College protests: The first amendment is under siege

The title may seem hyperbolic, but let me explain.

The United States of America was intentionally founded around the Constitution for a reason, and that reason was that no law could supersede what was written in it. The very nature of it is antithetical to tyranny. And back then we had a population that would gladly fight and die should any tyrants attempt to rise up and do away with the Constitution and the rights that document is meant to guarantee to all citizens of the United States of America.

Sadly, our forefathers didn’t foresee what a weak citizenry that time under prosperity would yield. The fat, sick, lazy, and entitled citizen is not only physically incapable, but they’re simply not going to jeopardize the cushy lifestyle that food security and constant entertainment grants them. Worse still, we have seen a rise of an alternative media apparatus that has effectively just added to the ranks of the mainstream media propaganda mill to which they were meant to be the antithesis.

This country is quite literally being killed by bread, circuses, and the almost total abandonment of critical thought by a majority of the country. I find myself surrounded by vapid people who would never stick their neck out, but seem to have plenty of ideas they have been fed and adopted as their own to spew in order to add noise to the most important discourses in our country’s history.

So when I see people like Ben Shapiro and other Con Inc. types pontificating from their pulpits that, despite their previous staunch defenses of freedom of speech, they seem remarkably comfortable with stamping it out through jackbooted thuggery than to allow it to flourish because someone is saying something they don’t like. I’m, of course, referring to the backlash against the protests raging around the country on college campuses in opposition of Israel and their actions in Gaza that Ben Shapiro types want to crush with iron-fisted authoritarianism, proving past speech to be an effort to gain prominence by telling freedom-loving Americans like myself whatever we wanted to hear.

Imagine building a brand on the importance of having the freedom to debate ideas only to then decide that no discussion, debate, or protest be allowed because the speech being suppressed is speech that runs counter to their ideals.

That’s basically The Daily Wire to me, now.

It’s the same thing I told Elon Musk after he reneged on his freedom of speech stance for X - you’re not in favor of free speech at all if you’re still setting parameters on what constitutes it.

I feel slightly dirty having to defend the students and faculty on those college campuses because they’re the same lunatics that are trying to force critical theory and other Marxist devices into the public consciousness in order to usher in their own special brand of authoritarianism.

So we have the authoritarian right clashing with the authoritarian left, effectively. Both fighting for their right to enforce homogeneity of thought in their own image. That isn’t encouraging.

Can we just start the Common Sense party already?

My concerns for the continued existence of the 1st amendment run deep, and there has been a lengthy run-up to this moment.

— The Sedition Act of 1918

The Sedition Act of 1918 criminalized any speech that spoke in opposition to the U.S. government, though of course it was couched in language that said no one should speak ill of the war effort, or say anything to impede it. That means that protests against our participation in World War 1 were made illegal. While it was later repealed and President Woodrow Wilson gave clemency to most of those convicted under it, it served as a scary reminder that our government was perfectly willing to toss aside our rights to achieve their aims.

— McCarthyism

Senator Joseph McCarthy was largely responsible for bringing about a brand new Witch Hunt of sorts in the form of trying to suss out communists in the 1950s. This caused many people’s lives to be ruined because their fellow citizens identified them erroneously as communists - not an easy thing to prove. Luckily, guilty until proven innocent was the name of the game, so they didn’t have to worry about that silly ‘due process’ thing interfering in their efforts to scare everyone into silence.

— The Civil Rights Movement

I would be mistaken not to place this on this impromptu list as well. The Civil Rights movement tested how willing people were to take that ‘All Men are created equal’ thing from the Declaration of Independence seriously. We quickly found that, like Ben Shapiro, the people of the day were highly offended that people of color would speak up for their rights and would protest for equal treatment, and did everything they could to squash protests. And in some cases, these efforts turned deadly. Imagine getting killed for speaking your mind. That is the complete opposite of free speech.

— The Patriot Act

George W. Bush seized upon the fear and uncertainty that 9/11 generated to usher in an unprecedented level of surveillance and spying on ordinary citizens. And this was before the days of the smartphone. It served as the most powerful catalyst before the smartphone era to make people self-censor. Additionally, the Bush era in general was one that discouraged dissenting rhetoric of any sort, as some rabid patriots like Toby Keith proved with his unhinged cancelation of The Dixie Chicks for not blindly following the Bush doctrine.

—

And that is just a handful of examples in a more historical context where free speech was besieged by malevolent actors looking to punish anyone foolish enough to engage in freedom of expression and thought. But let’s get back to the current zeitgeist through which we are suffering.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell anyone who would even read my work here that social media is a wasteland of biased censorship for the puppet masters that seek to finally - and permanently - consolidate their monopoly on both violence and truth. Hence why they want both the first amendment and the second abolished.

“First Amendment is first for a reason, Second. Amendment is just in case the first one doesn't work out.” - Dave Chappelle.

But I digress.

We need only think back to the covid scam, a time when doubting the words of “experts” would not only see you ostracized and derided by midwits who believe everything that comes out of any mainstream news anchor’s mouth, but you’d have your accounts either suspended or permanently banned. I had several accounts suspended in a rather short window of time on several platforms for merely pointing out the harms that vaccines seemed to be doing to otherwise healthy athletes. My crime was reporting on such things, and my punishment was being removed forcibly from the discussion by an overzealous cult member.

”Believe science!” they cried with all the religious fervor of even the most staunch bible beater. The problem is, those who were questioning it do believe science, because the essence of science is to question everything.

Of course, the Twitter files clued us all in as to the real nature of the problem not only during that time, but when the old guard of Twitter, headed up by former trust and safety “chief censor” Vijaya Gadde, and former CEO and layabout Jack Dorsey, banned a sitting president.

The Twitter files also showed us that the company at that time was absolutely crawling with federal agents just as James Baker. I wrote a piece on that a while back if you want a more elaborate picture. Let’s just say that Twitter was, at that time, taking payoffs to do the bidding of agencies like the FBI. In fact, I fully believe that Twitter would’ve folded years prior had it not been subsidized by elements of the U.S. government. And as an aside, there’s an odd coincidence that saw Facebook being founded almost immediately after a DARPA program called ‘LifeLog’ was shut down. So take that information however you like. I’ll leave the link to my previous piece on the FBI’s infiltration of Twitter down below.

Ah, but there is an even more insidious practice on X/Twitter that gave me pause. And I can verify that it’s true through my own experiences. Yes, it has to do with shadowbanning, but it’s much sneakier.

A user by the name of "A Communist in Hong Kong" ( username @SimonElmer2022 ) demonstrated an underhanded tactic that I myself fall victim to all the time on X/Twitter. The basic gist of it is best explained by the man himself.

"For those who don’t know, key words (lockdown, COVID, gene therapy, excess deaths, climate scam, woke, trans, Ukraine, Gaza, genocide, etc.) trigger an algorithm that sends a sex bot to like the comment, which is then censored on the grounds that it’s a danger to children." writes the user.

So in other words, someone like myself who is prone to expressing thoughts and ideas that would not win me much favor in the hallowed halls of power in any government, let alone the U.S. government, suddenly receives like from porn bots and all of a sudden my post’s visibility is quietly limited to comply with regulations that have to do with protecting children from porn. The problem with this is that adults won’t see my posts, either. It’s a hamfisted attempt at solving the problem, and it’s openly abused since I find that the second my post receives the kiss of death in the form of a like from one of these porn bots, the engagement absolutely dies.

So it effectively achieves the aim of shadowbanning someone without doing it in an overt way.

I would only amend this to say that the word list is clearly quite amorphous, as I believe it's now operating on phrasing that would suggest a problematic viewpoint. Evidence, perhaps, that X/Twitter is already utilizing AI to moderate their platform by using machine learning to derive intent from speech rather than fixate on arbitrary trigger words. After all, the platform does now feature a Large Language Model (LLM) named Grok. It's not a leap of logic to assume that Grok not only learns from the conversations people have with it, but it also canvasses the platform itself to learn how best to deceptively moderate the platform in order to remain in compliance with the demands of advertisers.

I can only assume that would be the primary motivation after Elon Musk hired Linda Yaccarino to replace him as CEO of Twitter. Yaccarino's background is in advertising, as a cursory glance at her background would show since she was "chair(wo)man of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal (NBCU)."

I can guarantee that her background is all the proof you need to see that you’ll continue being censored to appease advertisers.

So what does all this mean? Why, the subversion of the first amendment, of course. Think about it. What is the most absolutely perfect way for a government official to get away with robbing a citizen of their first amendment rights? Have a private company do it.

We’re already more isolated than ever and spending all our time communicating through devices running these social media platforms, after all. It’s a perfect plan to hide behind the protections granted by a private company’s own first amendment rights to take away yours.

After all, corporations in the eyes of the law are people, and people with a lot of money, at that. Their rights simply outweigh ours because us normal folk don’t have the scratch to grease the palms of politicians who whore themselves out to the highest bidder with a smile on their faces.

The solution to all this is multi-faceted, of course. It’s not an easy fix, but I will just state what I think needs to happen.

— Free the algorithm

If algorithms to populate newsfeeds are really necessary, then everyone - not just the friends of those imposing the algorithms - should be fully privy to all of their idiosyncrasies of them so that no bias or favoritism can survive being disinfected by sunlight. Plus, it’s fair. If my content happens to be better than CNN’s, then let the market reflect that. Don’t rig the game against me.

— Section 230 needs an overhaul

I fully understand the need for section 230, but the current abuses going on are fully sanctioned by it. We need to augment it so social media companies are made to balance the playing field a little bit more in the direction of the everyman. And miss me with all that ‘misinformation’ nonsense. I determine what is misinformation for myself, I don’t need a babysitter. While I don’t think companies should get sued for whatever is posted on their platforms, I do think lawsuits should be an option for curtailing their propensity to allow the politics of their personnel dictate what goes for allowed discourse.

— Abolish echo chambers

The only way opposites can come to a consensus is to have a discussion. I don’t feel that is entirely possible these days. Not only with having to self-censor in order to avoid a ban if I happen to say things that don’t align with leftist cultists, but because they would instantly block me rather than have their worldview challenged, no matter how gently I broach the subject. Equilibrium cannot be achieved without exposure to the ideas of all.

I certainly do not have all the answers. What I do have is a will to do my part in decoupling from the runaway train of madness that is political discourse in the modern era.

Until people whose opinions lie on opposite ends of the political spectrum can again be friends, we have no hope of coming back.

Thank you for reading. It’s good to be back.