The Left's reaction to this whole thing has been nothing short of insane. When Elon Musk states very plainly that Twitter will be a free speech zone, and that causes the Left to have a complete and utter meltdown, the Left's opposition to speech they can't control is too glaringly obvious to overlook. And yet we're expected to overlook it, because the Left is magically "good" and everyone else is magically "evil"? Because Musk is somehow Hitler?
The fact that there are people who genuinely believe what the Left is saying on this subject makes me fear for this country more than anything that has yet happened.
So the Left had no problem with Leftist Billionaires suppressing speech but goes into full meltdown mode when Musk - who has never been particularly conservative - buys Twitter to restore free speech.
Isn't it long past time to recognize that Leftists are certifiably insane? Mad, delusional, completely separated from reality. Divorced from elementary cause and effect. Childish, emotional and thoroughly incapable of rational thought. Why then do Americans let them run anything, let alone our schools and businesses? Or elect them to anything? The only acceptable reaction to a Leftist is mocking laughter. Or commitment to a mental institution.
I think the Edward R Murrow quote is apt. "I've always been on the side of the heretics against those who burned them because the heretics so proved right in the long run. Dead but right!"
The right to dissent without being accused of disloyalty (or worse) is one of the great hallmarks of a healthy democracy.
Bari, Good choice for a guest poster. I have no idea how you manage to find all of the best people, but I tip my hat...again.
Mike, Excellent piece as always. Those of you who do not know Mike, he does not publish often, but he does publish regularly and his pieces are virtually always a cut above; I await them with anticipation.
If you are not familiar with Mike's Substack Pirate Wires, you will not regret giving it a perusal. It was among the first Substacks with which I engaged -- and remains among my favorites.
Seems like a good time for me to recount how I was removed from Twitter.
Jim Acosta posted a particularly self-aggrandizing and preening statement. I replied
“Say what you will about Jim, but I for one am going to be sad when he eventually dies for our sins.”
I referenced death so it’s a threat.
Once my reply got about as many likes as his tweet my account was permanently deleted. I had a previous warning from when I tweeted at AOC
“The ocean is going to attack your house!!”
in response to a panicky global warming tweet she sent.
I shouldn’t have threatened to attack her house like that I’m sorry.
What happened in both cases is my tweet was reported by Democrat activists who patrol comments looking for anything they can use to get you removed.
This is not being done by an algorithm. It is being done systematically by activists. If you want to see it in action go to any Marjorie Taylor Greene Instagram post. Then go to the comments and look at the replies to the comments. The same 3 or 4 people will reply to large numbers of comments from MTG supporters. Then they will try to bait them into saying something insulting so they can report them and get them removed.
This is being done by people, not an algorithm. The algorithm is promoting and downgrading content in a way that violates campaign finance law to an extreme degree, but that’s a separate issue.
The real beauty of America is the ability to thwart pathologies. My view is that there are people with "super powers" that can rise to the top and lead to correctives. Bari Weiss is one; her talent is putting talent on these pages at the right time and in the right order. Sometimes subtle, but devastating in effect. Elon is a prodigy but obviously a major disruptor and in his own words "obsessed with the truth". The bad old orange man was somehow divinely gifted with the ability to expose people and especially their motives. Where else in the world would there be freedom enough for actors like this to move confluences of thought and action enough to revivify or course correct for a population. I am fascinated by the times (but very frightened by the downsides) and also look forward to hearing from another person of influence, Douglas Murray, over the next few days. Interesting times indeed!
It's fun to watch people imagine things through their own prism of lunacy. He is going to kill their free speech, that is, speech free of any sense or actual meaning. Good luck, Elon! If anyone can do this thing right, it's you.
Elon Musk burst into my consciousness just a few weeks ago and I fell in love. If ever we needed this person at this time it is now. So Elon, on behalf of at least 50% of the US population I want to thank you for challenging Woke, cancel culture and the horrible trolls who lurk in social media, particularly that cesspool Twitter. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Good article, thank you. I had a twitter account back in 2020 and made the "mistake" of tweeting that young, healthy people shouldn't have to lock down and should go on with their lives. I was bullied "grandma killer!" so much I deleted my account. Funny, two years later there is a consensus forming that the lockdowns of healthy people were a mistake. There's a lot of fun stuff on twitter like sports commentary, memes etc., but not sure if I want to go back and waste my time on it at this point.
We need a national push for Elon to move Twitter HQ to somewhere in the Midwest. Losing WGN as a national media outlet was detrimental to the zeitgeist of the US and part of what has left everything so polarized. Our media are literally at the cultural and geographic extremes of the Bay and NYC. Twitter in Sioux Falls, or Oklahoma City, or Des Moines, or any mid size Midwestern US city could help, perhaps, connect the country back to the 80% of the middle of the country that take make up a massive voting block but are completely unrepresented I’m the national media dialogue …
So an actual "commonsense" article on "Common Sense."
This boils down to one fact: "Control the information and the language, control the reality." That's what they're freaking out about. That's it in a nutshell. "Misinformation" is really just code for "facts we don't want you to know because they reflect badly on us and might make you wonder why you put us in charge."
And if Twitter opens up and reveals its algorithms, there will be pressure on Facebook and Google to do the same, and certain people lose their grip on "reality."
Immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Cuba and from China - places where there is no free speech - are astonished that so many in the US want to limit freedom of speech.
Why is it so many "progressives" are so regressive when it comes to free speech. And the propaganda media has curiously not stood up for free speech. Where is the ACLU ? Where are all the so-called liberals? This is one reason I left the Dem Party. Hypocrisy abounds.
Still many of my friends have fallen for the party-line. I got into a heated argument last month with one who said "free speech is a right wing plan to mute Progressives" - wow. But that's the way many brainwashed people see the Elon Musk purchase of Twitter.
The Left's reaction to this whole thing has been nothing short of insane. When Elon Musk states very plainly that Twitter will be a free speech zone, and that causes the Left to have a complete and utter meltdown, the Left's opposition to speech they can't control is too glaringly obvious to overlook. And yet we're expected to overlook it, because the Left is magically "good" and everyone else is magically "evil"? Because Musk is somehow Hitler?
The fact that there are people who genuinely believe what the Left is saying on this subject makes me fear for this country more than anything that has yet happened.
So the Left had no problem with Leftist Billionaires suppressing speech but goes into full meltdown mode when Musk - who has never been particularly conservative - buys Twitter to restore free speech.
Isn't it long past time to recognize that Leftists are certifiably insane? Mad, delusional, completely separated from reality. Divorced from elementary cause and effect. Childish, emotional and thoroughly incapable of rational thought. Why then do Americans let them run anything, let alone our schools and businesses? Or elect them to anything? The only acceptable reaction to a Leftist is mocking laughter. Or commitment to a mental institution.
I think the Edward R Murrow quote is apt. "I've always been on the side of the heretics against those who burned them because the heretics so proved right in the long run. Dead but right!"
The right to dissent without being accused of disloyalty (or worse) is one of the great hallmarks of a healthy democracy.
Bari, Good choice for a guest poster. I have no idea how you manage to find all of the best people, but I tip my hat...again.
Mike, Excellent piece as always. Those of you who do not know Mike, he does not publish often, but he does publish regularly and his pieces are virtually always a cut above; I await them with anticipation.
If you are not familiar with Mike's Substack Pirate Wires, you will not regret giving it a perusal. It was among the first Substacks with which I engaged -- and remains among my favorites.
Seems like a good time for me to recount how I was removed from Twitter.
Jim Acosta posted a particularly self-aggrandizing and preening statement. I replied
“Say what you will about Jim, but I for one am going to be sad when he eventually dies for our sins.”
I referenced death so it’s a threat.
Once my reply got about as many likes as his tweet my account was permanently deleted. I had a previous warning from when I tweeted at AOC
“The ocean is going to attack your house!!”
in response to a panicky global warming tweet she sent.
I shouldn’t have threatened to attack her house like that I’m sorry.
What happened in both cases is my tweet was reported by Democrat activists who patrol comments looking for anything they can use to get you removed.
This is not being done by an algorithm. It is being done systematically by activists. If you want to see it in action go to any Marjorie Taylor Greene Instagram post. Then go to the comments and look at the replies to the comments. The same 3 or 4 people will reply to large numbers of comments from MTG supporters. Then they will try to bait them into saying something insulting so they can report them and get them removed.
This is being done by people, not an algorithm. The algorithm is promoting and downgrading content in a way that violates campaign finance law to an extreme degree, but that’s a separate issue.
Next up, I hope Musk buys Harvard. or the NYT.
In Musk we trust.
This was so so good that I finally subscribed.
The real beauty of America is the ability to thwart pathologies. My view is that there are people with "super powers" that can rise to the top and lead to correctives. Bari Weiss is one; her talent is putting talent on these pages at the right time and in the right order. Sometimes subtle, but devastating in effect. Elon is a prodigy but obviously a major disruptor and in his own words "obsessed with the truth". The bad old orange man was somehow divinely gifted with the ability to expose people and especially their motives. Where else in the world would there be freedom enough for actors like this to move confluences of thought and action enough to revivify or course correct for a population. I am fascinated by the times (but very frightened by the downsides) and also look forward to hearing from another person of influence, Douglas Murray, over the next few days. Interesting times indeed!
It's fun to watch people imagine things through their own prism of lunacy. He is going to kill their free speech, that is, speech free of any sense or actual meaning. Good luck, Elon! If anyone can do this thing right, it's you.
Elon Musk burst into my consciousness just a few weeks ago and I fell in love. If ever we needed this person at this time it is now. So Elon, on behalf of at least 50% of the US population I want to thank you for challenging Woke, cancel culture and the horrible trolls who lurk in social media, particularly that cesspool Twitter. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
A beautiful snarky post! Fully agree! The coming entertainment possibilities are endless.
Good article, thank you. I had a twitter account back in 2020 and made the "mistake" of tweeting that young, healthy people shouldn't have to lock down and should go on with their lives. I was bullied "grandma killer!" so much I deleted my account. Funny, two years later there is a consensus forming that the lockdowns of healthy people were a mistake. There's a lot of fun stuff on twitter like sports commentary, memes etc., but not sure if I want to go back and waste my time on it at this point.
We need a national push for Elon to move Twitter HQ to somewhere in the Midwest. Losing WGN as a national media outlet was detrimental to the zeitgeist of the US and part of what has left everything so polarized. Our media are literally at the cultural and geographic extremes of the Bay and NYC. Twitter in Sioux Falls, or Oklahoma City, or Des Moines, or any mid size Midwestern US city could help, perhaps, connect the country back to the 80% of the middle of the country that take make up a massive voting block but are completely unrepresented I’m the national media dialogue …
So an actual "commonsense" article on "Common Sense."
This boils down to one fact: "Control the information and the language, control the reality." That's what they're freaking out about. That's it in a nutshell. "Misinformation" is really just code for "facts we don't want you to know because they reflect badly on us and might make you wonder why you put us in charge."
And if Twitter opens up and reveals its algorithms, there will be pressure on Facebook and Google to do the same, and certain people lose their grip on "reality."
Immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Cuba and from China - places where there is no free speech - are astonished that so many in the US want to limit freedom of speech.
Why is it so many "progressives" are so regressive when it comes to free speech. And the propaganda media has curiously not stood up for free speech. Where is the ACLU ? Where are all the so-called liberals? This is one reason I left the Dem Party. Hypocrisy abounds.
Still many of my friends have fallen for the party-line. I got into a heated argument last month with one who said "free speech is a right wing plan to mute Progressives" - wow. But that's the way many brainwashed people see the Elon Musk purchase of Twitter.