Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy❤
No. of Recommendations: 9
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) on Thursday said he will seek to have social media companies place lifetime bans on users who celebrated the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist shot Wednesday while speaking on the campus of Utah Valley University.
“I’m going to use Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk,” Higgins wrote in a post on the social platform X.https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5498536-clay-hi...Does anyone think that this
specific reaction is what Charlie Kirk (self-declared free speech absolutist) would have wanted? To have the federal government use "influence" to ban people on privately-run social media companies from engaging in any future speech?
No. of Recommendations: 4
Does anyone think that this specific reaction is what Charlie Kirk (self-declared free speech absolutist) would have wanted?
No, he would not. He'd rather people talk, which was what he was doing when he was murdered.
No. of Recommendations: 4
He'd rather people talk, which was what he was doing when he was murdered.
Talking is the only thing Rush Limbaugh (Charlie Kirk's big influence) did. That's all Cadet Bonespurs does; talk. That's all Hitler did; talk. That's what influencers do; talk.
The people they talk to, the people they influence....that's another story.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Talking is the only thing Rush Limbaugh (Charlie Kirk's big influence) did. That's all Cadet Bonespurs does; talk. That's all Hitler did; talk. That's what influencers do; talk.
Seems that all a cynical opportunist would need to do, to make himself rich, is spout the most bigoted things that come into his head, and certain people will shower him with money. That's not that much of a step, from feeding the boss' delusions at work, to keep your job, and a lot more rewarding.
Steve
No. of Recommendations: 1
Seems that all a cynical opportunist would need to do, to make himself rich, is spout the most bigoted things that come into his head, and certain people will shower him with money.
That's about it.
Pondering the difference between a Stephen Miller, a Charlie Kirk, and a Rush Limbaugh. Miller followed a similar route - contact with ERW influencers, but hasn't attained the big bucks like Kirk and Limbaugh.
No. of Recommendations: 2
Conservative politics isn’t about principle, it’s about power. It’s naive to believe that conservatives embrace the first amendment because they believe in freedom of speech. They defend it as a weapon to use in the struggle for power. Once power is attained, you confiscate the weapons that got you there.
No. of Recommendations: 10
Timothy Snyder on this topic:
In difficult times we need to be careful with language, and keeping important distinctions in mind can help us, at the very least, from making things worse. For example, there is a difference worth noticing, and noting, between “me speech” and “free speech”.
“Me speech” is a common practice among rich and influential Americans. Practitioners of “me speech” use the phrase “free speech” quite a bit. But what they mean is free speech for themselves. They want a monopoly on it.
They believe that they are right about everything, and so they should always have giant platforms, in real life or on social media. They people with whom they disagree, however, should be called out and intimidated in an organized way on social media, or subjected to algorithmic discrimination so that their voices are not heard. These people suppress the freedom of speech. But because they repeat the phrase “free speech” quite a lot, the media will often associate them with the idea. This, of course, tends to make the notion of “free speech” meaningless.
No. of Recommendations: 5
