The Authoritarian Left Is on the March
This week, Democratic Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Jerry McNerny, D-N.J., sent out a series of letters to America’s largest communications corporations: AT&T, Alphabet Inc., Cox Communications, Dish Network, Comcast, Apple, Amazon and others. Their letters demanded answers from these corporations on one simple topic: Why would these platforms continue to allow the dissemination of “misinformation” from conservative outlets?
“Our country’s public discourse is plagued by misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and lies,” the House Democrats wrote. “These phenomena undergird the radicalization of seditious individuals who committed acts of insurrection on January 6th, and it contributes to a growing distrust of public health measures necessary to crush the pandemic. … Are you planning to continue carrying Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN?”
The overt move by members of the government to cudgel private corporations into silencing unpopular viewpoints was clearly violative of First Amendment principles. The Constitution clearly provides that Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech or the press; Democrats have now hit upon a convenient workaround where they bully private actors into doing their censorious bidding.
This clever gambit is rooted in the conflation between “disinformation” and “misinformation” promulgated by the establishment media since 2016. After the 2016 election, the media went berserk with the theory that Hillary Clinton had lost the election thanks only to Russian interference. “Russian disinformation” — meaning false information promulgated by a foreign government for the purpose of interfering in domestic politics — had twisted the election. Now even disinformation promulgated on American soil is protected by the First Amendment. But it soon became clear that the authoritarian left wasn’t interested merely in active disinformation springing from foreign sources. It was troubled by any narrative or information that contradicted its point of view. This information could quickly and easily be labeled “misinformation.”
And “misinformation,” it said, had to be policed.
Why, precisely, wouldn’t the answer to misinformation be factual rebuttal? Because, the authoritarian left argued, misinformation led to “incitement.” Now, there is a legal standard for “incitement” — and it’s a high bar to reach. But the authoritarian left has broadened out the meaning of incitement to include any verbiage that elicits strong emotions … so long as conservatives are responsible for such verbiage. Thus, it’s possible incitement to call people by their biological pronouns but perfectly innocent fun to wink and nod at widespread looting and rioting.
The answer to “misinformation” and “incitement,” however, can’t lie within government. So Democrats have turned toward hijacking the private instruments of informational dissemination, all in the name of reestablishing an informational monopoly the left lost with the death of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, and with a monopoly that collapsed completely with the rise of the open internet.
And corporations are going along with all of this. This week, Amazon banned a book on transgender people, “When Harry Became Sally,” presumably because it took a non-woke line on the subject. Coca-Cola is now apparently indoctrinating its employees into the cult of Robin DiAngelo “anti-racism.” Facebook and Twitter and Google are all preparing new measures aimed at cracking down on “misinformation” — opaque guidelines and nonrigorous standards that will surely cut in favor of the same establishment media now pushing censorship, and the Democrats they support.
The establishment media are fond of saying that we’re experiencing a crisis of authoritarianism in America; they point to the criminal acts of Jan. 6 and suggest that right-wing authoritarianism threatens democracy itself. The far greater threat to democracy, however, lies with an authoritarian left that is now ascendant in virtually every powerful institution in America.
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New York backtracks on de Blasio’s plan to close Trump-owned ice rinks
New York City is doing a full "180" on its plan to shutter Trump Organization-operated ice skating rinks.
City Hall on Sunday reversed Mayor de Blasio’s move to shutter Lasker and Wollman rinks in Central Park six weeks ahead of their typical April closing dates — in an apparent effort to freeze out his political rival.
"New York City kids deserve all the time on the ice they can get this year. The Wollman and Lasker rinks will stay open under current management for the few weeks left in this season," City Hall press secretary Bill Neidhardt told the New York Post.
"But make no mistake, we will not be doing business with the Trump Organization going forward. Inciting an insurrection will never be forgotten or forgiven."
Hizzoner announced last month he was nixing the city’s contracts with the Trump Organization, alleging then-President Trump had incited a riot at the Capitol. The rinks were both set to be shuttered at close on Sunday.
The stunning policy reversal came after devastated skaters fumed over the weekend that they shouldn’t be kept off the ice due to the mayor's beef with the Trump administration.
"The real people they’re hurting are the 2,500 children that have been benefiting from the skating program this season and 250 innocent employees who have been keeping this going for us," said Lee Klausner, 49, who was watching her two daughters skate.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the rinks would remain open until April, as they have in past years.
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Coke slammed for ‘blatant racial discrimination’
Coca-Cola has been accused of reverse racism after a training video for its employees told them to “try to be less white”.
The soft drink giant has been slammed for the racial discrimination training after a disgruntled employee shared it on social media and it went viral.
The training seminar was shared on LinkedIn with slides that featured tips on how “to be less white”, including being “less ignorant,” and “less oppressive”.
The slides came from an 11-minute video titled ‘Confronting Racism with Robin DiAngelo’, an author and consultant who argues white people are complicit in racist structures unless they actively work to be anti-racist.
“In the US and other Western nations, white people are socialised to feel that they are inherently superior because they are white,” one slide said.
Coca-Cola said the video was uploaded to their LinkedIn Learning platform but was not part of their compulsory curriculum. “The video and images attributed to a Coca-Cola training program are not part of the company’s learning curriculum,” the company said in a statement to The Sun.
“Our Better Together global training is part of a learning plan to help build an inclusive workplace. It is comprised of a number of short vignettes, each a few minutes long.
“The training includes access to the LinkedIn Learning platform on a variety of topics, including on diversity, equity and inclusion.
“The video in question was accessible on the LinkedIn Learning platform but was not part of the company’s curriculum. We will continue to listen to our employees and refine our learning programs as appropriate.”
Self-identified employment lawyer Harmeet K Dhillon accused the company of “blatant racial discrimination”.
While some people said they would boycott Coke, others supported the initiative, saying it was poorly worded but could encourage people to realise their racial prejudices.
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"Progressive" cancel culture is less about deplatforming extreme ideas and more about persecuting people with whom they disagree
Ensconced among the cherry trees ringing the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., rests the Jefferson Memorial. The rotunda of this stately edifice shelters a statue of the great man. Among his many inscriptions adorning the walls are these words:
"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
With a craven cancel culture now in full sway, one can only wonder what the man who crafted the Declaration of Independence might say about it. Perhaps he would rehearse the Declaration’s self-evident truths:
“That we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
George Washington too “controversial”?
Well, apparently what the Lord giveth the Lifetime Network taketh away. After nearly three years of Lifetime airing our weekly Truths That Transform television program—one in which we apply Biblical truths to the great moral, ethical, and cultural question of our day—officials at Lifetime have suddenly decided our program content is too “controversial,” forcing us off their network.
They objected to our exposé on Planned Parenthood, in which we documented their sale of baby body parts derived from abortions. They objected to our exposé on billionaire radical George Soros and his systematic efforts to undermine American laws and institutions. They even objected to our program on the spiritual life of George Washington.
At the same time the Lifetime Channel is giving us the back of their hand, we received reports from others in the community of Christian broadcasters that other major cable television channels and networks are cancelling entire blocks of religious programming. This is the new face of corporate responsibility in America—viewpoint discrimination, prior restraint, and outright censorship.
This spitting in the face of those with viewpoints differing from the new woke orthodoxy by broadcast and cable television is bad enough, but it gets worse. Others providing business services to those holding non-favored viewpoints are falling all over each other to demonstrate their woke bonafides, by denying services to those with the heretical temerity to hold views diverging from those permissible under Progressive woke-ism.
Mail Chimp knows best
Witness the good folks at wannabe-gatekeeper Mail Chimp, the simian-friendly email platform whose Standard Terms of Use were recently modified to include this language:
“Mailchimp does not allow the distribution of Content that is, in our sole discretion, materially false, inaccurate, or misleading in a way that could deceive or confuse others about important events, topics, or circumstances.”
How Mail Chimp is singularly qualified to adjudicate matters of truth or falsity across a wide range of cultural issues escapes the notice of most neutral observers. But herein lies the genius of Progressive thinkers: If the viewpoint in question is different than ours, it must be false. Case closed.
In a biblical context, many are familiar with the predictive prophecy that restricts buying and selling to those with “the mark of the beast.” What we see emerging today is a secular version in reverse order. Instead of everyone having the mark, those with disfavored viewpoints and ideals are anointed with a latter-day scarlet letter. More like the “No soup for you” pronouncements from Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi.
However it’s characterized, at base the progressive cancel culture is less about deplatforming extreme ideas and more about persecuting people with whom they disagree. Their aim is not correction but destruction. If the Southern Poverty Law Center were true to their own disingenuous and defamatory definition of hate, they would have to include two-thirds of the Progressive left (and themselves!) on their infamous map. Today’s Progressives more resemble Orwell’s dystopian epic 1984, where Winston Smith, who was outed as non-conforming, is brainwashed back to Oceanian orthodoxy and awaits his execution.
More speech, not less
One might argue that the foundational question here is: Why are Progressives so deathly afraid of the free marketplace of ideas? They are in urgent need of reading—perhaps for the first time—John Milton’s Areopagitica. In his polemic against the state-sponsored cancel culture of his day, this Puritan(!) declared: “Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?”
Milton argued that the best defense of freedom of speech and expression was the debate and discussion of ideas—where good ideas would tend to rise and bad ideas to fall. Perhaps the cancel culture is a latent acknowledgement that Progressive ideas suffer under the weight of scrutiny.
Whatever the case, it’s self-evident that the solitary idea nearest to the Progressive heart is to make sure nobody hears your ideas. This is nothing less than Jefferson’s “tyranny over the mind of man.” For those who understand how hard-won freedom actually is, we too must swear eternal hostility against the efforts of those who would steal it.
https://townhall.com/columnists/frankwright/2021/02/21/when-truth-is-the-enemy-n2585010
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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