Now Dr Paul has been locked out of his Facebook account. Here is the article that did it.

Last week’s massive social media purges – starting with President Trump’s permanent ban from Twitter and other outlets – was shocking and chilling, particularly to those of us who value free expression and the free exchange of ideas. The justifications given for the silencing of wide swaths of public opinion made no sense and the process was anything but transparent. Nowhere in President Trump’s two “offending” Tweets, for example, was a call for violence expressed explicitly or implicitly. It was a classic example of sentence first, verdict later.

Many Americans viewed this assault on social media accounts as a liberal or Democrat attack on conservatives and Republicans, but they are missing the point. The narrowing of allowable opinion in the virtual public square is no conspiracy against conservatives. As progressives like Glenn Greenwald have pointed out, this is a wider assault on any opinion that veers from the acceptable parameters of the mainstream elite, which is made up of both Democrats and Republicans.

Yes, this is partly an attempt to erase the Trump movement from the pages of history, but it is also an attempt to silence any criticism of the emerging political consensus in the coming Biden era that may come from progressive or antiwar circles.

After all, a look at Biden’s incoming “experts” shows that they will be the same failed neoconservative interventionists who gave us weekly kill lists, endless drone attacks and coups overseas, and even US government killing of American citizens abroad. Progressives who complain about this “back to the future” foreign policy are also sure to find their voices silenced.

Those who continue to argue that the social media companies are purely private ventures acting independent of US government interests are ignoring reality. The corporatist merger of “private” US social media companies with US government foreign policy goals has a long history and is deeply steeped in the hyper-interventionism of the Obama/Biden era.

“Big Tech” long ago partnered with the Obama/Biden/Clinton State Department to lend their tools to US “soft power” goals overseas. Whether it was ongoing regime change attempts against Iran, the 2009 coup in Honduras, the disastrous US-led coup in Ukraine, “Arab Spring,” the destruction of Syria and Libya, and so many more, the big US tech firms were happy to partner up with the State Department and US intelligence to provide the tools to empower those the US wanted to seize power and to silence those out of favor.

In short, US government elites have been partnering with “Big Tech” overseas for years to decide who has the right to speak and who must be silenced. What has changed now is that this deployment of “soft power” in the service of Washington’s hard power has come home to roost.

So what is to be done? Even pro-free speech alternative social media outlets are under attack from the Big Tech/government Leviathan. There are no easy solutions. But we must think back to the dissidents in the era of Soviet tyranny. They had no Internet. They had no social media. They had no ability to communicate with thousands and millions of like-minded, freedom lovers. Yet they used incredible creativity in the face of incredible adversity to continue pushing their ideas. Because no army – not even Big Tech partnered with Big Government - can stop an idea whose time has come. And Liberty is that idea. We must move forward with creativity and confidence!


http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2021/january/11/the-war-on-terror-comes-home/?fbclid=IwAR0SyCa5MsDoGpgFxglF8w9oWs6XQbfsR4WcGTLLBccXRY-uTLKk1r1-WMM

Good OP article.

Tommy Monk wrote:Good OP article.

...but a bit long.

Original Quill wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:Good OP article.

...but a bit long.  

I wanted to post the whole thing for transparency. So it didn't look like I was hiding something that warranted him being locked out of his account.

The only “narrowing of allowable opinion” is that of foreclosing alternative facts and fake news, which have now been used to foment a very real, if fake-based insurrection.  Donald Trump lost the election because a majority of the people in a democracy saw him for what he is: a liar and prevaricator.  Now this ‘anything-is-truth’ argument is being used against democracy and self-rule through legitimizing falsehoods.

This assertion reeks of a luscious green fart of a conspiracy theory, hanging in the air, without being tethered to any reality or truth.  It borrows the rhetoric of free speech and right to expression, and attaches it rather to an alleged entitlement to invent fiction and call it something else.  The truth is, fiction writers always declare that they are writing fiction.  Ron Paul hasn’t got the guts to do that.

Free speech has always had the one caveat: that we cannot use it to foment "imminent lawless action".  In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the United States Supreme Court clarified what “clear and present danger” means in the context of freedom of speech.  Under the imminent lawless action test, speech is not protected by the First Amendment if the speaker intends to incite a violation of the law that is both imminent and likely

”USSC” wrote:Advocacy of force or criminal activity does not receive First Amendment protections if (1) the advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and (2) is likely to incite or produce such action.  Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105 (1973).

The only reason these tweeters have been cut off is, as amply demonstrated on January 6th, they intend the violent overthrow of the US government.  That is what it means to go against the vote of the people, in service of which the insurrectionists committed violent acts, including murder.  As such, they represent a clear and present danger to the legitimate democracy of the United States.

The least the private social media companies can do is anticipate where the problem is, and shut it off.  They have the freedom, and it's what they want to do with their property.

Original Quill wrote:The only “narrowing of allowable opinion” is that of foreclosing alternative facts and fake news, which have now been used to foment a very real, if fake-based insurrection.  Donald Trump lost the election because a majority of the people in a democracy saw him for what he is: a liar and prevaricator.  Now this ‘anything-is-truth’ argument is being used against democracy and self-rule through legitimizing falsehoods.

This assertion reeks of a luscious green fart of a conspiracy theory, hanging in the air, without being tethered to any reality or truth.  It borrows the rhetoric of free speech and right to expression, and attaches it rather to an alleged entitlement to invent fiction and call it something else.  The truth is, fiction writers always declare that they are writing fiction.  Ron Paul hasn’t got the guts to do that.

Free speech has always had the one caveat: that we cannot use it to foment "imminent lawless action".  In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the United States Supreme Court clarified what “clear and present danger” means in the context of freedom of speech.  Under the imminent lawless action test, speech is not protected by the First Amendment if the speaker intends to incite a violation of the law that is both imminent and likely

”USSC” wrote:Advocacy of force or criminal activity does not receive First Amendment protections if (1) the advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and (2) is likely to incite or produce such action.  Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105 (1973).

The only reason these tweeters have been cut off is, as amply demonstrated on January 6th, they intend the violent overthrow of the US government.  That is what it means to go against the vote of the people, in service of which the insurrectionists committed violent acts, including murder.  As such, they represent a clear and present danger to the legitimate democracy of the United States.

The least the private social media companies can do is anticipate where the problem is, and shut it off.  They have the freedom, and it's what they want to do with their property.

Ron Paul can still Tweet. He was blocked from Facebook.

Can you articulate the threat that he posed from his post?

Ron Paul was blocked from Facebook, for reasons of "repeatedly going against our community standards".

The column Paul posted Monday to his Facebook page was about tech censorship, which by incorporation, embraced and endorsed Trump's assertion of a right to urge overthrow of the government by violence.  https://www.newsweek.com/ron-paul-blocked-accessing-facebook-page-over-violating-community-standards-1560639

Trump, too, has been banned from social media, from Twitter.

Original Quill wrote:Ron Paul was blocked from Facebook, for reasons of "repeatedly going against our community standards".

The column Paul posted Monday to his Facebook page was about tech censorship, which by incorporation, embraced and endorsed Trump's assertion of a right to urge overthrow of the government by violence.  https://www.newsweek.com/ron-paul-blocked-accessing-facebook-page-over-violating-community-standards-1560639

Trump, too, has been banned from social media, from Twitter.

So he stated opinions about tech and got banned for those. Nothing to do with any threats.

We agree.

Original Quill wrote:The only “narrowing of allowable opinion” is that of foreclosing alternative facts and fake news, which have now been used to foment a very real, if fake-based insurrection.  Donald Trump lost the election because a majority of the people in a democracy saw him for what he is: a liar and prevaricator.  Now this ‘anything-is-truth’ argument is being used against democracy and self-rule through legitimizing falsehoods.

This assertion reeks of a luscious green fart of a conspiracy theory, hanging in the air, without being tethered to any reality or truth.  It borrows the rhetoric of free speech and right to expression, and attaches it rather to an alleged entitlement to invent fiction and call it something else.  The truth is, fiction writers always declare that they are writing fiction.  Ron Paul hasn’t got the guts to do that.

Free speech has always had the one caveat: that we cannot use it to foment "imminent lawless action".  In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the United States Supreme Court clarified what “clear and present danger” means in the context of freedom of speech.  Under the imminent lawless action test, speech is not protected by the First Amendment if the speaker intends to incite a violation of the law that is both imminent and likely

”USSC” wrote:Advocacy of force or criminal activity does not receive First Amendment protections if (1) the advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and (2) is likely to incite or produce such action.  Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105 (1973).

The only reason these tweeters have been cut off is, as amply demonstrated on January 6th, they intend the violent overthrow of the US government.  That is what it means to go against the vote of the people, in service of which the insurrectionists committed violent acts, including murder.  As such, they represent a clear and present danger to the legitimate democracy of the United States.

The least the private social media companies can do is anticipate where the problem is, and shut it off.  They have the freedom, and it's what they want to do with their property.

...says the hypocrite who complained about the op being "a bit long"...

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:Ron Paul was blocked from Facebook, for reasons of "repeatedly going against our community standards".

The column Paul posted Monday to his Facebook page was about tech censorship, which by incorporation, embraced and endorsed Trump's assertion of a right to urge overthrow of the government by violence.  https://www.newsweek.com/ron-paul-blocked-accessing-facebook-page-over-violating-community-standards-1560639

Trump, too, has been banned from social media, from Twitter.

So he stated opinions about tech and got banned for those. Nothing to do with any threats.

We agree.

The threats are a given, woven into a scheme of false premises.  They occurred on January 6th, by Trump and every Republican that embraces his premises.  They involve justifications based on falsehoods: that Trump won the election, when he clearly did not.  Paul’s part is tangential: he is trying to legitimize false premises.

Republicans have used this basic falsehood (that Trump won) to allege that the election was stolen, when clearly it was not.  They are angling to put themselves in the position of victim.  To falsely claim victimhood—when one is the transgressor and not the victim—and then go on to rouse and motivate violence in a crowd, is to parley the falsehood into actual violence.  So, yes, the threat is clearly there.

So, the right to free speech that Paul claims he is denied, is in fact to an alleged right to tell lies...lies that then feed into threatening mob violence.  The Republicans are trying to arrange a Kristallnacht…the Night of Broken Glass.  The attempt of Ron Paul, and all Republicans, is to vouch safe the telling of lies, and turn them into the threat of overturning democracy.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

So he stated opinions about tech and got banned for those. Nothing to do with any threats.

We agree.

The threats are a given, woven into a scheme of false premises.  They occurred on January 6th, by Trump and every Republican that embraces his premises.  They involve justifications based on falsehoods: that Trump won the election, when he clearly did not.  Paul’s part is tangential: he is trying to legitimize false premises.

Republicans have used this basic falsehood (that Trump won) to allege that the election was stolen, when clearly it was not.  They are angling to put themselves in the position of victim.  To falsely claim victimhood—when one is the transgressor and not the victim—and then go on to rouse and motivate violence in a crowd, is to parley the falsehood into actual violence.  So, yes, the threat is clearly there.

So, the right to free speech that Paul claims he is denied, is in fact to an alleged right to tell lies...lies that then feed into threatening mob violence.  The Republicans are trying to arrange a Kristallnacht…the Night of Broken Glass.  The attempt of Ron Paul, and all Republicans, is to vouch safe the telling of lies, and turn them into the threat of overturning democracy.

Saying a crazy person shouldn't be banned is not a threat.

Paul was saying much more than Trump was crazy.  He was fueling the fires of sedition by declaring falsehoods ... particularly those that were near to the passions of insurrectionists.

Original Quill wrote:Paul was saying much more than Trump was crazy.  He was fueling the fires of sedition by declaring falsehoods ... particularly those that were near to the passions of insurrectionists.

The relationship between big tech and our government isn't false.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-details-about-the-cias-deal-with-amazon/374632/

Original Quill wrote:Paul was saying much more than Trump was crazy.  He was fueling the fires of sedition by declaring falsehoods ... particularly those that were near to the passions of insurrectionists.

The relationship between big tech and our government isn't false.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-details-about-the-cias-deal-with-amazon/374632/

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:Paul was saying much more than Trump was crazy.  He was fueling the fires of sedition by declaring falsehoods ... particularly those that were near to the passions of insurrectionists.

The relationship between big tech and our government isn't false.  

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-details-about-the-cias-deal-with-amazon/374632/

The Atlantic article deals with sharing information, not bending the standards of truth.  It addresses “allowing agencies to share information and services much more easily…”  What Paul was supporting was “President Trump’s two “offending” Tweets…” which had to do with truth/falsity of election results.  The public adversary of widespread information sharing is privacy, not truth.

The evil that has beset the Internet is reflected in the term "alternate facts".  It is an issue of truth vs. falsehood, not information sharing between tech companies and government.  The creation of a strong bond between tech companies and government is perhaps a threat to those who oppose big government, but it is not intrinsically a threat to the standards of truth.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

The relationship between big tech and our government isn't false.  

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-details-about-the-cias-deal-with-amazon/374632/

The Atlantic article deals with sharing information, not bending the standards of truth.  It addresses “allowing agencies to share information and services much more easily…”  What Paul was supporting was “President Trump’s two “offending” Tweets…” which had to do with truth/falsity of election results.  The public adversary of widespread information sharing is privacy, not truth.

The evil that has beset the Internet is reflected in the term "alternate facts".  It is an issue of truth vs. falsehood, not information sharing between tech companies and government.  The creation of a strong bond between tech companies and government is perhaps a threat to those who oppose big government, but it is not intrinsically a threat to the standards of truth.

It shows a relationship.

Maddog wrote:It shows a relationship.

No, it does not. Data sharing is about collection, capacity and security. Veracity is about a factual world. Telling lies is simply about imagination, as needed, and truth checking is about content comparisons…or, substantiation.

Trump needed to win. He needed to find fraud and he needed to find it in quantitative measures. He concocted a theory of voting fraud, but never presented evidence that it was real, or that it happened in sufficient abundance to affect an election. He should have paid attention to the logical connection between fact and conclusion, in his methodology class at university. Over 60 courts told him his claim lacked evidence.

When Ron Paul supported Trump’s position, he was simultaneously supporting Trump’s threat of violent insurrection without evidence. End of story…

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:It shows a relationship.

No, it does not.  Data sharing is about collection, capacity and security.  Veracity is about a factual world.  Telling lies is simply about imagination, as needed, and truth checking is about content comparisons…or, substantiation.

Trump needed to win.  He needed to find fraud and he needed to find it in quantitative measures.  He concocted a theory of voting fraud, but never presented evidence that it was real, or that it happened in sufficient abundance to affect an election.  He should have paid attention to the logical connection between fact and conclusion, in his methodology class at university.  Over 60 courts told him his claim lacked evidence.

When Ron Paul supported Trump’s position, he was simultaneously supporting Trump’s threat of violent insurrection without evidence.  End of story…

It shows a contractual relationship.

There are many sorts of contractual relationships: there are contracts for janitorial services and there are contracts for sharpening pencils.  Do we need to be worried about the slippery slope of pencil sharpening?

To merely say there is a contractual relationship is meaningless without attention to what the contract is about.  Employment is a contractual relationship, so it's fair to say that the federal government has a contractual relationship with each and every employee.  Does that mean that the government stands on the slippery slope of entering each and every employee’s private life?  Of course not.

A contract to manage data is not a close association such that we need to be concerned about inventing facts.  As long as Amazon performs under the contract, the government can carry on without concern.

Original Quill wrote:There are many sorts of contractual relationships: there are contracts for janitorial services and there are contracts for sharpening pencils.  Do we need to be worried about the slippery slope of pencil sharpening?

To merely say there is a contractual relationship is meaningless without attention to what the contract is about.  Employment is a contractual relationship, so it's fair to say that the federal government has a contractual relationship with each and every employee.  Does that mean that the government stands on the slippery slope of entering each and every employee’s private life?  Of course not.

A contract to manage data is not a close association such that we need to be concerned about inventing facts.  As long as Amazon performs under the contract, the government can carry on without concern.

No, we need to worry about Big Tech and the government working together.

And apparently we need to worry about talking about it.

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:There are many sorts of contractual relationships: there are contracts for janitorial services and there are contracts for sharpening pencils.  Do we need to be worried about the slippery slope of pencil sharpening?

To merely say there is a contractual relationship is meaningless without attention to what the contract is about.  Employment is a contractual relationship, so it's fair to say that the federal government has a contractual relationship with each and every employee.  Does that mean that the government stands on the slippery slope of entering each and every employee’s private life?  Of course not.

A contract to manage data is not a close association such that we need to be concerned about inventing facts.  As long as Amazon performs under the contract, the government can carry on without concern.

No, we need to worry about Big Tech and the government working together.

And apparently we need to worry about talking about it.  

And I suppose we have to worry about the garbage collectors...a clear and present danger! After all, in refuse we have reams of data about ourselves, and since it is abandoned it is not covered by the First Amendment.

What you have is the wildest kind of speculation about associations with the government. It borders on conspiracy theory really. Your libertarian sentiments lead you to view anything about government as a 'slippery slope' into evil.

The government contracts with all kinds of folks, for all kinds of goods and services, and not every one is out to get into the public's knickers. Much ado about nothing.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

No, we need to worry about Big Tech and the government working together.

And apparently we need to worry about talking about it.  

And I suppose we have to worry about the garbage collectors...a clear and present danger!  After all, in refuse we have reams of data about ourselves, and since it is abandoned it is not covered by the First Amendment.

What you have is the wildest kind of speculation about associations with the government.  It borders on conspiracy theory really.  Your libertarian sentiments lead you to view anything about government as a 'slippery slope' into evil.

The government contracts with all kinds of folks, for all kinds of goods and services, and not every one is out to get into the public's knickers.  Much ado about nothing.

Can garbage collectors alter the political landscape?

Maddog wrote:Can garbage collectors alter the political landscape?

Quite.  But, more than this, it is offered as an example of how silly the whole thesis is.

Contracting with the government is not, in and of itself, the 'slippery slope' toward evil.  It of concern to you, because you oppose government in general.  Hence, every contract with a government is an evil for you.  But it is just business as usual for others.

If one were to point to a contract with nefarious aims, whatever they might be, we might have cause for concern.  But unless there is some sign that a government contractual association with a corporation is tainted, it's more for the financial pages.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:Can garbage collectors alter the political landscape?

Quite.  But, more than this, it is offered as an example of how silly the whole thesis is.

Contracting with the government is not, in and of itself, the 'slippery slope' toward evil.  It of concern to you, because you oppose government in general.  Hence, every contract with a government is an evil for you.  But it is just business as usual for others.

If one were to point to a contract with nefarious aims, whatever they might be, we might have cause for concern.  But unless there is some sign that a government contractual association with a corporation is tainted, it's more for the financial pages.

So the CIA uses garbage men to help foment change around the world?

They're diabolical much like you.

Garbology is quite the sub-discipline in anthropology. It's the same thing as treasure hunting and archeology.

Yes, it has its counter-intelligence purposes. But is every government contract to do with counter-intelligence? Doubtful.

Original Quill wrote:Garbology is quite the sub-discipline in anthropology.  It's the same thing as treasure hunting and archeology.

Yes, it has its counter-intelligence purposes.  But is every government contract to do with counter-intelligence?  Doubtful.

No.

We aren't talking about every contract.

Just the ones with Big Tech that can alter the political landscape because of the immense power of Big Tech.

Why do you think the Chinese block them?

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:Garbology is quite the sub-discipline in anthropology.  It's the same thing as treasure hunting and archeology.

Yes, it has its counter-intelligence purposes.  But is every government contract to do with counter-intelligence?  Doubtful.

No.

We aren't talking about every contract.  

Just the ones with Big Tech that can alter the political landscape because of the immense power of Big Tech.

Meh...sounds like a witch hunt.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

No.

We aren't talking about every contract.  

Just the ones with Big Tech that can alter the political landscape because of the immense power of Big Tech.  

Meh...sounds like a witch hunt.  

Another example of oppression for someone's beliefs.

Haha...a witch hunt about a witch hunt.

You should patent that and send it to Trump.