Love it! The absolute best thing to come out of the covid years is this massive political re-alignment centered around first principles. I would love for Democrats to re-assert their desire to protect free speech - and not just when they're out of the White House. I certainly don't like my free speech rights hinging on the intestinal fortitude of Republicans.
My moment came when I learned that my 14 year old daughter was using a boy’s name and pronouns at school. I had always vaguely believed that there was some really tiny percentage of people who believed from birth that they were the opposite sex and whose psychological characteristics were more like that sex, so there must be something biological about it. But my daughter was a doll-loving, dress-wearing typical girl for 14 years, so this did not compute. All mainstream information was incredibly intellectually dishonest and didn’t explain anything at all, just tried to drown me in rainbows and unicorns. It disgusted me how obvious the lies were.
So I went looking for information that could explain it, and found alternative spaces like Substack where people were telling the truth. Not all of them, of course, you still have to use your brain to figure out what makes sense and is backed by evidence. But it reminded me of reading a newspaper 30 years ago.
Once you start to realize how badly you’ve been lied to, you start to wonder what else you’ve believed that isn’t true. How many of my previous opinions about Trump were simply manipulated? (And I wasn’t even a democrat, just a moderate who’d left the Republican Party to become independent over Trump!) The whole house of cards tumbled down as the propaganda became obvious.
Thanks for writing this! It really resonated with me. As the propaganda machine overreaches more and more, more people are affected personally and start to question the narrative, breaking the spell. I think everyone is only one event away from realizing they’ve been lied to. It seems we’ve reached critical mass now. The Constitution worked, because they were unable to completely shut down the opposing viewpoints that broke the spell for so many of us. Without the Constitution they would have completely seized power over all information before they started affecting a significant number of people. Then it would have been too late.
Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote an essay, Bread and the Newspaper, in 1861, about how the Civil War had very quickly completely taken over peoples' thoughts. "THIS is the new version of the Panem et Circenses of the Roman populace" is how he begins the essay. It's easily findable online. Not about censorship, but Holmes is very on-target for our times, describing how a single motivator can overwhelm you, and prompt you to believe that censorship of your opponents is necessary and virtuous.
A couple excerpts:
"How this war is simplifying our mode of being! We live on our emotions, as the sick man is said in the common speech to be nourished by his fever. Our ordinary mental food has become distasteful, and what would have been intellectual luxuries at other times, are now absolutely repulsive."
"Another most eminent scholar told us in all simplicity that he had fallen into such a state that he would read the same telegraphic dispatches over and over again in different papers, as if they were new, until he felt as if he were an idiot. Who did not do just the same thing, and does not often do it still, now that the first flush of the fever is over?"
Nice to hear from you again, Arne! Thank you for these excellent suggestions. I think part of it too, is moralizing, rather than trying to solve a problem (even if you have the moral high ground). Because an easy way to get “your way” is to make it the only way, by turning it into a morality play. But that necessarily radicalizes your opponent, just prolonging the impasse (even while it may look like it has passed).
And moralizing could prompt you to believe the problem is urgent and unresolved, because as long as the problem remains, you can keep feeling good about how you're fighting for justice, love, peace, kindness. "The moral equivalent of war," right?
Wow. This is everything, right here - thank you(!!!!) This speech by Trump is a takedown of the whole censorship industrial complex. I thought RFK was exaggerating when he wrote it should earn Trump a spot on Mt Rushmore, but, actually, really - speech is the foundation of everything ...
I hope Trump and Vance are not in the same location til after the inauguration ... that lying narrative that killed and maimed so many is done ... : ) !!!!!
That speech is incredible. I didn’t realize it had been on his site since 2022. It is so thorough in how it will handle the problems, that it really makes me hopeful. I considered adding it as the post script for the post, but then decided to do another with it :) thanks for adding!
Oh wow. I hope she is all right now. That is so maddening. It does seem like it has to be one person at a time, unfortunately. But that is how most things work, I suppose.
(Also, I really want the rainbow back for kids, not polluted with sexuality).
I work in cybersecurity. One of the things that seriously irritates me about EIP stuff is how they hijacked what should have been a good an uncontroversial idea for taking down criminal activity (romance scams, phishing etc.) and co-opted it so that it was used to censor political stuff and then later Wuflu related medical stuff.
Having a central place where you can report and take down the criminal scammers and phishers was a really good idea that people I know worked on, starting in about 2012. It took them a good five years to get through all the federal government bureaucracy and empire building and set up, essentially, the jira system EIP used. It could have been done in a week if there hadn't been empire building bureaucrats putting up pointless roadblocks in terms of process.
Anyway they get the thing set up and Alex Stamos, who had been CISO at Facebook when the concept got started, waltzed in and hjijacked it to use it for censorship. Not that many people knew that at the time (I didn't) so we blithely recommended and used the CISA data without knowing that it had been compromised.
I figured something was iffy during the Wuflu because the list of "fake COVID" sites was laughably wrong but my assumption was that this was just a one off. I was wrong and I'm still very angry about that
Absolutely. I noticed as I went through the Jira tickets from EIP that many were reasonable. Interesting how over time it just gets more and more abused. The VP stuff is mostly wrong, and then it just seems to get worse and more egregious from there.
Bureaucrats are often a part of the problem if not the problem. Their like demi Gods who try to act like Gods b/c the Fed Gov has little to no checks & balances. With teh advent of the Tesla Optimus 3 robot I'm all for replacing every GD one of these bureaucrats with a robot.
Right there with you. First time I voted a straight ticket in my life. Usually I vote libertarian for president and swing back and forth on Congress depending on who's more aligned with me in the moment. Not this time.
I'm not trying to be a jerk about this but America is not a liberal Democracy; it's not even just a Democracy. It never has been and never was meant to be. We have democratic like processes but we are not a Democracy and every time someone says we are, even if they mean well, they are helping perpetuate a lie. When a lie like that is allowed to go on long enough the lie becomes accepted truth over time as has happened with this lie that we are a Democracy.
I recently read a really great book that came out this year called Framed, about women (it has happened to men) who are coercively controlled by abusers (it might not be physical abuse) and lose custody of their kids. I personally know one of the mothers features in this book, and while ALL woman (and parents) shouldn't be believed ALL of the time ALL family court complaints should be taken seriously because MANY victims tell the truth. The book Framed explains that coercive controllers use a process called DARVO to gaslight their victims. I'll just quote here from a top google explanation: "Deny
The abuser denies any wrongdoing or accountability for their actions. For example, they might say "Are you kidding? That's not what happened".
Attack
The abuser attacks the victim's character, intelligence, motivation, mental health, or emotional stability. For example, they might say "You're overreacting".
Reverse Victim and Offender
The abuser shifts the roles of victim and offender, making the victim feel like the abuser. For example, they might say "You know how hard it is for me to trust someone and then you do this to me".
I am bringing all this up to say, in reading many Democrat responses to the election results, some are good and really looking for answers--and some are DARVO. Accusing the Republicans of censorship, totalitarianism, taking away freedoms and bodily autonomy...I'm seeing lots of D responses that read as denial, attacking Rs, pretending to being the real victims and accusing the Rs of everything they have done. Many of the top Ds are acting like coercive controllers, and many of the Ds believing what they are being sold are, though they don't know it, reminding me of coercive control victims.
It's interesting to learn how so many of us former NPR types had specific moments when we finally saw the snow for what it was. It's also interesting to see that others also gravitated toward primary sources and works on the rise of authoritarianism.
"..asking how much of what they’ve been told for the last 5 years, 10 years, 50 years, 100 years ???, is a lie..."
It depends. If it's about something unimportant that ha zero impact on governance then it's likely true. If it is in anyway impactful to the larger goal of global governance then it;s anywhere from %100 BS to just partially BS.
The MSM (Main stream Media) is all corporate meaning the outlet is owned by 1 or more people who are likely very wealthy and very powerful. They are NEVER going to allow the outlet(s) they control to do or say anything that either could cost them $$ or deviates from their desired goals. Since most of these wealthy jerks are members in 1 or more of the various pro-global governance groups (i.e. Davos, Bilderberg, World Economic Forum, etc) they are all working towards the promotion of global governance and usually for $$, power or both. How so?
Imagine you are a millionaire with 1 or more MSM outlets and you are approached by a fellow wealthy industrialist about joining their club which is trying to change governance everywhere to bring about a single global government run by these people via the puppets they install. You are promised unimageable wealth and power if you join/participate but if you don't then you run the risk of eventually being grouped in with the rest of the populace that these people view as peasants, useless eaters to be rid of once technology is such that robots can do everything the peasants are paid to do. It takes someone of strong moral character to say no to that and most who are at that level of wealth have little if any morality. That's not to say none do only that the wealthy they are it's usually b/c they didn't mind doing unethical and or illegal means to obtain that wealth. To be clear when I say wealthy I mean those with net worth's of close to if not in excess of a billion US dollars and not just the 7 digit millionaires in business who are successful.
If you think that's conspiracy theory talk then you're still listening to the lying media as these people openly talk about what they plan to do b/c they believe they no longer can be stopped. There are some bumps they have to deal with like Trump but over all they believe their plan is on track even if a little behind. Their goals are, Global governance, a carbon based credit system like China's but where instead of how you act it;s how much C02 you produce and to replace all physical currencies everywhere with CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) aka crypto. CBDC will allow the government to track every act of commerce you engage in and even control what you can do. That's the kind of control that tyrants salivate over.
The latest and greatest of these millionaire corporate controlled media outlets is X. Do not be fooled into thinking that he is/ they are not guilty of the same scenario you describe above. Packaged differently... Same product with a bit more power because it's controlled by 1 very wealthy man. No "board" to contend with, no agreements to reach. And when we think he is above reproach and/or disconnected from other powerful groups, we are putting our heads deeply in the sand.
Well the issue isn't simply that an outlet is owned/controlled by 1 person but how that person who controls it, decides to use it and Musk has been pretty clear on Free Speech and since he acquire Twitter it is definitely FAR more tolerant of speech that was quickly censored before. I don't care if he uses X as a promotion vehicle for his companies only that he maintains the free speech approach.
We have to understand that just because someone is VERY wealthy, the billionaire club types, it's not a guarantee they are a part of the group who are trying to interfere with national governance to re-shape them into a global governance.
Call me a cautious optimist, it a optimistic pessimist. However, your suggestion that Musk used his platform for advertisement only shows you have not viewed his posts, pushed forward by algorithms per his demand. They were NOT advertising for his businesses! You may be exhibiting a closed minded view of what you are hoping to be true. Musk is "clear" on free speech, as is Trump... As long as it agrees with their perspective. They have both said that media that disagree (whether touting dis/misinformation or not) should be shut down. The same with comedians who have spoken against their policies... Shut them down!
I'm not saying the media on either side is right or wrong (although I abhor blatant lies, disinformation and willful manipulation), but we cannot ignore the fact that they are BOTH doing the same thing in different ways.
Let me re-phrase. Tell me what Musk is doing, with specificity, on X that is hindering and or harmful to Free Speech like with how Twitter did before Mush bought it.
"As long as i"
I'm going to have to disagree with this as I see many replies/posts that are anti-Musk and if "As long as it agrees with their perspective" were true they'd be banned/censored. That's not to say that tweets don't get unfairly muted or censored but that's more likely b/c there are still #WokeAuthoriatrinLeft activists still working there and stealthily so as to not get fired for doing what they are doing. He got rid of around %80 of teh staff but there was no way to guarantee those left were not part of the problem.
That's a good assumption and, as has happened much on both sides of the fence, people are quick to rush to their rescue with assumptive reasoning. Still, they are assumptions.
As for those threatened to be shut down when they disagree, the threat was to be carried out once they are in office. I don't know that it will happen, or if it was merely a threat (as much was threatened during the campaign), but I tend to believe what a person says until they prove themselves otherwise.
Thanks, yeah, I didn’t realize that I started a book :)
Love it! The absolute best thing to come out of the covid years is this massive political re-alignment centered around first principles. I would love for Democrats to re-assert their desire to protect free speech - and not just when they're out of the White House. I certainly don't like my free speech rights hinging on the intestinal fortitude of Republicans.
Amazing article!
My moment came when I learned that my 14 year old daughter was using a boy’s name and pronouns at school. I had always vaguely believed that there was some really tiny percentage of people who believed from birth that they were the opposite sex and whose psychological characteristics were more like that sex, so there must be something biological about it. But my daughter was a doll-loving, dress-wearing typical girl for 14 years, so this did not compute. All mainstream information was incredibly intellectually dishonest and didn’t explain anything at all, just tried to drown me in rainbows and unicorns. It disgusted me how obvious the lies were.
So I went looking for information that could explain it, and found alternative spaces like Substack where people were telling the truth. Not all of them, of course, you still have to use your brain to figure out what makes sense and is backed by evidence. But it reminded me of reading a newspaper 30 years ago.
Once you start to realize how badly you’ve been lied to, you start to wonder what else you’ve believed that isn’t true. How many of my previous opinions about Trump were simply manipulated? (And I wasn’t even a democrat, just a moderate who’d left the Republican Party to become independent over Trump!) The whole house of cards tumbled down as the propaganda became obvious.
Thanks for writing this! It really resonated with me. As the propaganda machine overreaches more and more, more people are affected personally and start to question the narrative, breaking the spell. I think everyone is only one event away from realizing they’ve been lied to. It seems we’ve reached critical mass now. The Constitution worked, because they were unable to completely shut down the opposing viewpoints that broke the spell for so many of us. Without the Constitution they would have completely seized power over all information before they started affecting a significant number of people. Then it would have been too late.
Thank you for this feature article. There's A LOT of work here
Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote an essay, Bread and the Newspaper, in 1861, about how the Civil War had very quickly completely taken over peoples' thoughts. "THIS is the new version of the Panem et Circenses of the Roman populace" is how he begins the essay. It's easily findable online. Not about censorship, but Holmes is very on-target for our times, describing how a single motivator can overwhelm you, and prompt you to believe that censorship of your opponents is necessary and virtuous.
A couple excerpts:
"How this war is simplifying our mode of being! We live on our emotions, as the sick man is said in the common speech to be nourished by his fever. Our ordinary mental food has become distasteful, and what would have been intellectual luxuries at other times, are now absolutely repulsive."
"Another most eminent scholar told us in all simplicity that he had fallen into such a state that he would read the same telegraphic dispatches over and over again in different papers, as if they were new, until he felt as if he were an idiot. Who did not do just the same thing, and does not often do it still, now that the first flush of the fever is over?"
Nice to hear from you again, Arne! Thank you for these excellent suggestions. I think part of it too, is moralizing, rather than trying to solve a problem (even if you have the moral high ground). Because an easy way to get “your way” is to make it the only way, by turning it into a morality play. But that necessarily radicalizes your opponent, just prolonging the impasse (even while it may look like it has passed).
And moralizing could prompt you to believe the problem is urgent and unresolved, because as long as the problem remains, you can keep feeling good about how you're fighting for justice, love, peace, kindness. "The moral equivalent of war," right?
This is awesome. Thank you!
For me the lying goes back to the '60s. Now we know they lied about US losing the Tet Offensive in 'Nam, when we actually won it.
Much evidence/discussion now about Nixon being set-up and Watergate a fraud on America.
I tend to agree. Guessing probably right after WWII, based on Ike’s farewell.
Yep, Gulf of Tonkin incident as a justification for the Vietnam war as well.
“…anti-mascot…”
A more nuanced word for “scapegoat.” I like it!
Wow. This is everything, right here - thank you(!!!!) This speech by Trump is a takedown of the whole censorship industrial complex. I thought RFK was exaggerating when he wrote it should earn Trump a spot on Mt Rushmore, but, actually, really - speech is the foundation of everything ...
https://rumble.com/v5nxnj2-president-trump-makes-history-defending-free-speech.html
(Although the one thing of concern at the end is different categories for over/ under 18, which surely makes sense, except could be a trojan horse for digital ID ... https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/age-assurance-as-the-trojan-horse?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web
I hope Trump and Vance are not in the same location til after the inauguration ... that lying narrative that killed and maimed so many is done ... : ) !!!!!
That speech is incredible. I didn’t realize it had been on his site since 2022. It is so thorough in how it will handle the problems, that it really makes me hopeful. I considered adding it as the post script for the post, but then decided to do another with it :) thanks for adding!
Oh wow. I hope she is all right now. That is so maddening. It does seem like it has to be one person at a time, unfortunately. But that is how most things work, I suppose.
(Also, I really want the rainbow back for kids, not polluted with sexuality).
I work in cybersecurity. One of the things that seriously irritates me about EIP stuff is how they hijacked what should have been a good an uncontroversial idea for taking down criminal activity (romance scams, phishing etc.) and co-opted it so that it was used to censor political stuff and then later Wuflu related medical stuff.
Having a central place where you can report and take down the criminal scammers and phishers was a really good idea that people I know worked on, starting in about 2012. It took them a good five years to get through all the federal government bureaucracy and empire building and set up, essentially, the jira system EIP used. It could have been done in a week if there hadn't been empire building bureaucrats putting up pointless roadblocks in terms of process.
Anyway they get the thing set up and Alex Stamos, who had been CISO at Facebook when the concept got started, waltzed in and hjijacked it to use it for censorship. Not that many people knew that at the time (I didn't) so we blithely recommended and used the CISA data without knowing that it had been compromised.
I figured something was iffy during the Wuflu because the list of "fake COVID" sites was laughably wrong but my assumption was that this was just a one off. I was wrong and I'm still very angry about that
Absolutely. I noticed as I went through the Jira tickets from EIP that many were reasonable. Interesting how over time it just gets more and more abused. The VP stuff is mostly wrong, and then it just seems to get worse and more egregious from there.
Bureaucrats are often a part of the problem if not the problem. Their like demi Gods who try to act like Gods b/c the Fed Gov has little to no checks & balances. With teh advent of the Tesla Optimus 3 robot I'm all for replacing every GD one of these bureaucrats with a robot.
A project for DOGE....
I voted straight Republican ticket because of the Democrats willingness to censor and their anti Second Amendment positions.
Right there with you. First time I voted a straight ticket in my life. Usually I vote libertarian for president and swing back and forth on Congress depending on who's more aligned with me in the moment. Not this time.
Same here
I'm not trying to be a jerk about this but America is not a liberal Democracy; it's not even just a Democracy. It never has been and never was meant to be. We have democratic like processes but we are not a Democracy and every time someone says we are, even if they mean well, they are helping perpetuate a lie. When a lie like that is allowed to go on long enough the lie becomes accepted truth over time as has happened with this lie that we are a Democracy.
Words matter.
I recently read a really great book that came out this year called Framed, about women (it has happened to men) who are coercively controlled by abusers (it might not be physical abuse) and lose custody of their kids. I personally know one of the mothers features in this book, and while ALL woman (and parents) shouldn't be believed ALL of the time ALL family court complaints should be taken seriously because MANY victims tell the truth. The book Framed explains that coercive controllers use a process called DARVO to gaslight their victims. I'll just quote here from a top google explanation: "Deny
The abuser denies any wrongdoing or accountability for their actions. For example, they might say "Are you kidding? That's not what happened".
Attack
The abuser attacks the victim's character, intelligence, motivation, mental health, or emotional stability. For example, they might say "You're overreacting".
Reverse Victim and Offender
The abuser shifts the roles of victim and offender, making the victim feel like the abuser. For example, they might say "You know how hard it is for me to trust someone and then you do this to me".
I am bringing all this up to say, in reading many Democrat responses to the election results, some are good and really looking for answers--and some are DARVO. Accusing the Republicans of censorship, totalitarianism, taking away freedoms and bodily autonomy...I'm seeing lots of D responses that read as denial, attacking Rs, pretending to being the real victims and accusing the Rs of everything they have done. Many of the top Ds are acting like coercive controllers, and many of the Ds believing what they are being sold are, though they don't know it, reminding me of coercive control victims.
It is a very, very apt metaphor. Thanks for the recommendation!
It's interesting to learn how so many of us former NPR types had specific moments when we finally saw the snow for what it was. It's also interesting to see that others also gravitated toward primary sources and works on the rise of authoritarianism.
"..asking how much of what they’ve been told for the last 5 years, 10 years, 50 years, 100 years ???, is a lie..."
It depends. If it's about something unimportant that ha zero impact on governance then it's likely true. If it is in anyway impactful to the larger goal of global governance then it;s anywhere from %100 BS to just partially BS.
The MSM (Main stream Media) is all corporate meaning the outlet is owned by 1 or more people who are likely very wealthy and very powerful. They are NEVER going to allow the outlet(s) they control to do or say anything that either could cost them $$ or deviates from their desired goals. Since most of these wealthy jerks are members in 1 or more of the various pro-global governance groups (i.e. Davos, Bilderberg, World Economic Forum, etc) they are all working towards the promotion of global governance and usually for $$, power or both. How so?
Imagine you are a millionaire with 1 or more MSM outlets and you are approached by a fellow wealthy industrialist about joining their club which is trying to change governance everywhere to bring about a single global government run by these people via the puppets they install. You are promised unimageable wealth and power if you join/participate but if you don't then you run the risk of eventually being grouped in with the rest of the populace that these people view as peasants, useless eaters to be rid of once technology is such that robots can do everything the peasants are paid to do. It takes someone of strong moral character to say no to that and most who are at that level of wealth have little if any morality. That's not to say none do only that the wealthy they are it's usually b/c they didn't mind doing unethical and or illegal means to obtain that wealth. To be clear when I say wealthy I mean those with net worth's of close to if not in excess of a billion US dollars and not just the 7 digit millionaires in business who are successful.
If you think that's conspiracy theory talk then you're still listening to the lying media as these people openly talk about what they plan to do b/c they believe they no longer can be stopped. There are some bumps they have to deal with like Trump but over all they believe their plan is on track even if a little behind. Their goals are, Global governance, a carbon based credit system like China's but where instead of how you act it;s how much C02 you produce and to replace all physical currencies everywhere with CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) aka crypto. CBDC will allow the government to track every act of commerce you engage in and even control what you can do. That's the kind of control that tyrants salivate over.
The latest and greatest of these millionaire corporate controlled media outlets is X. Do not be fooled into thinking that he is/ they are not guilty of the same scenario you describe above. Packaged differently... Same product with a bit more power because it's controlled by 1 very wealthy man. No "board" to contend with, no agreements to reach. And when we think he is above reproach and/or disconnected from other powerful groups, we are putting our heads deeply in the sand.
Well the issue isn't simply that an outlet is owned/controlled by 1 person but how that person who controls it, decides to use it and Musk has been pretty clear on Free Speech and since he acquire Twitter it is definitely FAR more tolerant of speech that was quickly censored before. I don't care if he uses X as a promotion vehicle for his companies only that he maintains the free speech approach.
We have to understand that just because someone is VERY wealthy, the billionaire club types, it's not a guarantee they are a part of the group who are trying to interfere with national governance to re-shape them into a global governance.
Call me a cautious optimist, it a optimistic pessimist. However, your suggestion that Musk used his platform for advertisement only shows you have not viewed his posts, pushed forward by algorithms per his demand. They were NOT advertising for his businesses! You may be exhibiting a closed minded view of what you are hoping to be true. Musk is "clear" on free speech, as is Trump... As long as it agrees with their perspective. They have both said that media that disagree (whether touting dis/misinformation or not) should be shut down. The same with comedians who have spoken against their policies... Shut them down!
I'm not saying the media on either side is right or wrong (although I abhor blatant lies, disinformation and willful manipulation), but we cannot ignore the fact that they are BOTH doing the same thing in different ways.
Let me re-phrase. Tell me what Musk is doing, with specificity, on X that is hindering and or harmful to Free Speech like with how Twitter did before Mush bought it.
"As long as i"
I'm going to have to disagree with this as I see many replies/posts that are anti-Musk and if "As long as it agrees with their perspective" were true they'd be banned/censored. That's not to say that tweets don't get unfairly muted or censored but that's more likely b/c there are still #WokeAuthoriatrinLeft activists still working there and stealthily so as to not get fired for doing what they are doing. He got rid of around %80 of teh staff but there was no way to guarantee those left were not part of the problem.
That's a good assumption and, as has happened much on both sides of the fence, people are quick to rush to their rescue with assumptive reasoning. Still, they are assumptions.
As for those threatened to be shut down when they disagree, the threat was to be carried out once they are in office. I don't know that it will happen, or if it was merely a threat (as much was threatened during the campaign), but I tend to believe what a person says until they prove themselves otherwise.
We will see. I make no assumptions.