Friends, for reasons that are a mystery to me -- but which may involve making boatloads of money -- Elon Musk's X, a.k.a. Twitter, has decided to grovel at the feet of the Chief Justice of Brazil's Supreme Court, who treats Brazil as a personal fiefdom and is determined to erase the free speech rights of dissidents. X took a bold stand against government censorship in Brazil, and now has reversed course. I can't say I'm shocked, but I'm extremely disappointed. Musk has just demonstrated that the world's richest man can be intimidated by a court in Brazil, of all places. Ergo, what are the chances that you or I could stand up to the political and economic establishment in the USA? Oh, we could try...and they would crush us like bugs. I would argue that Musk has a responsibility to push back against censorship and to defy unreasonable orders from semi-authoritarian and authoritarian governments. After all, if not Musk, then who??? Unfortunately, governments all around the world will take heart from these developments. They will conclude that, ultimately, no one can withstand their righteous (?) fury. And they may be right.
RAY TO DR. WADDY
ReplyDeleteMuch more important than any thing else right now, is the fact that Governor Gavin Newsom of California has enacted a law banning plastic bags in grocery stores.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I think your concerns about Musk's apparent capitulation are very creditable and I agree with you completely about what the action may portend for us. The only consolation I can think of - a long shot- is the possibility that it is a tactical retreat for Musk in hopes of a regime change in Brazil
ReplyDeleteRay from Jack: Gee I thought far leftists were all for plastic bags considering how the Vietnamese commies used them.
ReplyDeleteRay, all California has done is make virtue-signaling mandatory by statute, instead of mandatory by social and economic pressure, including the potential destruction of one's livelihood. "Tighten the noose" might as well be the motto of modern progressivism.
ReplyDeleteJack, Musk's about-face in Brazil may well be a tactical retreat, and you're right that maintaining a modicum of liberty online may be better than clinging to a libertarian ideal that can never be realized. As I've said before, decisions about moderation are never easy, and I would hate to be in Musk's shoes.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Lock 'em up and throw away the key is the end game for the increasingly NOT incipient totalitarian antiamerican left, of which Kalifornia government is exemplary. It is of course customary for the far left to "fundamentally transform" entire nations into prisons and our far left honors that often affirmed tradition and anticipates its triumph with breathless emotion. Once under complete control, then erring peoples can be taught the sweetness of regimentation and dictated "guidance" by a faultless elite. As for the uncertainty, the unequal distribution of by definition unjustly construed and distributed "private property" , true EQUITY and resulting true well being is only possible when these despised and atavistic steps in human "progress" are forever left behind .
ReplyDelete