My column in The Hill discusses the call of Democrats for greater censorship on the Internet. As someone who was raised in a liberal Democratic family in Chicago, I am still mystified by the conversion of the Democratic Party into an anti-free speech party, including demands for limiting speech on the Internet and social media. Yet, days after various Democratic Senators called for greater censorship from big tech companies, Twitter added another attack on free speech with the blocking of the account of acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan. Morgan had tweeted on the success of new wall installed around the Southern Border.
There is clearly a reasonable basis to disagree with Morgan’s tweet stating “Every mile helps us stop gang members, murderers, sexual predators and drugs from entering our country.” One can challenge how undocumented persons are stereotyped or the real threat posed along the border. It is a matter of good-faith disagreement. However, that is the point. This is an opinion held by one of the top officials in our government. Twitter has again decided that citizens should not be able to hear or read such views. It is no longer supplying a neutral platform for the free exchange of views, but a biased regulation of approved speech.
I have supported those attacking the immigration policies of the Administration as much as those praising it. It is all an exercise in free speech. Yet, many work harder to silence opposing voices than responding to them. Equally concerning is the silence of academic and political figures against such anti-free speech campaigns. Indeed, as we saw in the recent hearing, many leading politicians have joined the movement to crackdown on dissenting voices on the Internet.
The action taken against Morgan is blatant viewpoint discrimination by a private tech company. Even if you want censorship on the Internet, how is this view that the wall works demonstrably or presumptively wrong? It is an opinion shared by almost half of the country. The crackdown by Twitter is the realization of the “Little Brother” danger of private censorship to shape political and social opinion. Censorship, not free speech, has become an article of faith for many.
Facebook also added a controversy by blocking a large pro-Trump women’s group just days before the election.
This is why I recently described myself as an Internet Originalist:
The alternative is “internet originalism” — no censorship. If social media companies returned to their original roles, there would be no slippery slope of political bias or opportunism; they would assume the same status as telephone companies. We do not need companies to protect us from harmful or “misleading” thoughts. The solution to bad speech is more speech, not approved speech.
If Pelosi demanded that Verizon or Sprint interrupt calls to stop people saying false or misleading things, the public would be outraged. Twitter serves the same communicative function between consenting parties; it simply allows thousands of people to participate in such digital exchanges. Those people do not sign up to exchange thoughts only to have Dorsey or some other internet overlord monitor their conversations and “protect” them from errant or harmful thoughts.
So about Twitter censoring Border Patrol. This is a man bites dog story. Aren’t we supposed to fear censorship by -government?
And yet here the insanely irresponsible twitter– a big valuable business even if their stock price crashed by 20% last week– but they dare to censor government. and yet presume to be a forum!
Preposterous. Clip their wings~
Just weeks ago, DuckDuckGo.com has started offering a free online newsletter subscriptions, the “DuckDuckGo Privacy Newsletter” and “DuckDuckGo Privacy Driving Directions”. Maybe D.D.G. should start competing with Facebook? Maybe free market competition would be most effective. Just stop using Privacy invading social media altogether?
Harris, in Video, Starts Showing Marxist Streak
https://www.nysun.com/national/harris-in-video-starts-showing-marxist-streak/91322/
“Equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place”
Now do Hunter Biden crack cocaine habit vs. one of poor black kids you put in jail for marijuana possession. Or one of the poor hard-working parents you put in jail b/c their kids cut school, and then you laughed about it.
Anonymous, you have a comprehension problem. Let me quote from Andrew Sullivan, a liberal, who commented on Harris’ video. “‘Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place.’ That’s equality of *outcomes* enforced by the government. They used to call that communism.”
Let’s add James Morrow, “’Equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place,’ says Kamala Harris, not understanding that that same place always winds up being a gulag or a bread line.”
Now, Anonymous, I suggest you listen to the video a second time and try to understand the nuances words offer.
Or how about the french revolution – ‘egalitaire” resulted in blood int he streets.
You can have equality or you can have freedom – not both.
Strike that – equality is not possible.
Freedom and Self-Reliance.
Get a job!
Democraps think that their itShay don’t stink.
Free Speech In The News:
Trump Makes Blatantly False Claims In Iowa And Michigan
President Trump continued to rumble through a planned five-rally barnstorming tour on Sunday, leaving in his wake a heap of falsehoods, jokes, threats, closing arguments and complaints about the blustery Midwestern weather blowing “directly” in his face.
At his third stop of the day, addressing a massive crowd in Hickory, N.C., as the sun set, Mr. Trump summoned the central theme of his 2016 victory — the dangers of immigration, reciting a favorite poem, “The Snake,” that warns of a “tenderhearted woman” (the United States) who rescues a snake (an immigrant) only to be bitten.
His propensity for distorting the facts followed him from state to state, with a straining schedule that included five battlegrounds in all — Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. At his second stop, in Dubuque, Iowa, he repeated his discredited claim that the country is “turning the corner” on the coronavirus and that a safe vaccine will be widely available in the next few weeks.
At Trump’s first event on Sunday, a relatively subdued appearance in Michigan, he made a series of false claims that he saved the auto industry.
Taking the stage in the city of Washington, while dramatically bracing himself against the wind, Mr. Trump thanked Michigan for voting for him four years ago, and told the crowd: “I gave you a lot of auto plants, I think we’re even.”
In fact, auto industry employment in Michigan dropped by about 3,000 in 2019, according to PolitiFact.
Mr. Trump also embraced the actions of some of his supporters in Texas who surrounded a Biden campaign bus on Friday, in an apparent attempt to slow it down and run it off the road. Mr. Trump claimed the vehicles, which bore Trump flags and signs, were “protecting” the Biden campaign bus “because they are nice.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Trump’s Iowa claim that America is “turning the corner” of this pandemic totally ignores real facts on the ground. Dr. Anthony Fauci gave an interview to The Washington Post published Saturday in which he said “We’re in for a whole lot of hurt” regarding the virus. Infections are actually surging throughout Europe as colder weather drives people indoors. The United States recently crossed the 8 million infections mark with no sign whatsoever the pandemic is leveling off.
Trump’s Michigan claim of, “I gave you a lot of auto plants” is absolute fiction. One imagines Michigan fact checkers can easily verify the number of new auto plants.
REGARDING ABOVE:
Coverage of Trump’s rallies is edited from: “In Michigan, Iowa And North Carolina, Trump Blusters Into Headwind”
Today’s New York Times
If there is a lot of income inequality in America, why are we bringing in more poor people to add to the misery?
Democrats hope those poor people added to the nation will provide voters for democrat candidates. Democrats don’t care that wages fall and because the democrats don’t protect the borders crime and disease enters the country.
Bob, 2 of Trump’s 3 wives are immigrants. How much money did Ivana and Melania have when they entered the country? How much money did Melania’s parents have when she sponsored them?
It seems that PaintChips believes that all poor women that come to this country end up being rich. I don’t think much brainpower went into his comment.
In 2017 Harvard conducted a study to debunk Trump claims that there were about 11M illegal immigrants in the US.
Unfortunately they concluded there were likely nearly 22m.
There are atleast 45M first generation immigrants legal and not in the US today – that is about 15% of the US population.
Assuming that the overwhelming majority of them are poor that is 75% of the bottom quintile in the US.
To be clear I favor broad immigration – but that requires ending Minimum wage laws and at the very least barring immigrants from eligability for social safetynet programs.
Regardless I am not math impaired – aside fromt he other massive problems with mythical claims of income inequality. there is the massive problem that almost the entire lower quintile is made of immigrants who came here with nothing.
We should be cenlebrating that people can still come here with nothing and within a generation be middle class or better.
Rather than ranting because the United States is still so incredibly attractive to people throughout the world that we have to build walls to keep them out.
It takes a lot of time to correct PaintChips mistakes because there are so many of them. The simple response is that the Biden team believes in outsourcing factories and workers, leaving Americans unemployed while the Biden Crime Syndicate rakes off millions of dollars. The Trump team believes in keeping our jobs in America.
The proof is in the numbers. Before Covid lowest unemployment for blacks and hispanics. After Covid a GDP that grew at 33% more than double the rate predicted. Unemployment dropped almost in half from 5 months ago. That type of feat for Obama Biden took around 4-6 years instead of months. Trump did this with Democrat governors keeping their states closed for political reasons destroying our youth, families, businesses and jobs.
You do understand that poems are not facts ?
Is “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost a lie ? Is anyone reciting it lying ?
Have you ever listened to Biden speak ?
Trump lies that he’s a law and order presiden. He has no problem with people breaking the law if he thinks they support him –
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1323072051402350592
Video of what happened –
https://www.thedailybeast.com/biden-camp-cancels-austin-texas-event-after-pro-trump-ambush-on-campaign-bus
Trump is the law and order President. Take note no Trump supporters blocked the expressway as we have seen done by Biden supporters.
From the article: “at one point colliding with an SUV.” The SUV went into the lane of one of the pick up trucks, His tires were well within the white lines of the other persons lane. He may have been a Biden aide that tried to push the truck off the road. That would be Biden violence or less likely poor driving skills.
“Trump used the first presidential debate to urge supporters to act as “poll watchers,” a call that sparked concerns of voter intimidation. ”
The left really doesn’t know what is going on. There are poll watchers from both sides that are supposed to be there to make sure the election is fair.
I understand that according to the left Texas is in play but based on what was seen on the videos and in the reports Texas is in the Trump column.
What a jackass you are, Allan. If someone starts to move into your lane when there’s insufficient room for them, you honk to alert them (in case you’re in their blind spot) and you adjust your speed and location to avoid hitting them. You do NOT push them out of your lane with your vehicle.
Big whoop that no Trump supporters blocked the expressway. Many parked illegally on the side of the highway in TX, waiting to surround the bus, and after they surrounded the bus, they tried to force it to stop.
A different Trump caravan blocked a bridge in NJ today –
https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/11/01/trump-caravan-maga-drag-gov-mario-cuomo-bridge-garden-state-parkway/
You simply don’t care that they’re doing illegal and dangerous things.
“What a jackass you are”
The SUV went quite far into the pick up trucks lane and that was easily seen on the video. It looked intentional on the part of the SUV and it seemed like he wanted to drive the pick up truck off the road. They bumped but the pick up driver was driving appropriately and defensively. Charges based on the video you showed would be placed against the SUV (likely related to the Biden campaign).
It’s amazing how you believe the aggressor or bad driver was not at fault. That is because anything done to promote your ideology in your mind is appropriate, even driving other cars off the road. You are nuts, but we already know that.
“Big whoop that no Trump supporters blocked the expressway. Many parked illegally on the side of the highway in TX,”
Blocking highways, looting and burning down neighborhoods is the Biden way. The trucks were parked well off the road . They didn’t interfere with the flow of traffic or infringe on any of the lanes. They were orderly.
“waiting to surround the bus, and after they surrounded the bus, they tried to force it to stop.”
They road on the expressway in their own lanes appropriately spaced. They behaved under the law and acted in a safe manner unlike the Biden SUV. The bus’s motion wasn’t hindered in the slightest way and there is no evidence what so ever that the pick up trucks tried to stop the bus or slow it down. That was made up.
Next time when you want to lie make sure there isn’t a video to show that you are a liar.
It’s amazing how you believe you can read people’s mind. That is because anything done to promote your ideology in your mind is appropriate. You are nuts, but we already know that.
Only in Allan’s febrile mind do eye witness statements count as “no evidence”.
Not reading minds. I am looking at things logically. A person who continuously draws the wrong conclusion likely has an agenda. I believe you have an agenda but you are lousy at promoting it. Your pretend friend that follows your email doesn’t enhance your position.
Karen just wrote this: “Unfortunately, there was an altercation between cars. Local police viewed footage, and said it appeared the Biden staffer vehicle was at fault, and the Trump vehicle was the victim.”
I guess that backs up what I surmised from the start. The video will not change because you posted 3 times using anonymous pretend friends.
Karen is not a reliable reporter. You aren’t either.
Here’s part of what the San Marcos Police Dept. really said –
“Also, the at-fault vehicle is uncertain from video available. Calls to the driver of the white SUV have gone unanswered and SMPD has not been contacted by the driver of the black truck. Since SMPD has not spoken to either driver at this time, additional investigation will be required to fully ascertain who was at fault.”
All anyone has to do is look at the video and the angle of the SUV as it crossed over the white lines into the pick up truck’s space. Unfortunately you don’t use your senses and have little common sense. You rely on others to provide you the soundbites. Karen is quite accurate and credible. You are not.
No one is surprised that even when you’re given a direct quote from the police saying “additional investigation will be required to fully ascertain who was at fault,” which contradicts Karen’s claim, you go with her over the police.
Generally one examines the case totally before final conclusions are rendered. In this case I think they are waiting to talk to the person in the SUV and anyone else that comes forward. Could their opinion change? Possibly but Karen’s response is the best we had at the time and it looks like when everything is known Karen’s response will be the right one. As usual your response will be wrong. You lack fact and logic.
The standards followed by police and courts and juries are NOT the same as required by ordinary people.
If you are going to take someone’s life, their freedom or their property you are required to give them the benefit of every reasonable doubt
In contexts where you are not using force against others – your standards are your own.
Given the facts we have today Joe Biden could be indicted and convicted of abuse of Power and personal enrighment from public office from the Hunter Biden emails. But it is also possible that a jury might not convict.
But it is perfectly reasonable for 99% of us to conclude based on the available evidence that Joe Biden is a crook.
The standards are not the same.
It is possible to watch the video and reach a conclusion that a properly acting police officer is not yet willing to.
You have an odd definition of contradicts.
Your PD quote does not “contradict” Karen, it merely does not draw a conclusion at this time.
Words have meaning.
When you mangle the meaning, you fail to communicate and you muddle your own thought.
You know what is a “dangerous thing” for this country? Someone with the extreme positions and beliefs of Kamala Harris being installed as President through deceit of the voters. She is Joe Biden’s VP running mate, yet she was introduced as the “next president of the United States” at a campaign event in Fort Worth, Texas, last Friday.
“When future generations they ask us, and they’re gonna ask us, what it was like to elect the first woman of color as vice president of the United States, and we will say, ‘Yes, I was there. I stood up, and I was counted,’” Texas state director for the Joe Biden campaign Rebecca Acuña told attendees.
“Without further delay, I am so honored to introduce the next president of the United States, Sen. Kamala Harris,”
Here’s what’s dangerous and dishonest — deceiving and lying to voters about who the real candidate is for the job of President. Not even the Democrat primary voters wanted Kamala Harris. They rejected her and she dropped out before a single vote was cast in Iowa. Her campaign for president was imploding and she bailed out of the race. So now we have Kamala Harris, who was rejected by DEMOCRATIC voters, being slipped into the Oval Office by deceit and lies? No, you cannot lie to and deceive the American voters in this way.
So look at it this way, Texas was escorting the Biden bus on out of town. Don’t Mess With Texas. Don’t mess with the voters of this country. They will soundly reject the Harris/Biden ticket on Tuesday.
“During a campaign event in Atlanta, Georgia, on Tuesday, Biden referred to himself as Harris’s “running mate,”
“My name is Joe Biden. I’m Jill Biden’s husband, and I’m Kamala’s running mate. Y’all think I’m kidding, don’t you?”
It has been noted that Biden “often introduces himself in such a manner to voters.”
If he is elected on Tuesday, Biden will be the oldest president ever inaugurated. Voters have already rejected Sen. Harris and they will do so again on Tuesday.
Kamala is a disaster who has not connected with voters. Kamala Harris didn’t have that “black girl magic” that they hoped. And here is a man named Duke Tanner, who was put in jail on a drug charge, for life, by Kamala Harris. President Trump got him out.
Correction: Duke Tanner was put in jail for life on a drug charge because of Joe Biden’s ’94 Crime Bill. President Trump granted him clemency.
Anonymous, the 1994 Crime Bill passed the Senate by 95 votes; including almost every Republican.
Biden helped write it and he co-sponsored it. And he bragged about it: “We do everything but hang people for jaywalking in this bill,” then-Sen. Biden said in 1992, urging its passage.”
Meanwhile….
“President Trump is slowly but surely righting the wrongs of that 1994 legislation. Last year, he signed the bipartisan First Step Act, which revised sentencing laws, expanded opportunities for inmates to pursue vocational training and earn time credits to apply toward early release.”
“This year, the White House is focusing on the Second Step Act, which will feature an $88 million request for prisoner social reentry programs.”
“In addition to the new legislation, the White House’s 2020 budget proposed more than $500 million for various federal programs to help inmates succeed following their release, and this year, the Department of Education is providing $28 million to expand a Pell grant pilot program to help eligible incarcerated Americans pursue postsecondary education.”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/06/26/biden_defends_94_crime_bill_as_trump_rights_its_wrongs_140645.html#!
Here is Joe Biden’s message to Black Americans: “You ain’t black” if you don’t vote for me.
Here’s where the trumpers have been truly hallucinatory…, trump pulled an inside straight in 3 states in a low turnout election in ’16 and he’s been losing people who voted for him since even before his first day in office. It’s a hard truth for the magats to swallow because that freakish set of election circumstance has been overlooked in order to plug in an imaginary trump popularity to back fill the cognitive dissonance.
Two days from now this blog will on a frickin’ suicide watch.
Conservatives generally act with restraint. Liberals do not. Compare the election of Obama and Trump with respect to how conservatives and Liberals acted. Liberals don’t accept losses and riot.
Compare the the grounds at the Washington Monument when there are demonstrations. The Liberals generally leave the place like a pigsty and conservatives leave it relatively clean.
The point is about hypocracy.
If republicans who supported the 1994 crime bill are racists – then how is it that democrats who supported it are not ?
But, Biden was one of the main leaders to push the bill forward. Some black legislators pushed it forward because they felt it helped the black community. Some, like Biden, who used the n word in Congress and appealed to racists pushed it for other reasons. I can’t read Biden’s mind but based on history part of his push was racist.
So ?
You claim that the Crime Bill is racist – and you have accused the GOP of being racist because of it.
Well Biden was a leading sponsor.
I guess in left wingnut world only republicans can be racists.
Look on her birth certificate and se if she is claimed to be black. Do a search
What ? A ;little slowdown is a big deal? i dont think so. How about four months of open riot looting arson, assaulting police and public property?
See, Democrat mayors turned a blind eye to the big things, now they fuss over a little thing. Guess what, you undermine law and order and use aggressive intimidation tactics, people get the idea that they need to be a little bolder too
DONT MESS WITH TEXAS
Yes it’s good the Trump supporters did not block the expressway. That would be going down to the BLM’s level!
A little slowdown isnt even illegal. i saw a video and got a belly laugh out of it. The bus was fine
That bus driver better stay of the Dan Ryan in Chicago if that scared him, he will soil his britches on 94
Ah, you are an idiot with a horn.
Horns should be removed from all cars. They serve no useful safety purpose.
By the time anyone can get to the horn all they are doing is expressing displeasure for someone else’s past actions.
Keep your hands on your stearing wheel and off the horn.
The former will might help you avoid an accident – the latter is more likely to cause one.
Abolish the FBI. Do away with it.
+10
If an actual law has been broken – then those who have done so should be prosectuted.
As of yet, the only think I can grasp is that you are offended.
Nor can I tell from what you are linking what is offending you.
I was in Philly a couple of days ago and Biden was there and the Philly police were all over the place providing him protection.
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Censorship is a slippery slope, but Turley has made it clear there is content he would delete from the comments section of his blog. Why? Am I misunderstanding his definitions of free speech and censorship?
Meanwhile, as Darren Smith reported yesterday, Turkey is leading an economic jihad against France over Charlie Hebdo’s Erdogan cover. And some in the US are surely not happy about the latest Biden-Melania-Trump assault. It’s a triple personal put-down and a defamation of the flag. It’s a mockery of FLOTUS, POTUS, VP Biden and US elections. Thank God we have no reason to believe it’s a work of French Intelligence. Why shouldn’t it influence US-French relations? Erdogan is moving forward with legal action:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54717587
And, “In response, the Turkish pro-government satirical magazine Misvak posted a number of cartoons criticising Mr Macron and Charlie Hebdo on its Twitter page.”
I checked out the Macron swine cartoon despite my reservations. It’s a frank rebuttal but I’m not sure the tit-for-tat will help with Erdogan’s legal case. Now Turkey has gone there, too. Is that the solution?
Asma Barlas explains the difference between free speech and Western degradation of Muslims at Al-Jazeera:
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/9/10/reprinting-the-charlie-hebdo-cartoons-is-not-about-free-speech/
“…it should be possible to condemn violence by Muslims without giving a free pass to those who defame and vilify their religion, their prophet and their scripture. Yet, this rarely happens.”
“Borrowing from Hartman, I want to suggest that, today, some Westerners seek to demonstrate and reproduce their dominion over Muslims by caricaturing and maligning our sacred symbols at will. They are thus able to achieve epistemically what they cannot physically or legally. Even if this displacement from the physical to the psychological signifies the limits of Western power, speech is integral to its display. This is why derogatory caricatures of the prophet function as spectacles of mastery and as an ideological means to bolster intra-Western unity against Muslims.”
“It is as much to such enactments of mastery as it is to the content of specific attacks that Muslims like myself react angrily, and what we condemn is not the idea that people should be free to speak but the use of speech to dominate and degrade the already marginal or vulnerable. Defending domination in the name of freedom just confirms that not all conceptions of freedom are equally worth defending.”
the economic jihaad is now a series of terrorist attacks, in Nice, 3 murdered at Mass; a Greek Orthodox priest gunned down in Lyon; and today several killed and wounded at a synagogue in Vienna
An update and counterpoint to Barlas from Kenan Malik at The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/08/fanatics-have-no-right-to-censor-critics-but-neither-does-emmanuel-macron
“The claim that secularism and blasphemy help radicalise Islamists is false and dangerous. France has suffered grievously from Islamist terror – 267 people have died in terror attacks since 2012 – but it is far from a unique target. A week after the Nice killings came an Islamist terror attack in Vienna, with four people shot dead. Austria, unlike France, has a highly restrictive blasphemy law, which has been used to criminalise critics of Islam. In between the attacks in Nice and Vienna came terror strikes in Kabul and Peshawar, on university students and a Qur’an study class. The vast majority of jihadist killings are in Muslim-majority countries with obnoxiously tight blasphemy laws. Secularists and “blasphemers” in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and elsewhere have long faced murderous assaults, from both jihadists and the authorities. These are the people betrayed by western critics of blasphemy.”
Is it a breach of the peace for non-Muslim Americans in cyberspace to ask whether Muhammad was a pedophile by modern psychiatric standards?
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/europe-rules-against-free-speech/574369/
Faith in Jesus does not raise the same question.
Diplomatic Muslim parents should empathize with our predicament. And yes, they should also ask why we in the US do not yet have a Constitutional Amendment or Supreme Court ruling that bans child marriage, but instead allow many states to continue the practice. Why was it more important for our Supreme Court to legalize gay marriage, than to prohibit child marriage? Malawi recently amended its Constitution to make child marriage illegal. Malawi is 76% Christian and 14% Muslim. And in 2020, even more pointedly, Saudi Arabia officially banned marriages under the age of 18.
Your cite is interesting, but irrellevant.
One of the fundimental illiberal aspects of the modern left is judging whether to sensor speech based on claims about its impact on others.
If blasphemy against mohamed results in violence by muslims – that is an indictment of the intolerance of islam.
I am personally offended by Biden/Harris signs, or by this ludicrously stupid talk by Biden that he is going to unite the country.
But my offense right or wrong does not justify my yanking out Biden/Harris lawn signs or any other act of force against the free speech of others – no matter how wrong they are.
Even white supremecists and Antifa are entitled to free speech. What they are not free to do is justify violence by the speech of others.
Big Tech is aggressively censoring conservative voices on social media. Because they can. Black Trump supporters’ voices, their ‘free speech,’ is literally being ‘disappeared’ on all platforms, just days before a presidential election.
Joe Biden knows something about how to conduct “high tech lynchings” doesn’t he? Clarence Thomas knows very well how he was mistreated by Sen. Joe Biden. Character and decency? Try again Joe Biden. You’ve got neither. You’re still fooling some people, but not all, Joe Biden.
How is what big tech is doing right now, today, any different than the ‘high tech lynching’ Clarence Thomas spoke about? It’s not.
“And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree.”
This is how the Democrat Party treats Black Americans who step out of line, right now, today. It is shameful.
“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
it’s alarming to see how the Democrat Party of today still prefers slavery to freedom.
this is one of the black Trump supporters being censored
Her video is worth a listen. ‘You have been manipulated to hate Donald Trump.’ No wonder social media Big Tech is censoring her voice. People are waking up. Can’t let THAT happen.
You have to be manipulated to trust Trump.
Really? Here is a Joe Biden campaign ad:
“If I have the honor of being elected president, I will take care of your family like I would my own.”
Then someone responded by asking ‘So when we can pickup our bags of millions in cash from China and Russia like your family’s been doing, Joe?’
Here’s another reason to ‘trust’ Joe Biden:
“My name is Joe Biden. I’m Jill Biden’s husband, and I’m Kamala’s running mate. Y’all think I’m kidding, don’t you?”
haha so funny Joe. And he’s not kidding.
Tonight at Biden’s Pittsburgh campaign event with Gaga, Joe Biden pointed at Gaga and said: “I work for Lady Gaga”
So…Joe is a beta male? He is Jill’s husband. He is Kamala’s running mate. He works for Lady Gaga.
Sorry Joe, but we are voting to elect a Leader of the Free World. Someone who leads from the front, as an Alpha, not from behind, like the beta males you and Barack Obama are. Trump works for us, the American people! He leads from the front! The choice has never been more clear.
i have no idea what you mean.
It is 2020 – there is no need to act on faith regarding Trump.
WE know how he has governed. He is not claiming he will be different in 2021.
I think that the right and the left both agree on the future of a Trump 2nd Term.
We just use different emotional language to describe the facts that would occur.
With respect to Biden – if he wins – the vast majority of the contry has to TRUST that he has lied repeatedly in this campaign.
Because if he kept a tiny fraction of the promises he made we are all SOL.
While Turley dwells on the conversion of the Democratic party, Benjamin Ginsberg, national counsel for Bush/Cheney during the 2000 & 2004 elections, laments about the conversion of the Republican party:
Ginsberg: “Trump has devoted his campaign to this myth of voter fraud…Disenfranchising voters has become key to his reeelection strategy…The truth is that over all those years Republicans found only isolated incidents of fraud. Proof of systematic fraud has become the Loch Ness Monster of the Republican Party. People have spent a lot of time looking for it, but it doesn’t exist.”
Of course, that didn’t stop Trump from declaring himself the winner of the 2016 popular vote & accusing millions of Hillary Clinton supporters of massive voter fraud. Ginsberg is obviously right when he concludes “my party is destroying itself on the Altar of Trump. Republican elected officials, party leaders and voters must recognize how harmful this is to the party’s long-term prospects.”
RP7 – Voter Fraud is no myth – and those selling that garbage have their head in the sand and are dangerous.
There is an enormous amount at stake in an election – more so because we refuse to limit government power to that specified by the constitution.
Regardless, with vast amounts of power and money at stake you have to be an idiot to beleive that no one will attempt to cheat.
We have seen all kinds of game playing in this election.
While arguably legal – the MSM and social media have clearly attempted to tip the scales in this election.
They have abandoned any pretense of impariality.
So do you think that if the MSM can toss the entire code of journalistic ethics to help their favored candidate first past the goal posts, that a wide variety of others would not be seriously tempted to commit election Fraud ?
The entire leftist claim about voter fraud rests on willful blindness.
So let me make it simple – if you conduct elections in a fashion in which fraud is easy – you will get fraud.
The easier you make it, the less likely fraud is to be detected the more likely it will occur.
This is ultimately not about Trump.
It is about the sanctity of elections. It is also about your delusion that in arrangements where fraud is easy it does not occur because you do not wish to look.
The 2016 election was won by Trump in the electoral college.
What Trump or anyone else said about the popular vote is irrelevant.
I have never heard Trump claim he won the popular vote – only that he would have won the popular vote if that was the rules that elections were run by. But presuming that you can back up this claim of yours – it would still be irrelevant.
Election fraud is not self agrandizing claims about elections – it is actual fraud. It is dead people voting, people voting more than once or inelegible people voting. it is counting ballots that are not real.
If you were really concerned about Trump’s claims of Fraud – you would conduct elections in ways that made fraud much harder.
That is not all that difficult to do.
In person elections, with voter ID are an excellent start.
Regardless, it is not actually that difficult to conduct an election in a manner that fraud is difficult or nearly impossiblle.
If you wish to silence Trump – just run elections properly.
Turley sheds crocodile tears over censorship on a privately owned business operation on a virtually unlimited resource – the internet – while ignoring history that still impacts us today. Under Reagan the GOP successfully killed the “fairness doctrine” on our limited public airwaves and the result is coast to to coast right wing screamers, 234/7 on the radio and now TV looks to follow with the Sinclair Group dictating right wing programming for it’s member stations across the country. There is only so much band width on your radio and TV airwaves, which is why the FCC regulates it, but the tradition of presenting multiple sides politically was murdered with out even a trial 30+ years ago.
Correct. As in all cases, free market competition is the solution.
Conservatives must develop conservative social media.
If that is not possible, social media must be “taken” under eminent domain and operated as a state-regulated monopoly under constitutional freedoms.
Sorry Joe – your off in left field.
Most of us do not care about Twitter or FB or the left wing nut media – EXCEPT that they have been granted special protections by congress and they are a protected monopoly.
I do not care if Twitter wishes to censor whatever they want – but they should not be protected from the same liability that other publishers have for the content they publish. They further should not be protected from breach of contract lawsuits from those who chose their serives at a time when the internet was competitive based on promises that they would not censor, and now are stuck with censorship that is a breach of that promise.
I am not sure that government has the legitimate power to protect Social Media from defamation and breach of contract claims.
But in the event that they actually do – then those same providers are obligated to censor in conformance with the same rules that apply to government.
I would further note this is nothing like the idiotic fairness doctrine.
The fairness doctrine imposed artificial demands on content producers who were and still are liable for the content they air.
Almost No one is asking the Social Media provide “equal time”. No one is demanding that Social media can not weigh in on politics and elections – as twitter.
What is being demanded is that Social Media live up to the promises they made to their users – or be held accountable, and that they are not afforded special government protections from liability.
Essentially the DMCA has made social media into a government agent, by conveying to them government powers and lack of responsibility, given that they should be held to the same terms as government.
Personally, I would prefer throwing out the DMCA entirely – it was a bad idea with too much stupid support at the time by both parties and it has failed.
The only limits on “our airwaves” EVER have been artificial govenrment limits.
Before the FCC anyone could broadcast on any frequency – and despite the rants of the left – it did not work out too badly.
Even in the heyday of the “fairness doctrine” – there was plenty of room on the TV and radio spectrum for far more than the 2-3 voices that government sanctioned.
FCC licenses were deliberately restricted to bolster the profits of broadcasters – as always happens when government regulates something.
Regardless – today as in the past what we are seeing is the LEFT seeking to censor the right.
We hear all the rants about the right purportedly blacklisting the left in the McCarthy era – yet the ACTUAL censorship in the country has atleast in my lifetime ALWAYS been the left censoring the right.
Grow up. If you can not make your arguments without censoring those who disagree – your arguments are not any good.
I wonder what will happen if Twitter turns on the Democrats? When a neutral content provider is no longer neutral, do they lose their protections? I think we will see in the next few years. Regardless of where one stands on political discourse, they should find this truly horrible behavior.
Will COVID be with us for years and cull the herd?
Is the “herd” comprised of octogenarians?
JT: “As someone who was raised in a liberal Democratic family in Chicago, I am still mystified by the conversion of the Democratic Party into an anti-free speech party, including demands for limiting speech on the Internet and social media. ”
***
That comment reminded me of this on Neo Necon’s site:
“Previously a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in New England, surrounded by liberals on all sides, I found myself slowly but surely leaving the fold and becoming that dread thing: conservative. My friends and family didn’t want to hear about my inexplicable conversion, so I started this blog to tell the tale of my political change and provide a forum for others. I have a Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy (not practicing), but my politics make me a pariah there, too. Little did I know that I moved in such politically homogeneous circles.”
In a link in her Bio she describes the remakarble evolution of her change and her discovery that much of what she believed is not true. I would guess that Professor Turley is further along this path than one might suppose..
http://www.thenewneo.com/
When Turley Writes About ‘Free Speech’..
He Means ‘Free Speech For Conservatives’
In the above column Turley writes: “As someone who was raised in a liberal Democratic family in Chicago, I am still mystified by the conversion of the Democratic Party into an anti-free speech party, including demands for limiting speech on the Internet and social media”.
Liberals replying here know there are definite limits to ‘free speech’ on Johnathan Turley’s blog. Any comments that openly challenge established narratives from rightwing media stand a ‘fair chance’ of being deleted. Liberals are tolerated to only a certain extent. The professor has no intention of allowing lop-sided debates where liberals score most of the points. To ensure against this possibility, the professor retains a creepy troll to monitor these threads 16 hours per day.
Said troll has free-reign to smear liberals whenever necessary. Said troll can also post stupid, irrelevant videos to literally bury liberal comments. The idea is to take up huge amounts of space so random readers will scroll no further (and see liberal comments).
But no one censors the troll, of course. On many occasions said troll has posted lewd and, or, totally abusive comments that remain on the threads for hours afterward. The professor wants liberals to know he values the troll more than any other participant.
Because of the troll, comment counts on any particular thread are artificially inflated by the troll’s many puppets. The troll ensures a ‘stereo effect’ in which the majority of comments sound like mindless Trumpers. And all along the professor keeps writing about the ‘importance of free speech’. ..It’s all a charade..!
And yet your comment remains. So much for the muzzling of you on this blog.
If only Peter were muzzled…after getting a Rabies vaccine
😉
“Liberals replying here know there are definite limits to ‘free speech’ on Johnathan Turley’s blog. Any comments that openly challenge established narratives from rightwing media stand a ‘fair chance’ of being deleted. Liberals are tolerated to only a certain extent. The professor has no intention of allowing lop-sided debates where liberals score most of the points. To ensure against this possibility, the professor retains a creepy troll to monitor these threads 16 hours per day.”
PaintChips, your statement is libelous ( not true.). It is not a libelous statement written against a fictional alias which is not a problem but to a known individual whose living is based on his honesty and fairness. Take note he has your email addresses, all of them, your ISP address and likely full access to who you are. You have repeatedly made such statements.
Would he consider suing a gnat. Not likely, but who knows what changes occur in the future that could lead to you being hauled into court. I for one would pay for front row seats.
You claim that Turley is engaged in viewpoint discrimination.
I have had comments blocked – I am certainly not on the left.
I usually receive an email from Darren noting the problem – and the problem is almost always running afoul of WordPress’s content filtering – not JT’s. And I can correct the problem, repost and avoid the WP trigger words in the future.
I have no problem with that.
If you have evidence of actual viewpoint censorship – provide it. I am opposed to viewpoint censorship regardless of whether it is that of the left or right.
If lefties want to come here and say stupid things – I am fine with that.
If you have evidence JT is engaged in viewpoint censorship – I will join you in protesting.
JT just have to review history. Southern Democrats Party of Slavery, Northen Democrats Party that trafficked in slaves, After losing the Civil War one becane the Party of Jim Crow Laws and the other the Party of Black Laws, Combining under Woodrow Wilson they became one party and became the antiCivil Rights Party. A new contingent was added over the years the Massa Party. As a group they unaccountably chose to be known as The Democrat Party even though they had never been and the same to this day democratic. The same party used a handful of names in their efforts to cover up their real name The Socialist Party which caused the falsely named Democrat Farm Labor Party as they were known in some circles and finallyworked their way up to owning up to heir real name forgetting that Socialism is the birth name of both the national sociaist fascist and the international socialist Communist after some purges and they still dont know their real name.
But it sure isn’t USA Constitutional Republic Party.
The issue in this article is the blocking of free speech by twitter. Where has twitter blocked anything coming from those on the left. My speech is free but yours is not. People from both sides of the isle should be screaming in indignation. The founders made the importance of free speech known by including it in the very first amendment. You throw it away at your peril. You may not see the danger now but it will come to you sooner than you think. Here’s a scenario. The slave owners in the south have complete control of the media. Anyone denouncing slavery would be blocked by the media. Free speech turned the tide of public opinion in those days. Many politicians risked their seats by supporting abolition. What if their voices had been silenced by the main stream media of the day. It would have been a sad day then. It is a sad day now.
ROFL. Of course Twitter has blocked tweets coming from those on the left!
They’ve suspended hundreds of thousands of accounts on the R and L.
The First Amendment prevents the government from restricting speech. The First Amendment doesn’t apply to Twitter, because Twitter is not the government.
One example of blocked political speech by the left if you please master Anonymous. Common response. All hat no cowboy.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/twitter-political-account-ban-us-mid-term-elections
So in your story – assuming it is correct – because we only have the word of a handfull of OWSers that it is,
Twitter shuts down 1150 accounts – 80 of which MIGHT me left leaning and somehow that is OK with you ?
I do not want Twitter silencing ANYONE – not DT, not OWS, not AOC.
The First Amendment doesn’t apply to Twitter, because Twitter is not the government.
Thank goodness! There you have it. None of the Amendments apply to ordinary Americans, religious groups, private entities and small businesses because Anonymous (aka Bythebook, CTHD, DialATroll) spaketh as such.
Owning Black Slaves, Guns, et al can now be yours Joey, Sarah, Timmy, Barbara, and so on and so on and so on…
“ROFL. Of course Twitter has blocked tweets coming from those on the left!”
You must have head trauma from rolling on the floor so much. If what you say is true why when in front of the camera could Dorsey not state one leftist entity Twitter blocked?
Is head trauma the reason you insult people all the time, Allan?
Did you look again at what you said?
did you check what Dorsey said or didn’t say?
Right – Twitter blocks accounts from the left ?
Ha, Ha.
Try again.
Twitter does not even block left wing nut Pedo’s.
“I am still mystified by the conversion of the Democratic Party into an anti-free speech party, including demands for limiting speech on the Internet and social media.”
– Professor Turley
______________
It’s not an anti-free speech party, it’s the communist party.
There is freedom and there is the inverse of freedom, enslavement as communism.
One cannot be half pregnant and one cannot be half communist.
The communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs) have achieved their goals through incrementalism.
America lasted in freedom from 1789 to 1861.
____________________________________
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
– Abraham Lincoln
_______________
“In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so: that is just what we intend.”
– Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
______________________________
Karl Marx’s best student, “Crazy Abe” Lincoln, began the incremental destruction of America through his ferocious and barbarous attack on the absolute, inviolable 5th Amendment right to private property and his erroneous and fabricated denial of legal secession.
Wilson, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton, Bush and Obama concluded the repeal of the Constitution and Bill of Rights and the gradual and ultimate imposition of the completely unconstitutional principles of communism: Central Planning, Control of the Means of Production, Redistribution of Wealth and Social Engineering.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
“Out of chaos comes order.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
________________
“[We gave you] a republic, if you can keep it.”
– Ben Franklin
___________
One man, one vote democracy is the chaos while “dictatorship of the proletariat” is the order.
Constitutional rights and freedoms as maintained and perpetuated by Ben Franklin’s restricted-vote republic were destroyed by one man, one vote democracy, aka communism.
The last of American freedom – speech, press, religion, the right to keep and bear arms, etc. – will now be erased; induced to “wither on the vine.”
The frog, deluded by cold water in the pot, now finds itself cooked.
Goodnight, America.
Turley does his best to keep his trump base in the bubble. And on the wrong side of history.
There is no ‘wrong side of history.’ There is only ‘history.’ See if you can come up with some new material.
“History is a fable agreed upon” Napoleon
“History is written by the winners” – Attorney General Barr
Meanwhile, besides for infecting the WH, a Stanford study has found as many as 700 deaths from the virus linked to Trump’s super-spreader events between June and September..
“President Donald Trump’s campaign rallies between June and September may have caused some 30,000 coronavirus infections and more than 700 deaths, according to a new study by Stanford University economists.
The working paper, released late Friday, examined the impact of 18 rallies held between June 20 and Sept. 30 by comparing spread of the virus after each event to parts of the country that didn’t host rallies. The findings illustrate the risks of not heeding public health warnings to wear masks and avoid large gatherings to mitigate the risks of Covid-19, the authors — including B. Douglas Bernheim, the chair of Stanford’s economics department — wrote….”.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/31/trump-study-coronavirus-rallies-433760
According to fools like you this is the most interesting virus as you people would have the rest of us believe it only spreads at Trump Rallys but not when the Fascist antifa & Black Lies Matter groups are out Rioting, Burning, Raping, Robbing & Mur.dering.
The test for the Commie Covid 19 have repeatedly been shown to throw an 85 to 90 False Positives.
Take your Commie Scamdemic & shove it up yours, Dr Fauci’s & Bill Gates’ backside.
Trump rallies and rioting and looting both exhibit anti-social and reckless behavior Oky, so thanks for linking them. I advise avoiding both.
Trump rallies seem to be quite social events – 10’s of thousands of people all getting along together.
No fighting, not looting, no arson.
Those on the right even seem to know how to march on state houses armed to the teeth – and still not hurt anyone and return leaving the place cleaner than the found it.
Who on the left can manage that ?
Trump LOVE trumps Leftist HATE.
Meanwhile, here is some independent reporting on the Biden/Harris campaign:
‘Just visited a Dem field office in suburban Atlanta. People working there had no idea how to get into the Kamala event nearby. “It’s the same people going over and over” to these semi-private Biden/Harris events, one said, such as State Reps. Meanwhile, volunteers are excluded.
“I wish they wouldn’t keep it so close to the vest,” another said regarding Biden/Harris campaign secrecy about event details. Clear frustration and recognition that this goes well beyond what would be necessary for COVID protocols.
I found the event. Staff says Secret Service will throw you out if you’re not authorized to attend by the Georgia Democratic Party. Speculation that it’s based on donor lists. If you were so lucky as to be invited you’d of course have to submit to a full vehicular search.
The relatively few pro-Biden people who have gathered on the outskirts were all tipped off about the location in one way or another. Some said they heard through an alumni network of the sorority Kamala was in.
Kamala was supposed to arrive at 1:00pm and there are plenty of empty spots in the arena parking lot. Duluth, GA.
All that said I wouldn’t over-extrapolate what this means about overall “enthusiasm.” Hard to gauge that when people barely even had a chance to find out where the event was located. Or think of clever signs. (Like this one: “Forget Halloween, 4 More Years of Trump is Scary!”)
@mtracey
From the ‘study,’ which is by economists, not epidemiologists, and has not yet been peer reviewed or published, this tellling sentence, “Though data on attendance is poor, it appears that the number of attendees was generally in the thousands and sometimes in the tens of thousands.”
Now, let’s extrapolate — if the 18 rallies had attendance that varied from the thousands to the tens of thousands, that would suggest between 18,000 and 180,000 people were at the rallies. But without precise numbers, there is no way to do an exact analysis.
More, if they do not know attendance, there is no way to know how many were infected nor how many of those died from the virus, if any.
Everything is guesswork becaes “the task of evaluating the effects of Trump rallies on the spread of COVID-19 remains challenging for the reasons detailed in Section 3.” But no need to read Section 3, because their methodology is profoundly flawed because they do not analyze the events nor those in attendance, but the countires in which they occurred. “The actual incidence and the predicted incidence is an estimate of the treatment effect. Because the standard error
of each prediction is large, we combine estimates across events to obtain an average treatment effect.” In layman’s terms, they’re making up what they cannot ascertain. And so on and so forth.
If you bother to read this nonsense, it is clear that they are offering an unorthodox “predictive model,” not an empirical study. The difference is profound.
You would do better to reference work by Battacharya and others who doing serological studies. A link for the layman by a fellow from Stanford with a Ph.D. in Economics and an M.D. who is interested in empirical studies, not predictive models.
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/sensible-compassionate-anti-covid-strategy/?utm_term=emailclicks&utm_campaign=imprimis&utm_medium=housefile-email&_hsmi=98690753&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8b69K6lhUtiRa1A3V3W5m_qWOdHDvNZQPjNKRlcHWyoNCe6QIYP39zkLwUvJG8g0H_K6uKpdFdPnz9PuMFUUNCbL9O0g&utm_content=SensibleAntiCOVIDStrategyOCT&utm_source=email
My apologies for the errors — in a bit of a rush.
because, not becaes
Counties, not countires.
who are doing, not who doing
Again, my apologies — clean copy is always best.
Noce try old guy, but the herd immunity Jay Bhattacharya is pushing is nonsense according to most others in the field.
Stick to science, Gainesville, and stop believing your employer ActBlue
Herd immunity could have saved more lives than lockdown, study suggests
Researchers from Edinburgh University reassessed Imperial modelling that showed half a million people would die
The UK Telegraph:
Blanket social distancing and the closure of schools may have cost more lives than if herd immunity had been allowed to build slowly in the community, a study suggests.
A reanalysis of the Imperial College modelling that led to lockdown in March shows that shutting schools and preventing youngsters from mingling may have had the counterintuitive effect of actually killing more people.
In a study published in the BMJ, Edinburgh University predicted that over the entire course of the pandemic, keeping children out of classrooms would increase deaths by between 80,000 and 95,000. Likewise, social distancing of everyone, rather than just the over-70s, could cost between 149,000 and 178,000 lives.
Experts say the virus was able to spread faster to vulnerable people once lockdown measures were introduced than if some level of immunity had been allowed to build up in the young.
It comes as thousands of scientists across the world signed the Great Barrington Declaration, calling for an end to lockdown for young and healthy people.
I assume you have reviewed the data and know that those under the age of 40 have little chance of dying from the virus, and that even those over the age of 40 and younger than 65 have only a very small chance of doing so. I also assume that you know that half of the deaths have been of those older than 75, and that most of those who have died, have done so ‘with’ the virus. That is not a quibble; it is a sad reality that if you have more than two underlying serious conditions, then the virus can be deadly.
You ignored what he has to say about the actual death rate, and you apparently do not realize that herd immunity is not a theory, it is how all epidemics end. Indeed, the vaccine you are hoping for (I assume you are, or do you want to be locked down forever and ever?) is one way to speed herd immunity. The other is to keep locking down, destroy the economy, kill tens of thousands by denying them aid, driving them to suicide, and otherwise destroying their lives.
There has not been a reasoned debate by experts with different points of view on the virus and the best way to deal with it. That is a great pity. If there had been, then people would be hopeful rather than frightened to see the number of confirmed cases skyrocket while hospital admissions and deaths remained low, a function of the fact that those infected now are on average about 30 years younger, and this virus does not seem to kill the young.
We need an open, serious debate on the virus and the best way to deal with it, not snide remarks, scare-mongering, and baseless claims about “most others in the field.” From the beginning, the number of those in the field with access to the media, to governments, and to social media has been severely curtailed.
It’s time to open up the discussion and stop suppressing the opinions of those with whom you do not agree.
That, Joe, is free speech.
Do not assume that anyone on the left knows any facts.
Joe Friday’s mom and wife are some of the others and say “Bhattacharya is pushing is nonsense”. Better read Bhattacharya because historically Joe is wrong 99.376% of the time.
Herd immunity is the way ALL epidemics EVER have ended.
Anyone trying to claim there is another route is NOT an expert.
There are different means to herd immunity – masks and social distancing and lockdowns are NOT among those.
Vaccines are.
Nor does herd immunity require 78% to me infected – in fact I am hard pressed to think of any respiratory virus ever that has required more than about 1/3 of people to become infected before it has naturally declined.
Why ? Most people are naturally immune or resistant.
We already know that the vast majority of C19 patients are Vitamin D and/or zinc deficient – that is from statistically sound studies.
We know that C19 has declined naturally with less than 30% infections in places like the cruise ships and Sweden (and NYC)
These are all known facts – that you and your ilk are incapable of grasping their meaning – is your problem.
BTW Where has any public policy measure that YOUR experts claim works actually succeeded – the EU, France, Germany, the UK Ireland are all in the midst of dramatic 2nd waves that make what is occuring in the US look minor.
So who are YOUR experts with a track record of success ?
More models dressed up as science?
Oy vey.
There are so many ways that this is nonsense.
Just recently data from the EU and UK found that the net Transmission rate AFTER all policy measures – like masking. lockdowns and social distancing was between 1.19 – the same as the FLU and 1.59. That is according to the imperial college – not some obscure right wing heterodox group.
While that sounds good – the math is simple – if you can not get the transmission rate below 1.0 – and preferably SIGNIFICANTLY below 1.0 the effect will be to draw out the epidemic NOT reduice the number of infections and deaths. In fact prolonging the epidemic will with near certainty INCREASE the number of deaths because it will increase the amount of time those at the highest risk are exposed.
The left seems to forget that what is being done is UNUSUAL – almost no where in the world has ever done anything like this in response to a respiratory virus before.
The claim that the left is advocating for following the science is NONSENSE.
The science is simple – get the transmission rate below 1.0 or you are better off doing almost nothing.
There is not some middle ground. If you do not get the transmission rate below 1.0 you do more harm than good.
This is basic math and nearly every epidemiologist understands it – no matter what a few might say in front of camera’s
Given that even the Imperial College can not prove that any public policy measures including lockdowns and even in aggregate reduce R0 below 1.0 – how is it that this study came to this conclusion ?
You can not claim that people died because they violated policies that we still have no real world evidence actually work.
I will be happy for PROOF that ANYTHING works against C19 – but I am not interested in “trust us” nonsense from the same people who told us that a 2 week lockdown in April would bring things under control, or that we did not need to shutdown airtravel when we did.
The evidence that I have seen of measures that actually work.
Vitamin D – normal vitamin D levels reduce the rate of C19 infections by 81% – now according to several studies.
Vit-D analogs also works as Treatment with a success rate that NOTHING else matches – not Remedsivir, not anything.
Zinc – normal levels of Zinc reduce the rate of C19 infections by about 77% – also according to several studies.
HCQ – atleast 126 studies now confirm propholactic and anti-viral real world benefits to HCQ – about the same level of Benefit as Prednisone. The benefit is small – but a 20% reduction in deaths is significant.
Todate we have seen no statistically significant differences between countries in deaths/million people based on any public policy measure such as masks or lockdowns or social distancing.