Friends, you may consider the title to this post hyperbolic, and of course there is only one true savior (his initials are J.C.), but I'm not kidding when I say that Elon Musk's offer to buy Twitter, and to restore free speech on that popular platform, could breathe new life into Western Civilization. "Cancel culture" is threatening to choke off not only speech, but critical thought and pluralism. What's more, it's conservatives and traditionalists who are invariably the targets of censorship and deplatforming. If we're not careful, sooner or later we simply won't be allowed to participate in the most important debates unfolding in our society -- if, indeed, "debates" are even allowed at all. Reorienting Twitter towards open dialogue and cleansing its leadership and workforce of woke fascists would be an immensely valuable contribution to the protection of Western norms of freedom and truth-seeking. I hope Musk succeeds...but I strongly suspect he won't. The small-minded bullies who run Twitter are having way too much fun bossing the rest of us around. Ergo, my guess is they'll respond to Musk's buyout offer with a flat "No thanks". We'll see. A lot is riding on this scheme of Musk's. I think we all hoped that Trump's "Truth Social" would be the answer to growing intolerance in social media, but that's seeming less and less likely, given the technical and logistical challenges that Trump has so far failed to overcome. Luring Twitter back into the free speech fold would be a massive win for the good guys...if it happens. Stay tuned.
In other news, the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet has sunk. It's unclear if the Ukrainians are responsible or not, but it's yet another embarrassment for the former superpower.
https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/kyiv-moskva/2022/04/14/id/1065820/
Kudos to the New York Daily News, which agrees with me that "President" Biden's charge that Russia has committed genocide in Ukraine is highly inappropriate, mainly because it's false.
As you'll see here, homeschooling is more popular than ever, partly because of the insane COVID restrictions that so many public schools implemented. This is all to the good, but in my opinion we'll never save our children from leftist indoctrination until the public school system, as we know it, is dismantled altogether. School choice! That's the ticket!
https://apnews.com/article/covid-business-health-buffalo-education-d37f4f1d12e57b72e5ddf67d4f897d9a
Finally, the Republican Party is withdrawing from the Commission on Presidential Debates, which it accuses (rightly) of anti-conservative and anti-Trump bias. This does not mean that there will be no presidential debates in 2024. What it means is that such debates will only take place if both parties are satisfied that the terms of the debates will be fair to all. What a nice change of pace!
https://thehill.com/news/campaign/3267486-gop-votes-to-withdraw-from-presidential-debate-panel/
With Easter upon us, the only Savior I am aware of (from a Christian perspective) is Jesus Christ, as you indicate.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Musk is an astounding person. Even if he doesn't succeed, at least for now, in acquiring Twitter, I am greatly encouraged that one of his precocious accomplishment thinks it doable and may be motivated by a desire to combat cancel culture! Could he provide a powerful fillip to an obviously expanding and intensifying popular revolt against the (America). . ..., yeech, left's definitive regime of suppression, ridicule, intimidation, presumption and fashionable contempt for America's ON BALANCE, credit!!!? Could he thereby become another as able as Trump to win the support of a real America much learned by past betrayal?
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy fromJack: Its often been chortled at that the Soviet era "worker's car" the putatively (probably not quite actually ridiculous) Trabant" contraption was liable to fall apart outside the lot. Did you ever hear the story about the "proletarian" in the Soviet paradise who laboriously saved for many years and then put in a"request" for a Trabant. The Commissar granted his appeal with the caveat that it be delivered exactly five years from "this" date at 10am. The buyer remonstrated: " Well comrade ,that could be of discredit to the state in that the plumber is scheduled for that very date and time!? Of course I intend no doubt of our undoubtable leadership in asserting this objective fact. Why, how unleft that would be! "
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: I have sporadically followed the progress of the Rus in their Navy. In the 60s and 70's the Soviet Navy was precipitously expanded , by noted Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, for whom a present Russian capital ship is named,in a Western perceived all out effort, to create a blue water (i.e. all Oceans) force. That effort generated much Western concern! The Rus started by emphasizing anti carrier missiles ( which could of course take out anything smaller, which all ships were). They tried to build carriers but produced some very pedestrian models. They produced the now sunk "battlecruiser" Moskva( that term my opinion) in the late '70's. Was the understandably cynical work ethic that Communism always creates then in force? Coulda been ! Has this ethic persisted in present day Russia , even unto naval crews(who after all tend to the interior and vital maintence of all warships?) Was the flagship MOSKVA sunk by Ukrainian missiles? Coulda been!!! Was Russian incompetence involved? Maybe. But many American WWII victories were also enabled in part by Japanese folly.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: I am very glad for the recoil of the GOP from an entity as obviously contemptuous of the GOP and the r
ReplyDeleteeal America for which it is the heart! Yeah, let all these "debates" take place only,IF AT ALL, under rules mandating the full inclusion of all reasonably supported views: of course not Nazi and of course not equally condemnable American leftist assertions.
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Dr.Waddy from Jack: Well, then, the degradation of our primary and secondary education has been much advanced by, lets face it and I include myself in this bunch, mediocrities open to almost everything!
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter, Ray!
ReplyDeleteJack, I wouldn't get too effusive in your praise of Musk. He's got his good points and his bad. Politically, he's certainly no Trumper, and no conervative either. And yet...he believes in free speech, and anyone willing to give conservatives a fair shake and a chance to be part of the conversation is an asset we can't afford to overlook (especially if he also happens to be the richest man on earth).
Yes, Jack, the Trabant was famously inadequate...and yet it was (technically) a car! Those who received one counted themselves VERY lucky. Hey, it's all relative...
I'd say the Moskva's sinking is of more symbolic importance than actual, but the symbolism is darn powerful! An interesting wrinkle: how much U.S./NATO intel did the Ukrainians need to sink it? How much was the West involved in the design, construction, and maybe even deployment of those missiles? The Russians believe they are fighting the West itself in Ukraine. Maybe, in a sense, they are?
We'll see if there will be presidential debates in 2024. I suspect there will be, but with partisanship at an all time high the jockeying for advantage will be intense. An interesting question: what SORT of debates might give the edge to Trump? Hmm.
Dr.Waddy from Jack: Oh I WOULD think the Rus see themselves arrayed against the West in Ukraine. I think its their essential motivation. They painfuly endured the (to them, with some good reason) treacherous advance of Nato to engulf their Eastern Europe shield and to sit at their very borders. Excepting Moldova, which cannot have had the historical,cultural and geographic significance of Ukraine to Russia, they had only once been casually (again as they saw it) presented with the possibility of a former Soviet Republic itself entering Nato: Georgia. Well, even though a Nato Georgia perhaps did not present Russia with the fundamental outrage that Nato in Ukraine does, they DID for Georgia, yes!? They were warning the West by doing it: "hands off Ukraine!" . We poo pooed it. What duh...? The Rus are super badasses! If you are going to rile them, you had better, for the sake of world peace, fully understand the risk and very soberly assess the credible, objective, consummate national security threat you may generate thereby,because Russia, perhaps at the command of a dictator, can decimate you! This is not 1938 nor is it the justified battle against world threatening Marxism. This is "Deep Russia" reacting to what it sees as an unendurable affront! Its tactics in Ukraine are beyond execrable but we should have seen the probability, especially after Georgia and Chechnya! The main Russian assault may now be underway and we
ReplyDeleteMUST NOT disregard Russian caution of reaction to our military resupply of Ukraine!! We have attacked Iran for the same, though I do not in saying this suggest moral equivalence. An animal, backed into a corner, will not hesitate to react with full force! We humans are yet animals in many senses! Remember 1962.
Well said, Jack! Even if one condemns the Russians on the moral plane, the fact is that Russia and Putin are, to a point, known quantities. We should have seen this danger coming a mile away (you and I sure did), and we should have had a realistic plan to protect the Ukrainians (our alleged friends) as best we could. Instead we stupidly fed them to the wolves. Hardly our finest hour.
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