More Federalism, Please

Tuesday 19 January 2021 - Filed under Uncategorized

JD Tucille, at Reason:

No sane people would consent to a political system that works as a weapon against them; they would try to escape its power. One of the virtues of the original decentralized American republic and its federalism was that if you didn’t like the laws and rulers where you lived, you could go elsewhere.

“Foot voting is still underrated as a tool for enhancing political freedom: the ability of the people to choose the political regime under which they wish to live,” George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin wrote in a 2012 paper since expanded into a book. “When people are able to choose their governments, political leaders have stronger incentives to adopt policies that benefit the people, or at least avoid harming them. And the people themselves are able to select the policies they prefer.”

The “people” Somin references aren’t the amorphous masses discussed in Social Studies classes as marching to the polls to jam the alleged will of the winners down the throats of the losers. He means individuals turning their backs on governing systems they dislike and picking those that better suit them.

But, as Chapman University law professor Tom Bell—another advocate of political choice—points out in his 2018 book Your Next Government?, “the United States has in recent decades failed to take states’ rights seriously, making federal law supreme even in minutely local matters.”

Moving does little good when the laws and “vanishing ability to lose an election and not be crushed” (as Cochrane put it) follow you.

Moving does little good when the federal government has so much control. Until we can once again choose from amongst the 50 state laboratories way of life in America, and instead continue using the federal government as a mace with which to bludgeon each other, we have no hope.

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The New War On Terror

Tuesday 19 January 2021 - Filed under Authoritarianism + Big Tech + Constitution + Terrorism + War on Terror

I wonder what kind of soul crushing dirt Greenwald has on his Substack today?

Calls for a War on Terror sequel — a domestic version complete with surveillance and censorship — are not confined to ratings-deprived cable hosts and ghouls from the security state. The Wall Street Journal reports that “Mr. Biden has said he plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism, and he has been urged to create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them.”

Meanwhile, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) — not just one of the most dishonest members of Congress but also one of the most militaristic and authoritarian — has had a bill proposed since 2019 to simply amend the existing foreign anti-terrorism bill to allow the U.S. Government to invoke exactly the same powers at home against “domestic terrorists.”

Why would such new terrorism laws be needed in a country that already imprisons more of its citizens than any other country in the world as the result of a very aggressive set of criminal laws? What acts should be criminalized by new “domestic terrorism” laws that are not already deemed criminal? They never say, almost certainly because — just as was true of the first set of new War on Terror laws — their real aim is to criminalize that which should not be criminalized: speech, association, protests, opposition to the new ruling coalition.

Goddammit!

*Throws phone through the window*

Just what we fucking need. The War On Terror, the very same one that Democrats vehemently objected to during the Bush years because of the many rights-busting reaches of government power it enabled, being brought home and weaponized. Tactics that were once considered by liberals too harsh to use against Muslims worldwide are now perfectly acceptable to use here in America, against Americans.

Fuck all of you who cheer this on.

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No Conflict of Interest Here. Nope.

Monday 18 January 2021 - Filed under Authoritarianism + Free Speech + Journalism

CNN discusses how to use government to kill the competition under the guise of “SEDITION!!!!”. The Post Millenial:

“Disinformation expert” Alex Stamos and CNN’s Brian Stelter discussed how communications companies need to be more proactive in preventing conservative news outlets and influencers from reaching people in a particularly Orwellian segment on Reliable Sources today.

We should totally trust a bullshit peddling network that would benefit greatly if it’s competition were banned, especially when it engages in the same shit they accuse others of.

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Cost-Benefit Analysis

Monday 18 January 2021 - Filed under Uncategorized

The chickens are about to come home to roost. Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Wall Street may be facing an uncomfortable four years after President-elect Joe Biden’s team confirmed on Monday it planned to nominate two consumer champions to lead top financial agencies, signaling a tougher stance on the industry than many had anticipated. [Emphasis mine]

Being that Wall Street poured vast sums of their money in to electing Biden, far more than they did Trump (or any other politician in history except Hillary Clinton), perhaps they’re just getting what they deserve. CNBC:

People in the securities and investment industry will finish the 2020 election cycle contributing over $74 million to back Joe Biden’s candidacy for president, a much larger sum than what President Donald Trump raised from Wall Street, according to new data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Maybe next time you’ll do a better cost-benefit analysis.

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More WhItE SuPrEmAcY!

Monday 18 January 2021 - Filed under Authoritarianism + Racism

Hell, you don’t even need to be white to be a white supremacist anymore. The Washington Post Demsplaining why so much of the Trump movement is made up of minorities, and why this years election saw the largest gains in minorities voting for a Republican in history:

Rooted in America’s ugly history of white supremacy, indigenous dispossession and anti-blackness, multiracial whiteness is an ideology invested in the unequal distribution of land, wealth, power and privilege — a form of hierarchy in which the standing of one section of the population is premised on the debasement of others. Multiracial whiteness reflects an understanding of whiteness as a political color and not simply a racial identity — a discriminatory worldview in which feelings of freedom and belonging are produced through the persecution and dehumanization of others.

Multiracial whiteness promises Latino Trump supporters freedom from the politics of diversity and recognition. For voters who see the very act of acknowledging one’s racial identity as itself racist, the politics of multiracial whiteness reinforces their desired approach to colorblind individualism. In the politics of multiracial whiteness, anyone can join the MAGA movement and engage in the wild freedom of unbridled rage and conspiracy theories.

Holy shit, that’s a lot of derp. How do people who swim in pools that are this deep in stupidity remember to breathe? It can’t be that many minorities are tired of racial politics and no longer wish to remain on the Democrat plantation of government dependence and prescribed thought. It’s because they too have been entrapped by white supremacy. They’re “Oreos.” Jesus Fucking Christ.

How is it not considered racist as fuck when minorities of all stripes are condemned as void of human agency when they decline to subscribe to Democrat orthodoxy? Remember: if you vote for Trump, “you ain’t black”.

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You Know Who Else Put Dissidents In Camps?

Monday 18 January 2021 - Filed under Uncategorized

The last time the Germans tried this, it didn’t work out so well. The New York Post:

Officials in the state of Saxony — which is experiencing one of the worst outbreaks in the European nation — have already approved plans to hold quarantine-breakers in a fenced-off section of a refugee camp, the Telegraph said.

Another state, Brandenburg, also plans to use a section of a refugee camp.

In Schleswig-Holstein, repeat offenders will be kept in a special area in a juvenile detention center, the report said, citing Germany’s Welt newspaper.

The state of Baden-Württemberg has two hospitals with rooms to hold the scofflaws, which will be guarded by police, the report said.

Just say no to German camps.

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And Collusion Too….

Monday 18 January 2021 - Filed under Authoritarianism + Big Tech + Dumbassery + Government + Regulation

Glen Greenwald on BigTech and Government Collusion at his Substack:

If one were looking for evidence to demonstrate that these tech behemoths are, in fact, monopolies that engage in anti-competitive behavior in violation of antitrust laws, and will obliterate any attempt to compete with them in the marketplace, it would be difficult to imagine anything more compelling than how they just used their unconstrained power to utterly destroy a rising competitor.

[…]

On Thursday, Parler was the most popular app in the United States. By Monday, three of the four Silicon Valley monopolies united to destroy it.

[…]

Not only did leading left-wing politicians not object [to the obvious collusion between these companies to destroy a rival] but some of them were the ones who pleaded with Silicon Valley to use their power this way. After the internet-policing site Sleeping Giants flagged several Parler posts that called for violence, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked: “What are @Apple and @GooglePlay doing about this?” Once Apple responded by removing Parler from its App Store — a move that House Democrats just three months earlier warned was dangerous anti-trust behavior — she praised Apple and then demanded to know: “Good to see this development from @Apple. @GooglePlay what are you going to do about apps being used to organize violence on your platform?”

The liberal New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg pronounced herself “disturbed by just how awesome [tech giants’] power is” and added that “it’s dangerous to have a handful of callow young tech titans in charge of who has a megaphone and who does not.” She nonetheless praised these “young tech titans” for using their “dangerous” power to ban Trump and destroy Parler. In other words, liberals like Goldberg are concerned only that Silicon Valley censorship powers might one day be used against people like them, but are perfectly happy as long as it is their adversaries being deplatformed and silenced (Facebook and other platforms have for years banned marginalized people like Palestinians at Israel’s behest, but that is of no concern to U.S. liberals).

That is because the dominant strain of American liberalism is not economic socialism but political authoritarianism. Liberals now want to use the force of corporate power to silence those with different ideologies. They are eager for tech monopolies not just to ban accounts they dislike but to remove entire platforms from the internet. They want to imprison people they believe helped their party lose elections, such as Julian Assange, even if it means creating precedents to criminalize journalism.

It’s well known that under anti-trust law no company may use its market dominance to force others out of business. That maxim is extended to several companies working together to push a competitor out of business. This is a basic premise under free market principles that’s been in effect for a very long time.

What isn’t as well known is that even if companies are NOT using their market dominance to push the little guys around, they also may not act against people as a result of government threat, as found in Hammerhead Enterprises, Inc. v. Brezenoff, 551 F. Supp. 1360 (S.D.N.Y. 1982), which notes “comments of a government official can reasonably be interpreted as intimating that some form of punishment or adverse regulatory action will follow the failure to accede to the official’s request.” And it should be no mystery that the companies involved are under threat by Democrats in the form dozens of looming anti-trust lawsuits against BigTech, not to mention that various Democrat lawmakers have sent unveiled threats to BigTech: censor conservative speech, or else.

In April 2019, just as fervor over BigTech was beginning en masse from both parties, Democrats issued a shot over BigTech’s bow. Vivek Ramaswamy and Jed Rubenfeld, at the Wall Street Journal write,

Congressional Democrats have repeatedly made explicit threats to social-media giants if they failed to censor speech those lawmakers disfavored. In April 2019, Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond warned Facebook and Google that they had “better” restrict what he and his colleagues saw as harmful content or face regulation: “We’re going to make it swift, we’re going to make it strong, and we’re going to hold them very accountable.” New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler added: “Let’s see what happens by just pressuring them.”

Moreover, in Carlin Communications v. Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Co. (1987), the Ninth Circuit found that it doesn’t matter whether the action taken is the direct result of a threat from government because “[s]imply by “command[ing] a particular result,” the state had so involved itself that it could not claim the conduct had actually occurred as a result of private choice.”

And that’s where we sit. BigTech, including all of the partners to the disappearing of Parler, an entire platform preferred by those who don’t want censored speech, and the banishment of the president along with tens of thousands of his followers from social media, after having received threats veiled and unveiled from democrats, colluded at just the time it became clear that not only would Biden be president, but that Democrats would also control all of Congress (and while BigTech executives and political operatives are amassing cabinet and other high ranking positions within the Biden administration in a bid to stave off anti-trust proceedings while they write the regulatory and legal framework that their industry operates under).

These actions taken at that time, in accordance with the wishes of the politicians who both threatened extensive legal punishment and who now control all of government for at least the next two years, are no fucking coincidence.

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Private Action, My Ass

Monday 18 January 2021 - Filed under Authoritarianism + Big Tech + Constitution + Dumbassery + Government + Regulation + Social Media

BuT ThEy’Re PrIvATe CoMpAnIeS! Perhaps not. The Wall Street Journal:

Facebook and Twitter banned President Trump and numerous supporters after last week’s disgraceful Capitol riot, and Google, Apple and Amazon blocked Twitter alternative Parler—all based on claims of “incitement to violence” and “hate speech.” Silicon Valley titans cite their ever-changing “terms of service,” but their selective enforcement suggests political motives.

Conventional wisdom holds that technology companies are free to regulate content because they are private, and the First Amendment protects only against government censorship. That view is wrong: Google, Facebook and Twitter should be treated as state actors under existing legal doctrines. Using a combination of statutory inducements and regulatory threats, Congress has co-opted Silicon Valley to do through the back door what government cannot directly accomplish under the Constitution.

If said private company is acting under threat or coercion, has leadership entwined with government, or in the hopes of receiving favors from government, you are no longer acting as a private company, but as a state actor.

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I Thought It Was For The Children….

Monday 18 January 2021 - Filed under Authoritarianism + Covid + Dumbassery + Economy + lockdown

Fuck every lockdown supporter. The Cut:

Starting on April 6, a bearded and earnest neuroscientist at the University of Oregon named Philip Fisher began to send a digital questionnaire — at first weekly, and then, beginning in August, biweekly — to a representative group of a thousand American families with young children. He’s curious about how they and their kids are doing. They aren’t doing so well.

The governors and “public health experts” who did this, and the media lackeys who’ve been cheerleaders throughout, deserve to be publicly woodchippered.

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Dusting

Monday 18 January 2021 - Filed under Uncategorized

It’s been a while since I’ve dusted the place, and the times say it’s necessary I do so.

I’m back, with all of the choice ranting that these days deserve.

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