Guest essay by Eric Worrall
NYT columnist Andrew Marantz thinks allowing free speech is as dangerous as letting ordinary people drive climate destroying automobiles.
Free Speech Is Killing Us
Noxious language online is causing real-world violence. What can we do about it?By Andrew Marantz
Mr. Marantz, a New Yorker staff writer, is the author of the forthcoming book “Antisocial.”
Oct. 4, 2019There has never been a bright line between word and deed. Yet for years, the founders of Facebook and Twitter and 4chan and Reddit — along with the consumers obsessed with these products, and the investors who stood to profit from them — tried to pretend that the noxious speech prevalent on those platforms wouldn’t metastasize into physical violence. In the early years of this decade, back when people associated social media with Barack Obama or the Arab Spring, Twitter executives referred to their company as “the free-speech wing of the free-speech party.” Sticks and stones and assault rifles could hurt us, but the internet was surely only a force for progress.
No one believes that anymore. Not after the social-media-fueled campaigns of Narendra Modi and Rodrigo Duterte and Donald Trump; not after the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Va.; not after the massacres in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and a Walmart in a majority-Hispanic part of El Paso. The Christchurch gunman, like so many of his ilk, had spent years on social media trying to advance the cause of white power. But these posts, he eventually decided, were not enough; now it was “time to make a real life effort post.” He murdered 51 people.
…
In 1993 and 1994, talk-radio hosts in Rwanda calling for bloodshed helped create the atmosphere that led to genocide. The Clinton administration could have jammed the radio signals and taken those broadcasts off the air, but Pentagon lawyers decided against it, citing free speech. It’s true that the propagandists’ speech would have been curtailed. It’s also possible that a genocide would have been averted.
…
Congress could fund, for example, a national campaign to promote news literacy, or it could invest heavily in library programming. It could build a robust public media in the mold of the BBC. It could rethink Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — the rule that essentially allows Facebook and YouTube to get away with (glorification of) murder. If Congress wanted to get really ambitious, it could fund a rival to compete with Facebook or Google, the way the Postal Service competes with FedEx and U.P.S.
…
In one of our conversations, Mr. Powell compared harmful speech to carbon pollution: People are allowed to drive cars. But the government can regulate greenhouse emissions, the private sector can transition to renewable energy sources, civic groups can promote public transportation and cities can build sea walls to prepare for rising ocean levels. We could choose to reduce all of that to a simple dictate: Everyone should be allowed to drive a car, and that’s that. But doing so wouldn’t stop the waters from rising around us.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/opinion/sunday/free-speech-social-media-violence.html
I understand the establishment media’s desire for a US version of the British BBC. The British BBC is funded by government sanctioned coercion (see video below – armed police entering a person’s home to back up the employees of a private license fee collection company).
The BBC do not have to produce content which people want to watch, because British people have no choice – if they own a TV and watch live broadcasts in any form, they have to pay the BBC license fee.
So far the BBC has resisted all attempts to make their license fee voluntary.
This attack on free speech, and the demand for coercive government funding of establishment media sources, in my opinion is evidence the establishment media know they are losing the battle for hearts and minds. Only desperate losers want to silence other voices.
Heh, joining censorship with alarmism. A twofer.
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Similar Bollocks in the Guardian from one of Tony Blairs bottle-washers…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/02/rash-words-escalate-conflict-northern-ireland-troubles
It wasn’t the ethnic and cultural differences, the religious schism, the history of warfare and violence, the unjust function of the provincial government, it’s Gerrymandering, corruption and state violence… it was rash words.. Douche with a capital DO-OOOOO-OOOOOOOSSSSHHHHHHH….
How iliberal of them.
It’s is interesting that at the end of 2018 a number of online news media abruptly and in sync pulled the readers ability to comment on articles. Prominent examples were The Economist and Nature. The Economist in 2019 had a forum where the mag took positions and allowed reader response. In one the TE took the position that free speech should not be allowed on college campuses. In another they took the position of free open borders. Readers shot them down. The last week of september was coordinated media offensive for climate action. Nature suggested hundreds of news outlets were involved.
As a forty plus year subscriber to The Economist I agree that it has become a disgrace. It has so fully bought into the CAGW scam that it has lost a lot of credibility on other issues where one might presume some semblance of impartial authority.
After 30 years I canceled TE
I did the same.
Ditto.
The Economist has become OPINION NEWS. They actually call themselves opinion news.
NEWS OLD (Unbiased and Critical what the word ‘news ‘ once meant before) changed to “OPINION NEWS’
‘OPINION’ means there is a LEFT idiotic mind that
… selects the news subjects, alters news subjects, and filters news subjects to push the party line which is what is called ‘OPINION’.
“It’s is interesting that at the end of 2018 a number of online news media abruptly and in sync pulled the readers ability to comment on articles.”
I experienced this in 2016 when most all online press websites started removing readers’ comments sections which used to appear under their articles. Those that remained were heavily censored and forced everyone to register and log in to make the comment, which was never the case before. The Guardian does not even allow readers’ comments half the time, and the few articles which do allow it are full of blank spaces where the comment was deleted by their heavy-handed censors. They want to control the narrative. It is like a religious orthodoxy. Step out of line and they will censor you. Do it a few times and they will put all your comments into pre-mod which means you won’t even see a blank space where your comment was because it will have been deleted by the censor before it was published.
By the way, the Daily Mail often says their readers’ comments have not been moderated. This is a blatant lie. They always delete comments they don’t want to see on their website.
Strangely the Guardian opened comments on an article about global warming.
So I commented saying that I found it strange that there was zero questioning of the climate change models in the mainstream media. I also said that people should question the media’s suppositions. A place to start for the average person would be to find out where that “97% of scientists agree” figure comes from, as I thought that would be a good place for a questioning and curious mind to begin.
I double checked and I 100% complied with their rules for posting, i.e. no abuse, on topic.
MY COMMENT WAS DELETED.
No that I’m surprised.
If you wrote a really bad argument against AGW, like “climate has always changed, so AGW must be a lie”, that would be let through. Then they would have fun telling how stupid denialists are.
They wouldn’t want people pointing out their lies, such that the El Paso and Chistchurch shooters were influenced by the radical environmental cult.
Marantz suggests that radio propaganda played a major role in the Rwandan genocide, and that blocking this propaganda may have averted it – because the Hutus wouldn’t have been radicalized or something. Had he done two minutes’ research on Wikipedia he would have leartnt that the genocide was a government campaing through and through; whether the Hutu laymen also wanted to carry out a genocide was irrelevant.
“The crisis committee, headed by Théoneste Bagosora, took power in the country following Habyarimana’s death,[132] and was the principal authority coordinating the genocide.[133] Following the assassination of Habyarimana, Bagosora immediately began issuing orders to kill Tutsi, addressing groups of interahamwe in person in Kigali,[134] and making telephone calls to leaders in the prefectures.[135] Other leading organisers on a national level were defence minister Augustin Bizimana; commander of the paratroopers Aloys Ntabakuze; and the head of the Presidential Guard, Protais Mpiranya.[133] Businessman Félicien Kabuga funded the RTLM and the Interahamwe, while Pascal Musabe and Joseph Nzirorera were responsible for coordinating the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi militia activities nationally.[133]
Military leaders in Gisenyi prefecture, the heartland of the akazu, were initially the most organized, convening a gathering of the Interahamwe and civilian Hutus; the commanders announced the president’s death, blaming the RPF, and then ordered the crowd to “begin your work” and to “spare no one”, including infants.[136] The killing spread to Ruhengeri, Kibuye, Kigali, Kibungo, Gikongoro and Cyangugu prefectures on 7 April;[137] in each case, local officials, responding to orders from Kigali, spread rumours that the RPF had killed the president, followed by a command to kill Tutsi.[138]
…
In Kigali, the genocide was led by the Presidential Guard, the elite unit of the army.
…
In rural areas, the local government hierarchy was also in most cases the chain of command for the execution of the genocide.”
These nice people of NYT are dedicated followers of The Art of Propaganda as advocated by Dr. Josef Goebbels. They’ll try to persuade you with carefully selected and sanitized facts, then they’ll put their black Antifa uniforms on, and they’ll persuade you with baseball bats.
The above proves just how smart …… or dishonest …… the NYT is.
These nice people of NYT are dedicated followers of The Art of Propaganda as advocated by Dr. Josef Goebbels
From what I’ve read it was the other way around — Goebbels read about & used the propaganda methods employed by the American/British media (including the NYT) during WW1 and after.
Did the French have military units in the country.Did they take any action! Hutus were very pro French I believe,whilst the Tutsi much less so.
I thought it was the Belgians in Rwanda?
[?? .mod]
UN in many nation-tribal states across the south and central Africa since the mid-60’s, French more across the northern arc south of the Med.
Belgium were late-comers and had little territory, though they were very oppressive slave-owners and extremely cruel, especially in their Congo lands under King Leopold.
But since the 60’s, “control” has been by brutal tribal dictators, little restrained by the UN “peacekeepers” in any land.
Andrew Marantz, who decides what is allowable speech? You are suggesting the gov’t would be in charge of speech? What could possibly go wrong? Wipe out the first amendment and then the second etc. etc. Pretty soon we will be a nation run by a dictator.
In Britain the BBC seems to think it is their job to decide allowable speech. In Britain they are omnipresent, in some places the only free to air TV or radio you can receive are one or more BBC channels.
Reporters who want to stay in the industry, many of them got their start in the BBC, and are usually careful not to offend their old tutors.
They very much seem to see their role as leading people’s cultural and political beliefs, for example in my opinion they are strongly pro-climate action and strongly anti-Brexit. They seem to have won for now on the climate front, at least in Britain, but they somehow missed with their apparent campaign against Brexit.
Socialists are trained from birth to believe that they are a higher class of human, and thus entitled, ever required, to control the lives of lesser humans.
I thought that psychopathic belief was born into them and that’s why they became leftards…
Eric, the obvious BBC bias against Brexit has enlightened many in the UK to the extent that they have been called the ‘Boris Bashing Corporation’. Unfortunately, the climate change bias is long standing and they now pump out material constantly that is clearly propaganda. They use most of their output to hype the ‘climate crisis’ hysteria. They do not and will not allow any view other than alarm. The BBC are responsible for encouraging and publicising any climate change hysteria including giving Extinction Rebellion constant air time. The mass hysteria is so bad that you may risk your reputation or employment if you merely hint that you don’t agree. Politicians pander to every irrational alarmist going for fear of being criticised. I’ve just seen Stephen Sacker interview Brazilian Environment Minister Ricardo Salles on ‘Hardtalk’. Sacker tried to make Salles look like some evil Earth destroying monster for pushing for sustainable development, even challenging him whether he denied the overwhelming consensus of scientists for catastrophic, human caused climate change alarm. Even if the Earth were to start cooling in the near future, I can see the UK will have already destroyed its economy by then.
A lot of people still genuinely support the BBC, in my opinion they’re coasting on their well earned historical reputation as being a reliable source of objective news. Time will tell how long this historic loyalty carries them.
Correct. The BBC survives on a long since trashed reputation, especially outside the UK.
That’s probably why Attenborough, Brian Cox et al toe the BBC’s line. They’ve likely been threatened by the British Bully Corporation to have their careers and livelihoods destroyed if they look sideways. It’s a shame that many of those I used to look up to are now climate paranoid, such as deGrasse-Tyson, Michio Kaku (now kookoo) etc. I mean, aren’t these people supposed to be intelligent? Are they too damn gutless to stand up and publicly say “NO!”, or are they being paid off?
Attenborough knew what he was up to, and what was on offer, when he took control of BBC2. Cox probably sees the same path.
See the crash and burn of Dr (genuine scientist) David Bellamy’s BBC career after he made it plain that globull warming was cobblers.
Look closer to home as to who is killing millions globally.
It is people who use perfect English and who operate at the highest levels of global governments.
Focus on what makes THEM keep on killing.
It is certainly not bad language….
Eric Worrall,
I am a severe critic of the BBC and I am especially critical of its blatant and unlawful bias on the subject of climate change. However, promotion of change to the BBC is hindered by untrue nonsense such as your saying,
“In Britain they are omnipresent, in some places the only free to air TV or radio you can receive are one or more BBC channels.”
Freeview provides dozens of ‘free to view’ channels including all the BBC channels and is available wherever a broadcast TV signal is obtainable using an appropriate antenna. Freesat is similar and is accessible by use of a small satellite dish.
Richard
… but the BBC influences the news provided by other outlets, in fact it is the stated intention of the BBC to “set the news agenda”. The BBC also provides funding to journalism in local newspapers, hence the recent rash of climate alarmist reporting, as well as all the usual “woke” talking points.
It makes no difference Richard. The criteria here are the words “viewing live television broadcasts” If you don’t watch live TV, that’s fine, no problem. The moment you do then you are liable to pay the license fee (currently some £154.00 pa). How you receive is not relevant either.
rapscallion,
Telling the truth IS “relevant”.
Falsehoods of the kind I refuted cause discredit of other criticisms of the BBC.
You seem to dispute the license fee. As I said, my dispute is with an organisation funded by the BBC license fee unlawfully espousing global warming propaganda. If the BBC obtained their funds without a public fee they could campaign for whatever nonsense they want, but their funds are for public service broadcasting.
Richard
Indeed, and there is nothing we can do about it. Which is why I want the BBC defunded by the public.
rapscalion,
I am always willing to learn so I would welcome clarification of what you say.
You agree the BBC is acting unlawfully (i.e. is acting in breach of its Charter) by its biased policy on environmental issues especially climate change, But you assert the BBC should be “defunded by the public”.
Please explain how removing the BBC’s Charter would force or encourage the BBC to obey its Charter.
Richard
Really that is not true any more.
Anywhere within range of a terrestrial transmitter can get at least 100 stations TV and radio on Freeview and anywhere that isn’t at the bottom of a mine can rig a satellite dish and access 100+ stations over Freest. and sky free-to-air.
It is this total plethora of channels that has caused the discontent with the BBC. People resent paying for just 5 TV channels out of 100 that are inferior in quality.
The places in Britain where you can only get the BBC must be very limited. There are a host of other free radio stations out there, national as well as local. LBC, for one, to which BBC presenters flee when the control freakery gets too much for them.
Eric
Where are these ‘some places?’
There are about 15 or more free to air tv channels and so many free to air radio channels that they overcrowd the airwaves.
These days we always watch via our laptop and get around 50 channels free but of course you do Have to pay the licence fee, which in my opinion is a bargain as it provides some superb programmes and there are no tiresome adverts
Tonyb
Ironic that a news publication should attack the first amendment. Without that little bit of protection, Obama could have had them all thrown in jail for not being sycophantic enough. (Or in their fever dreams of Trump – he could put them all in the gaol for publishing untruthful accusations.)
The problem is, of course, that people are pretending to be offended in an attempt to silence all opposition to their personal Utopian quests. Someone coined the word “crybullies” to accurately denote this activity.
There are a lot of so called journalists who would have no problem jailing those who fail to sufficiently worship the cause.
Many Journalists in the US apparently believe that our 1st Amendment should only apply to the “press”.
Rather ironic I thought, a writer ranting against free speech in a major news outlet. If we didnt have free speech there wouldnt be much need for writers and news outlets. All that would be taken care of by Big Brother (as per the MSM today)
Authoritarians always want to control the speech of others, and every other aspect of their lives, for that matter.
The alarmists don’t have any evidence showing human-caused climate change is real and they want to shut up the skeptics who point this out by comparing skeptics to white supremacists and saying both should be censored.
If the alarmists had a valid argument establishing human-caused climate change then they wouldn’t need to shut people up, they could just argue their case. That they don’t do this just goes to show that they really don’t have a case to make.
Hillary would have been very receptive to a call to shut up the skeptics. Fortunately, she didn’t win, the last time she ran for Office.
Policing the extinction rebellion London style
the telegraph photograph
Did he mean Carbon Dioxide Pollution?
Carbon pollution is bad, look at the Arctic.
It is soot more than global warming that melts the Arctic ice. The Finnish President Sauli Niinistö and the Arctic Council said so.
https://lenbilen.com/2019/10/02/it-is-soot-more-than-global-warming-that-melts-the-arctic-ice-the-finnish-president-sauli-niinisto-and-the-arctic-council-said-so/
Have Google and Facebook already decided?
I find it rather interesting that would-be elitist authoritarians always seem to imagine that they will be the future elite that gets to decide what is allowed and what is not allowed.
Like Plato’s Republic where Plato imagined that the philosophers would be in charge or like Walden II where the elite would be the psychologists who set it up.
In real life many of the Communists in 1917 who thought that after the revolution in Russia they would be in charge probably never figured on Stalin taking over and killing them. Did Ernst Roehm and the top leaders of the Brown Shirts ever imagine that Hitler would consolidate his power by killing them on the night of the long knives?
These self-declared would be elitists don’t seem to realize that they might not be the ones in charge after they get what they want.
If it hadn’t been Stalin, it would have been one of the other authoritarian figures who took over after the 1917 revolution.
Such systems can only be run by authoritarians.
Night of the Long Knives Wow.
It’s SO hard to ignore or refute what people say online. Therefore we need censorship.
I can’t wait to find out how I need soldiers quartered in my home to keep me safe from online bullies!
Well, that’s a very good reason to NOT have a working TV.
Sara, congrats on “NOT having a working TV”. I haven’t watched commercial television in decades.
No smartphone either. From my observations, smartphone users are disconnected from their surroundings, from their place in space and time.
Regards,
Bob
You have to pay the license fee if you own a smartphone or an internet connected computer, because they can be used to watch live broadcasts.
Eric,
You have to pay the licence fee if (quote) you watch or record any live TV on any channel – or you download or watch BBC programmes on demand, including catch up TV on BBC iPlayer (unquote)
Owning a smartphone or internet connected computer does not compel one to have a TV licence.
(At least, that’s my interpretation of the demand sitting in front of me – I don’t have a TV, or watch anything on iPlayer).
Possibly – the TV license website suggests you need a license if you use an internet connected computer to livestream TV. I suspect if you tried to argue you don’t use your computer this way they would demand a very intrusive examination of your system.
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one
They may demand, but they have no powers to force you to comply.
And even then the ability to connect to e.g. Netflix does not constitute a need to apply for a license fee.
I suspect that the BBC will be funded out of either general taxation in the future, or will be sold and go commercial.
“Leo Smith October 8, 2019 at 12:46 am
They may demand, but they have no powers to force you to comply.”
Not directly, but they do.
In the UK, you need a license for any live broadcast and (Now) on any device including PC’s, smartphones and the like. You (Used to) need a license for mains powered radios too. All under the threat of prosecution and even prison. In the video you see the “collection officer” making an attempt to enter the property, that is illegal, unless you are someone like a sworn police officer who is granted a statutory right of entry, but they cannot arrest you if you haven’t committed any offence. Usually, license collection officers, who work for private companies, don’t turn up with police. Police are usually called if there is, or has been, any, or likely to be, issues with access and threatening behaviour.
In the UK there were (Still available these days?) two TV licenses, one for black and white TV’s and one for colour TV’s. Either way, it’s taxation for the state funded propaganda machine, the BBC, not by stealth but blatantly in your face with threats of criminal conviction and multiple convictions can lead to prison.
OH, the licensing thingie in the UK: yeah, well, here in the still-sane USofA, if you’re paying for internet service – and I am – the monthly charge IS the fee you’re talking about. Is it correct to assume it’s different in the UK?
WiFi is an additional charge if I want to put my laptop on the WiFi connection. So far, don’t have any reason to do so.
In regard to phones, I do NOT have, and do NOT want, a tablet phone. I have a flip phone with the capability of being attached to the internet, but I have no need for that and therefore don’t pay the extra charge. My ownership and use of electronic gizmos is limited, not by cash flow, but by whether o not it makes sense to pay for useless twaddle like “apps”, just because they exist. Don’t need them, don’t want them, don’t pay for them.
Also, I have no intention of replacing my burned-out TV with anything in the foreseeable future. My desktop and laptop both have disc drives for movie discs, as well as hookups for external speakers, so I see no point in paying for more electronic junk. Not bragging, just saying this is how it is in my corner of the world.
Idiots like this guy always seem not to consider the answer to the question, “Would you still want this to happen, if your worst opponent was in charge of the system?” They never seem to consider the consequences of their pet projects being turned against them.
I think we should follow the example of Romania under the communists and ban typewriters.
Just try to take my IBM Selectric III from me. Just try…… 🙂
Women who have won the Nobel prize for Literature
Herta Muller, 2009:
The German-Romania writer is known for her poetic style of writing, often entrenched in social themes about her native Romania. Muller first broke through in 1982, with a collection of short stories called Niederungen (Nadirs) which was censored because of its autobiographical portrayal of the oppressive lifestyle in the Romanian countryside.
Most famous work: Atemschaukel (The Hunger Angel) – the 2009 poetic novel told the story of a young man named Leo Auberg who is deported to a forced labor concentration camp in Ukraine.
Of course Herta Müller typed on a typewriter.
As author, and in her daytime job in Romania:
In 1976, Müller began working as a translator for an engineering factory, but was dismissed in 1979 for her refusal to cooperate with the Securitate, the Communist regime’s secret police. After her dismissal, she initially earned a living by teaching kindergarten and giving private German lessons.
https://www.google.com/search?q=herta+m%C3%BCller&oq=Herta+&aqs=chrome.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herta_M%C3%BCller
.
I’ve always been amused by the slavish reliance by PBS on the BBC for content. The BBC focuses on the British class system and the wonderful way that everyone has their place in it.
Just what the left would like to establish in the US. Flyover country would have to learn to simply listen to their betters. Looking at the “Hunger Games” films one can see how the flyover populous is really viewed, simply a source of national entertainment. The series “The Purge” shows how they want the cities to keep the population down, of course only after they’ve removed everyone’s weapons. /sarc?
wsbriggs
And Yahoo US ‘News’ depends primarily on Reuters and the Guardian for the US audience. Inasmuch as much of what gets printed is really opinions about US politics, it smacks to me of “interfering in US elections.”
Talking about limiting free speech is a violent act.
Anyone familiar with this country must know that most of us would fight and die for our First and Second Amendment Rights and other Constitutional Rights. No bending….this is the Bright Line in the Sand…do not cross it.
How is threatening the violation of my rights not a violent act? Do you really believe that millions of citizens and more millions of Military and Ex-military who have made oaths to the Constitution…will give up ABSOLUTELY SACRED FUNDAMENTAL rights with no resistance. There is no limit to what I would do to preserve those rights. Violent resistance is the last thing that we would do in defence of our freedoms…but make no mistake, we will do it.
Socialist Democrats have begun treading of perilous ground in public recently. They used to try to keep seditious activity hidden.
The US Constitution covers Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press in the same clause. Is this writer advocating a similar constraint on what can be published?
Thought not.
The NYT reporter’s idea is to use state funding to drown out what they see as negative voices, using a state funded alternative to Facebook and a US version of the BBC, and reduced legal protections for private social media companies, rather than to outright cancel free speech.
The modern press would make Goebbels faint with envy.
Socialists believe that only things they agree with should be permitted.
MarkW,
I am surprised that you are claiming to be a socialist.
Richard
Is any government, anywhere “regulating greenhouse emissions”? Does the U.S.A. do this?
This from the Union of Concerned Scientists (Undated, but Wayback machine indicates 2018).
https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/solutions/reduce-emissions/regional-cap-and-trade.html
There are:
•Cap and Trade in Practice: The European Union’s Trading Scheme
•The Northeast Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
•The Western Climate Initiative
•Midwestern Regional Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord
These are just Cap-and-Trade programs in the US and EU. And I am not implying that they are well run.
The BBC also has a policy of total exclusion and non-tolerance of any opinion on climate change/energy other than the extreme-alarmist orthodoxy, thereby not representing the views of a massive proportion of the people forced to pay for said propaganda – even if they never actually watch the BBC.
+ 1000
Some news outfits in the USA, like NBC are not allowing Climate “deniers” on their program anymore – pretty sure it’s NBC….
I am pretty sure it’s all of them except maybe FoxNews, for now.
If you ever wonder the real climate crimes that China commits are not condemned by most of the environmentalists, this opinion by Andrew Marantz will give you the reason why. It is not about the environment; it is about using the environment to destroy capitalism. China bans free speech, the very idea this leftist espouses.
The goal is a global communism with the UN in charge. This is not a crazy conspiracy theory. I actually read the Copenhagen draft treaty proposed by the UN in 2011. I haven’t read any since then. But if you think the UN has scaled back their desire, you are simply crazy or naive. Just one highlight, that is all I need to prove my point: page 16 talks about “an international climate court of justice”. And who would be in charge of the international court? There are more points I found, but I don’t want to make this post too long.
https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/awglca14/eng/crp38.pdf
The goal is the destruction of liberty and capitalism. Some may actually care about the environment, but they are just pawns. If you just actually read and listen to those who push this, it is plain as day.
Here in the US, the true purpose of Government was laid out in The Declaration of Independence, to preserve individual rights.
The first Government formed, under The Articles of Confederation, was to weak to usurp them but also too weak to defend them.
The second Government formed was under “The Constitution of The United States”. A strong Government, strong enough to defend but also strong enough to usurp individual rights. It was not accepted and ratified until limits were placed upon its authority. The original Bill of Rights. They’ve all been under assault/watered down for decades.
A florist in WA told a long time customer that she couldn’t do the flowers for his same-sex wedding. He didn’t file a complaint but the Government in WA got wind of it and is, via fines, trying to drive her out of business.
No need to mention voluntary prayers at a football game.
Freedom of the Press? Intended to preserve the free publication of opposing ideas. Definitely not Government funding PBS and NPR. Back then, there were no monopolizes controlling what opposing views can be expressed. No monopolizes controlled who could buy paper. Which, in today’s age of the internet, ties into…
Freedom of Speech. That doesn’t mean whatever Government decides is “Hate Speech” can be silenced. The “paper monopolies” shouldn’t either.
Search and Seizure. Just what did that warrant (assuming they had one) specify when Mueller raided Comey’s office and emptied it?
There’s also something about the accused being able to face their accuser. Why was the “whistleblower’s” identity hidden?
No need to mention the ongoing assault on the 2nd. A disarmed populace is a compliant populace.
“A disarmed populace is a compliant populace.” No, not really. That idea is repeatedly proven incorrect.
Agreed. Guess I was thinking of their objective rather the realty.
How about, “A disarmed populace is a controlled populace.”?
“A disarmed populace is a defenseless populace.”?
The line meant to communicate that if the victims CAN”T hit back, the bully wins.
Actual free speech is fast disappearing from it’s fleeting flourish as the internet came into existence. The phenomenon that is the internet seems to be a most unexpected thing. If it was expected, the people in power would have ensured that it was much more controlled.
There are still a few dark corners of the internet where free speech can be practiced. These places are hated by the main stream media and ridiculed as being the haunt of trolls and basement dwelling incels. However, in these places it is sometimes possible to have properly interesting discussions among people with very different points of view. True, they can produce content that many would find offensive, but so what. If you choose to be offended by something, good for you, you’ll get over it eventually.
The push to curtail free speech is very concerning. It is truly Orwellian in nature, they wish to control speech in order to control thought. You cannot think properly without being able to speak, as the act of speaking an idea is an integral part of thinking about it. You will say something, and it’s probably wrong, so others who know more about it will reply and tell you, then you can integrate that information and reform your idea, and say something else that is probably wrong.
Of all the freedoms that one can have, freedom of speech is, I think the most important.
To the past, or to the future.
To a time when thought is free.
From the age of the Thought Police.
From a dead man.
Greetings!
Journalistic attention to mass-shooters helps inspire future mass-shooters…but do they shut-up?
“If it bleeds it leads”, no way they self censor.
In all societies, there is a certain ruthless underclass class, the self-selected & self-proclaimed guides of superior merit & wisdom justifying terrorism against enemies real & imagined. They come from both the right and the left – they want to be your (our) masters.
A reasonably civil & equitably society relegates this crowd to the loony bin. Obviously, something is going badly wrong. PC has infected everything to the point that actually having an opinion is dangerous, if not downright seditious.
Millinneals, who started voting in 1998, should have, by now, begun to leave their creative mark on society. Instead, they’re, are relegated to jobs as waiters, doing “gigs” (whatever the hell that is), .com startups entrepreneurs (relatively few of these), and coders for, among other things, dog food sales platforms, taxi companies and other money eating unicorns. Pathetically, or kids haven’t a clue how to be successful.
As this bunch of losers, ok, to be kind, let’s call them “not yet successful children”, flail around, they are fertile ground for “give me free stuff” socialism.
1984…. Deja vu all over again.
Similarly, one NBA coach tweets “Support Freedom. Support Hong Kong.” and the whole damn NBA goes into speech control mode to mollify the freedom crushing Chinese communist government. Craven, spineless maggots….
Ad, it did not have the intended mollifying effect. The Chinese have restricted NBA game transmission.
Lakes like Nyos, Kivu, Congo’ forest hold astronomic quantities of dissolved CO2 and methane.
Equivalent to decades of worldwide emission, sort of speaking in mild words.
CO2 explosions from lakes have already massively killed and this whole system degases in permanence.
Ok, greenies, go and plug it. You want to fight CO2, there you have quite a deal of it.
Why such sources are never mentioned by the climate obsessed retards ? I mean, is that natural CO2 not the same as the other they’re all brainwashed with ? How many CO2’s are here?
It’s just an insanity preaching sect with a very greedy top of food-chain management.
For those of you who eschew Twitter, I’m pleased to report that Marantz is getting ratio’d hard, and there are only a couple hundred likes and retweets.
“NYT columnist Andrew Marantz thinks allowing free speech is as dangerous as letting ordinary people drive climate destroying automobiles”
You mean ORDINARY people are not allowed to buy carbon offsets?
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/09/30/cer/
The opinion expressed by Marantz isn’t really new. It goes back at least to the expression “The pen is mightier than the sword.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pen_is_mightier_than_the_sword
But my twist on it is that the Fourth Estate has become a Fifth Column. Being a double-edged sword, how happy would the MSM be if what they could write was strictly controlled by a group whose politics they disagreed with? Perhaps the best compromise would be penalties for outright lying, and a requirement to give balanced presentations.
Mr. Marantz’s argument is completely abolished by the simple fact that violent crimes in the United States have been declining in recent decades, coinciding with the advent of social media. Telling uniformed, anecdotal stories about social media supposedly promoting violence, when violence overall is declining, is a horrible argument for limiting free speech.
When someone argues that there are too many people on the planet, I suggest they lead by example and voluntarily reduce the population by one. If Mr. Marantz thinks there is too much free speech in the world, then perhaps he should lead by example and shut the fork up! Of course, when these people want to restrict speech or reduce the population, they are talking about others they find undesirable, not themselves.
On the topic of population. Next time you hear someone railing on about the worlds unsustainable population- think about this one. If you took every living human on the planet and dumped them into the state of Texas each person could occupy 1000 square feet with a little room left over. Just some perspective on population size.
Hmmm. Put every human being in Texas. Isn’t that the Democrat plan?
‘The Press’ always appear to ignore that Freedom of the Press is one of five freedoms in the First Amendment. NYT et al could not care less about the other four.
I vote you have to pass an IQ test of at least 95 to be able to write columns for newspapers… That would lead to the dismissal of most of the liberals.
Yes it was Chuck Todd on NBC Meet the Press etc. who won’t allow Climate Contrarians on NBC
– JPP
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/01/02/chuck_todd_im_not_going_to_give_time_to_climate_deniers.html
Couldn’t find it on YouTube …
-JPP
Shame on the NYT. This guys a complete ignoramus. Almost everything he says is bogus. I hope the NYT dies a painful (financial) death. Good riddance.
Here it is – the video doesn’t work very well on my laptop but:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/01/02/chuck_todd_im_not_going_to_give_time_to_climate_deniers.html
it does have the transcript…
So it’s happening here in the USA also NBC is the USA BBC I guess.
– JPP
Allowing freedom of the press is like allowing insane lying jackasses to write down and print up their lies and distribute them all around the world.
Was that sarcasm, or what?
Disallowing press freedom makes us all subservient to the powers that be. It allows TPTB to distribute their lies around the world unhindered.
In the US, the same constitutional amendment that guarantees freedom of speech is the one that grants freedom of the press.
So for the press to impugn free speech is simply inane.
…the communist Democrats are inane, too!
They have become the biggest organized hate group in the US!
The fact a staff member of a prominent currently publishing newspaper could openly come out with the idea, curtailing free speech would be a good thing, tells you everything about how far society has declined. When newspapers, that rely of freedom of the press to publish, start asking for state controlled censorship you realise howe close to the Orwellian nightmare we actually are. We only ever imagined such dystopia existed in fiction or dictatorship regimes, not yet as enlightened as our freedom founded western world.
The other frightening aspect of this piece in the NYT is the idea the BBC is something they would like to copy??
I have one thing to say about the BBC in its defence. It is the organisation that persuaded me to stop watching television news and more recently stop watching television all together. I am looking for a legal option to stop paying the state forced BBC annual licence. That is how unbalanced, and left wing establishment biased, the BBC is. The Frankfurt School’s “Long march through the Institutions” was a generations long project when introduced in the 1930s the BBC was an early target, and became/remains a key promoter of all things left.
Hmm.
From the manifesto of the NZ madman, it’s the Guardian Environment pages that radicalised him.
Is this the NYT trying to attack a direct competitor?
He was NOT a New Zealander. He *IS* an Australian who was living in NZ.
“If Congress wanted to get really ambitious, it could fund a rival to compete with Facebook or Google, the way the Postal Service competes with FedEx and U.P.S.”
Ah, yes. Let’s have another government created black hole to pour our tax money into.
More carbon dioxide and more free speech!
Best two ideas to come along in a long time!
Would they ban the opinions of anyone who agrees with them? Of course not. So why don’t they just come out and say that they want censorship? And who would the censors be? Let me see now …
Incidentally, why didn’t he mention Charlie Hebdo, the Pulse nightclub massacre, the Nice massacre, the Manchester Arena bombing and so many others?
“Mr. Powell compared harmful speech to carbon pollution: People are allowed to drive cars. But the government can regulate greenhouse emissions”
Liberals have the hardest time differentiating between a right and a privilege.
Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty used the print media. Horrors!!!!!
As Newt Gingrich said free speech is offensive speech. There would be no reason to have an amendment to the constitution guaranteeing nice and un-offensive speech. And that is why a free press should also be a competitive and business risk based press giving people a choice.
The Framers of our Constitution put freedom of speech in the First Amendment (rather than the Second or Tenth) because they thought it was extremely important, especially at a time when speech against the British king was punishable by death.
If the holier-than-thou Marantz wants the government to control all communication, he should check the dismal ratings of government-subsidized NPR and PBS. Most Americans prefer listening to or watching something else, when given the choice.
Of course, NPR and PBS do parrot the “liberal” (read socialist) dogma, to the point that the P in their acronyms should stand for Propaganda.
Marantz does have a point that allowing free speech allows “carbon pollution”. Anyone who is speaking exhales CO2, regardless of what they are saying. But silencing them wouldn’t reduce “carbon pollution”, because even silent people still exhale CO2.
The New York Times: All the news that’s fib to print.
“The Framers of our Constitution put freedom of speech in the First Amendment (rather than the Second or Tenth) because they thought it was extremely important, especially at a time when speech against the British king was punishable by death. ”
Nope. There were two amendments included in the original Bill of Rights that preceded what we now know as the First. Those two amendments did not pass and thus what was originally the 3rd Amendment became the 1st by default.
Allowing free speech is too like allowing carbon pollution:
A key factor in the rise of modern, free-ish societies where people routinely live past 40.
they speak the “wisdom” of the tribe!!!
This thing has been tried so many times and always failed – it should be frowned upon by any normal thinking human person. Giving the elites control of what can be said has always produced dire consequences. Let’s not forget that the Nazis knew exactly what people weres supposed to think. So this the Soviets. So does the Dera Leader of North Korea or the PCC and so did the Khmer Rouge and countless other murderous regimes. Every time an unaccountable elite abolishes freedom it ends in death and mayhem. There is not one single positive example to counter that.