of its ability to speak, earn a living, open a bank account, get a mortgage or participate in any way in our economy than outsource their wet works to Big Tech?
The possibilities are endless. Congress could, if they so desired, not only use Big Tech to violate the First Amendment, they could also use Big Tech to skirt Civil Rights Laws.
We no longer have self-government of, by and for the people. Instead it has mutated into a hideous blend of public office holders and the Big Tech oligarchs. And in this hybrid government, only half of it is sworn to uphold our Constitutionally protected liberties.
The other half? Not so much.
And right now the half that is not beholden to the Constitution is running wild while the other half that is cheers them on.
You think this is going to change? The Democrats now control both houses of Congress and the White House. Nothing will be done to curb the massive power Big Tech has been granted.
Republicans had a chance to do something about it. But they pissed it away. As they pissed away most everything else since January 2017. Sure, they held hearings to placate us. But in the end, they were too afraid to take on the Tech Oligarchs. Because at the end of the day America’s seat of power is no longer in DC.
It’s in Silicon Valley.
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