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I should be writing my morning show right now, but I felt compelled to do something a little different for a moment. I keep thinking about the “Twitter Files” that Elon Musk in conjunction with Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss are releasing. I keep thinking about them because I think the gravity of what we now have proof of is frightening. I think for so long we knew that this was happening, but we couldn’t really prove it…Not in any tangible way, anyway. For those who may not spend a lot of time on Twitter, you may not know it, but Friday, proof was released that people were silenced in the “town square” not for actual violations of any sort of terms of service of a private entity, but because a political campaign or government official demanded it.
Matt Taibbi goes on to say that these “tools” of silence were available and utilized by both sides of the political aisle, while one side had more channels available to them than the other. Many arguments have ensued over the revelation of this information…Does it violate the 1st amendment?! What about Section 230?! Is it considered an in kind campaign donation?! However, I argue that we are missing the forest for the trees. People in positions of governmental power silenced free men and women in partnership with big tech. Period.
That’s the story. The great hand of Big Brother slipped over the lips of average every day citizens of this country and removed their voice. And while the revelations are coming from Elon Musk’s desire for transparency in an attempt to rebuild the reputation of his newly acquired social media platform, Mark Zuckerberg’s has revealed similar information while speaking on Joe Rogan’s podcast regarding the FBI’s instruction to take certain information off of Facebook. Many people have been de-platformed and demonetized from YouTube. This is not an isolated incident and it’s not isolated to Twitter but it’s the first time we’ve seen it clearly in black and white that not only was it requested, but the requests were honored. Our book club just finished reading George Orwell’s “1984” and we are currently reading Michael Knowles book “Speechless.” A couple key thoughts from both seem apropos in this particular moment. In Knowles book he says “In statecraft, when speech fails, war ensues. If in the words of the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, ‘war is the continuation of politics by other means,’ speech is the practice of politics by ordinary means.” If the oppressors living in their ivory towers continue to put duct tape over the mouths of the plebs, they are going to learn that those plebs are the ones with access to the foundation of said towers and demolition will be on the menu. The similarities in what is happening in our society today showcased side-by-side with Orwell’s dystopian novel is striking. The premise of the novel is a totalitarian government’s attempt to maintain power and control through thought control. The main character has a line in the book that says “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” The free market of ideas is vital to a functioning and healthy society. Bad ideas are presented alongside good ideas and discussion and debate and trial and error occur and one wins over the other. If the scale is tipped by those in power in an attempt to maintain power, the society ceases to function and is no longer healthy. I care much less about the legality and which rules on paper were broken in this situation. I care much more about the fact that too many people are viewing this through the lens of which political party they’ve sworn allegiance to and not enough are viewing it as an egregious assault on society in an effort to silence us….To keep us stupid, uninformed and unable to communicate effectively with one another. “If there is hope, it lies in the proles….If only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They need only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it. And yet - !” I hope that you all realize that you hold every single ounce of power necessary to completely change our trajectory. Please consider setting your binary political fervor for right v. left and red v. blue and black v. white and fat v. skinny and man v. woman aside and focus on the true enemy to liberty and freedom. It’s staring all of us in the face, we need only open our eyes. Never forget; free men do not need permission from any government. Love y'all, -H
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