I've mentioned before and will again that (unfortunately) people do not seem to mind authoritarian rule by an expert class as long as they are reasonably comfortable under the rule of said class. People do (fortunately) tend to get restless under the rule of an expert class who proves to be incompetent and makes their lives worse. The ideas the current crop of Establishment Democrats are pushing are terrible for most Americans. Higher taxes with fewer benefits due to bureaucratic grift, importing millions of empoverished and easily exploited second class citizens, endless foreign wars, corporate monopolies, crushing small business, devisive identity politics, lowering educational standards in the name of the horribly racisist "anti-racist" notion that people of color can't be intellectually competitive, exporting jobs, censorship and skyrocketing domestic energy costs in the name of combatting global warming while simultaneously encouraging corporations to pollute gratuitously overseas. As conservative Charlie Kirk once said, the best things the opponents of the DNC have going for them is that the DNC policies are just so horrribly awful for the majority of Americans.
Thom Prentice's non-reply is exactly what THomas Frank is referring to...the Progressive Left can't argue their policy nor justify their policies so they demand censorship and until then you get tossed scorn.
Ooh, you added condescension -- what a bonus. And now I've added sarcasm. How fun. What was the point of any of it again? Oh, that's right -- there isn't one!
Might we conclude that engaging charitably is more useful?
There is nearly no substance in what you've said with which one *could* engage charitably (assuming you don't expect a random internet commentor to become your therapist). That was, in fact, my entire point.
The drift towards #McCarthyism, #censorship, #discrimination, and the abandonment of long-held #progressive principles such as #freedomofspeech started the moment Clinton blamed #Russianhacking for her losing to a TV reality star.
Today, Rep. Adam Schiff is indistinguishable from Senator Joseph McCarthy when it comes to #RedBaiting. #BigTech de-platforms and many mainstream media outlets #blacklist voices of opposing critical thought. Former Intel Agency Clinton loyalists (Brennan, Clapper, etc) all have contracts at #CNN and #MSNBC and groups like the #AtlanticCouncil and the #IntegrityInitiative - under the umbrella of the Global Engagement Center, call the shots.
A big part of the D problem with censorship is their woke pandering and conflict between ostensible client groups under the big tent. Look at discrimination against Asians in education-it’s not whites who get screwed by affirmative action, it’s Asians-but the Ds can’t acknowledge this b/c everyone knows it’s the GOP who are the racists, and the pollsters won’t let them offends constituency-blacks-that votes D more than any other demographic.
Same thing with the crime and violence explosion in big cities. The perpetrators are largely minority and doing their thing in cities thoroughly dominated by liberal/D officials. They can’t criticize themselves, so it’s easier to censor “racists” than answer difficult questions that don’t have an easy GOP scapegoat. Asians getting attacked in the Bay Area and NYC at an alarming rate-the attackers aren’t MAGA dudes from Kentucky. The black SF school board Vice President just got fired for making questionable tweets about Asians. If free speech gets whacked for non-religious reasons, it’s b/c the powers that be have something to hide, and in this case it’s accountability that doesn’t have a GOP/MAGA scapegoat.
I came across this succinct comment by a young Asian American (I will leave his name anonymous):
It’s not that Asian-Americans are a blind spot for progressives. It’s that the social-justice business model requires perpetual victimhood. The well-being of minorities is important only so long as it can be used as a political cudgel. It simply doesn’t fit the left’s narrative that a minority group can succeed in the U.S. with a culture of hard work and discipline.
The Biden administration dropped the Justice Department lawsuit against Yale that alleged discrimination against Asian-American applicants. It isn’t interested. But when a deranged gunman strikes—in an attack that may have had nothing to do with race, we don’t yet know—President Biden flies over immediately to denounce anti-Asian-American discrimination. This one fit the narrative.
This is why it’s called social justice. The modifier gives progressives the discretion to determine which groups deserve justice at which times. It’s a detraction from one of the most profound thoughts ever to reach the human mind: Justice is blind.
Great comment. Americans don't realize that if smart & successful immigrants (many from Asia) stop coming to the US, the country is headed for a big fall.
democrats are statists, not liberals. of the fascist or socialist variety. It makes no difference. They are not committed to any rights for the induvial on any level.
If by the 'general public' you mean Americans, then they don't understand. Bc Americans think liberalism is individualism plus armed-to-the teeth fanaticism. If the 'public' is from the more civilized parts of the world, then they know that liberalism, socialism, communism, anarchism--are similar concepts. The also believe Americans who inappropriately call themselves 'libertarian' are basically fascist. Put your maga hat back on.
Matt, American Liberalism is dead. We have an evenly-divided country, which a liberal would welcome as a challenge, and delight in insisting on reasoned discourse. Statist fascists have taken over the Democrat Party, which is in the process of becoming a permanent one-party state. Fear of criticism by Neanderthals has emasculated the Republican Party.
The big question I have is what will the Republicans do when they get back into power. Because they will get back into power, even as soon as 2024. Will they seek to restrain censorship and return to proper free speech and free press? Or will they seek revenge on those who censored them? The latter is very tempting, I'd imagine. And also worrisome.
The aberrance of the left from historical liberalism is driven by groupthink, often earnestly held opinion, driven by media they consume and social media effects. The GOP will do typical things when it is in power, like the GOP-favorable (but far from racist) moves you see in election law in GOP-controlled states right now.
But I don't think they're in a self-centered bubble dissociated from the common person, and I do think many of them are more in touch with real voters. So I think they will make moves but not Orwellian ones. Many of them talk the talk right now about FISA reform and holding Tech to account in line with DeSantis's recent moves. Perhaps they will be true to that.
The Democratic party has not only lost interest in free speech. It's actively promoting abandoning the First Amendnent for all but themselves.
Not just advocating restrictions. But punishment in the form of labeling and its repurcussions. AOC has declared that anyone using the term "surge" in relation to the southern border is a white supremacist.
raging lesbians, I mean that seriously, it is amazing how much the intolerant left comes back to them. Critical Race Theory for one. Not that they don't have reason to rage, but you can't make policy out of rage.
I'm not trying to be funny or facetious. You have to separate gays and lesbians from LGBT, Inc. much like you do blacks from Woke. But there's no question that these LGBT groups are the root cause.
Interesting thought...the cancel culture / virtue spirals in the hand knitting, craft world, as well as in other smallish industries like children's book writing seems to have been lead by the 'L' in the LGBT movement as well...
LGBT orgs have moved from liberation to censorious intoleration—especially the relentless banging on in behalf of the rigid ideological patriarchal male supremacist anti-woman trans industrial complex-leaving the vast majority of lesbians, gays and bis stupefied and driving lesbians out of their own movement.
Of course there is the obligatory anti-Trump quote: "Yeah, the guy’s stupid, but making fun of stupid people, that’s not a challenge."
Meanwhile, Trump was calling CDC restrictions on schools unreasonable last summer. That sounds pretty sharp to me, given that he's a non-expert and the CDC are now loosening.
For a "stupid" guy, he also did pretty well with Middle East peace and vaccine development. Not starting any new wars beats Nobel Peace Prize-winning Obama's record. Even the border wall, which Dems decry, is a rational response to the problem.
Speaking of free speech, the U.S. Supreme Court just issued its opinion in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, a case that challenged the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), 47 U.S.C. § 227. If you don’t like robocalls and robotexts, this April Fool’s joke is on you. Because Facebook won, it’s open season on your cellphone now. The ripples from this won’t just open the spigot on unlimited robotexts. Now anyone can legally robocall your cellphone hundreds or thousands of times a day, and no law can stop them.
You think you can’t answer a call now from an unknown number without talking to a third-world scammer trying to sell you an auto warranty or a scam lender you never heard of who calls herself "Rachel" and offers to refinance your credit card? Just see what happens now that Facebook has won. All hell will break loose on your cellphone all day every day. Anyone could legally robocall or robotext your cellphone hundreds of times a day and no one can stop them. You can thank Facebook for this outrage.
You can also thank the gutless, corporate-captured U.S. Congress. They could’ve fixed this problem last year when they were debating the TRACED Act, originally called the Stopping Bad Robocalls Act. (As if there are any good robocalls?) While considering that bill, New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone wanted to add two sentences to the TCPA to clarify that predictive dialers, the kind of calling system that all scofflaw telemarketers use today, which dial numbers from a database, are "automatic telephone dialing systems" under 47 U.S.C. § 227 and thus illegal. But Pallone’s bill went to a committee to synchronize the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, and lobbyists for the banking industry killed his fix of the TCPA.
You can see Pallone's proposed fix to the autodialer definition – the one that the bank lobbyists killed – at the PDF linked below, page 2, section 2(a)(1): “The term ‘robocall’ means a call made (including a text message sent)....”
It was the easiest fix imaginable – a couple of new sentences to the text of the statute for 47 U.S.C. § 227. The problem that Palone’s language would have fixed is that the imprecise definition of an illegal ATDS in 47 U.S.C. § 227 has not been updated since 1991, when telephone technology was simpler. This has caused endless problems and a circuit split in the federal courts that led to the Supreme Court hearing Facebook v. Duiguid.
Here's the problem: In 1991, autodialers only worked by dialing phone numbers sequentially or randomly. Today, no one uses a sequential or random autodialer. Instead, every telemarketer worth his or her offshore salt uses a “predictive dialer” into which they load thousands, tens of thousands, or millions of phone numbers and then pulls them into the dialer to call them: dialing from a database. The 1991 language that legally defines an autodialer – sequentially or randomly – doesn’t describe predictive dialers, so after today's SCOTUS decision, they’re legal everywhere, even if they make millions of unwanted calls a day. So you can thank our gutless Congress for that.
You can also thank the Washington State Democratic Central Committee. Last May, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a challenge to the TCPA in Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, brought by the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, a Tea Party political action committee, and three other political groups who think it’s just terrible that they can’t flood your cellphone during campaign season with text messages.
It’s a “free speech” issue, they said. I always thought free speech was when you set up a soap box in your local park or its print or online equivalent and had your say about some issue that bugs you. The American Association of Political Consultants apparently think free speech is setting up a soapbox on your cellphone to invade the privacy of your kitchen, living room, bedroom, or bathroom at any hour of the day or night. You can thank them, too.
Just remember, the U.S. Supreme Court decided as it did today because the banksters want to call tens of thousands of people like you per hour with autodialers, and Big Tech and every politician in this country want to send unlimited text messages to your cellphone. Even Bernie’s people send text messages unbidden to your phone.
Worst of all, this is not an outlier decision by the Supreme Court. It’s a strict constructionist’s dream decision. Our gutless Congress left them no choice, given the statutory text that Congress could’ve easily fixed last year or at any time in the last 20 years.
If you want to be a Duguider, write your congressperson and senator and tell them to fix the law by adding congressman Pallone’s easy fix to the TCPA. Otherwise, get ready to get robocalled and robotexted all day, every day.
Uh... valid points but... who answers unknown numbers anymore? horse/barn, train/port, ship/station., cows/something or another.. all have left. Car warranties, something about my Chase bank account in China (bit of a surprise to me), legal action blah, blah, ... A lack of acknowledgement to the "unknown" caller, small price to pay.
Even all postal mail goes right to the trash, never even look at it unless there is something expected(car registration, tax stuff, ordered-more stuff) anything else not online that matters, will be delivered in the form of legally "being served", woohoo... So, an ez life.
I can live a life quite abstracted from external influences, of any type. I only engage with those I want to engage, at a time of my choosing, in the way I wish to. Awesome.
You don't run a small business, then, you there enjoying your EZ life, removed from the real world of small-business owners. EVERY small-biz owner I know gets bombarded with telemarketing calls all day every day . They often work on tight deadlines, and they have to talk to any customers who call. Why should they have to lose business because their congresscritter was too corrupt to fix this law two years ago? Oh, yeah: So Facebook, Amazon, Google, and the Big Banks don't suffer. And it's going to get a lot worse because of this unanimous SCOTUS decision. As a notorious attorney who defends telemarketers wrote on Thursday night, "Yes, Facebook means that you can probably use most predictive dialers to call cell phones without consent. Yes, even for marketing purposes. Yes, even cold call solicitations to numbers that are not on the DNC list. Yes, this changes everything."
The primary issue at a broad social-cultural level is that we "citizenry" now feel, we can and should be able to isolate from "others" which is my biggest concern. It has become a primary and first choice "right" to control one's environment absolutely, secure in conformity and most importantly, unanimity. Not "gridlock", this is just walking away from participation which is vastly worse.
I doubt very seriously, that any justice on SCOTUS have telemarketing calls. There was a time when the privileged were a bit more circumspect in publicly revealing the extent of that "privilege". In fact, the difficulties of one social group are only acknowledged by another when social capital can also be developed. A bit like the old days of bitcoin mining, one sees social issues and then begins to mine them to build up individual and social identity group power.
Of course, that social currency mined, never seems to make it back to those from which extracted. Inner city as an example. Of course, at least with a particular bitcoin currency there is a determined and finite number so an end point in that case. Bitmining for social currency? Good gig, there is no end, can keep tapping that forever particularly when the patient never improves.
A bit far a field but that is why I ended my earlier comment with "This can only be good for society...?"
Regarding telemarketing calls... or scammers, let's just go there. Within a few years we will have our contact list fully integrated into our phone system, meaning that telco will require integrations into your approved list of contacts (SuiteCRM?) to manage this problem. For your benefit... This can only be good for ... ?
It is good to allow problems continuance, so that a "solution" drives to a particular path opening up new institutional opportunities for ... ? Well... it won't be small business.
I don't know what you're talking about, but I do know you're far removed from the average American small-biz owner who has to suffer robocalls all day every day, oh ye trust-fund baby. Let's just leave it at that, and excuse me, but I'm wanted back on planet Earth.
My HS journalism teacher and I fought the truly fascist John Birch Society in a suburb of its national hq hometown, Dallas, which ultimately “forced” the mossback admin to demand prior review of the student newspaper.
It was a cause celebe but we lost bec the Birchers didn’t want any commie pinko controversial articles and the admin didn’t want the pain in the neck.
The commie pinko controversial articles were about student criticism of hair and dress codes and the war moratoria days of October and November 1969.
The principal censored the p1 story about why she resigned and raised hell. When the printer, who knew the deal, called me to find out what I wanted to replace the story with, I said “nothing. Run white space so they’ll know something was there that someone didn’t want em to read.” He chuckled and did what I asked. For a time I remained editor until they finally found a young j teacher who would Stalinist purge me.
Ever since I have been fiercely opposed to censorship both by commission and omission and my mantra is “what they don’t tell you is far more important than what they do tell you.”
Prime Example of censorship by omission: How many out of the closet Marxist economists are on the business or political science faculties at Harvard, Boston, Yale, Stanford, Chicago !, UT Austin, USC, UCLA, GW, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Penn State, Michigan ...
Never did I ever think I would still be fighting censorship and the Birchers in 2021 — but the Birchers disguised as Democrats, the New York Times and CBS and msDNC news ...
and yes, despite Left Journalist Glenn Greenwald being occasionally invited on the Tucker Carlson show, still fighting out of the closet Birch media outlet Fox News itself.
Perhaps at one time. The Birchers were so proud of being located in Dallas that they had a billboard in the Stemmons Freeway IH 35E that proclaimed”Welcome to Dallas Home of the John Burch Society. Bruce Alger was the Bircher congressman from Dallas from 1955 to 1965. Any further questions?
"What happened? Why has American liberalism gone through such a sea change on this issue?"
The important point here is what happened after the 2008 Recession. For the last 12 years, Fed/government policies created massive investment in US cities (~765 billions across 11 cities). From this development you get the rise of (what I call) the "urban left".
Today's liberals are really just the urban bourgois of postindustrial society. I would argue you can't understand this sea change without understanding the major urban investment that's happened over the last 12 years. Three data points support this:
1. Changed nature of American left
2. Black populism manifest in Wokism - which is really a reaction to the lopsided urban development that built up white areas and either left out or gentrified black ones
I’ve missed Thomas Frank in the ‘Guardian’. My brother, a professor in CA, was told by colleagues there is no such thing as honor any longer...so this ‘mute button’ tyranny is no surprise. Good luck with that.
The footnote says the rest of the article is subscriber-only. AFAIK, I am a subscriber to 'TK News' but I see no way to view the entire article. Does anyone else have this issue?
When you watch the violence in many countries in the lead up to their elections, one of the primary reasons for the bloodshed is that the government is so powerful that -- should the other side win -- your life is going to be a misery.
Piling on top of the U.S. government's already massive power the ability to silence your political opponents will make the prize that much more important -- and that much more worthwhile to shed blood over.
The idiots calling for censorship don't seem to realize the bloodbath they are willing to unleash. For all their college degrees, they aren't that smart.
I've started reading "Cynical Theories", which traces the current "Social Justice" movement to post-modernism. To that theory's adherents, notions of objective truth are anathema. So it's interesting that the movement has so many incontestable facts: election integrity, global warming, masks, systemic racism, etc. To the Social Justice movement, knowledge and facts are purely strategic tools for power, much as a psychopathic liar would see them.
The theme of these conclusions (systemic racism, the science is settled, election integrity, etc.) is that they are invented. This is the opposite of the scientific method.
I've mentioned before and will again that (unfortunately) people do not seem to mind authoritarian rule by an expert class as long as they are reasonably comfortable under the rule of said class. People do (fortunately) tend to get restless under the rule of an expert class who proves to be incompetent and makes their lives worse. The ideas the current crop of Establishment Democrats are pushing are terrible for most Americans. Higher taxes with fewer benefits due to bureaucratic grift, importing millions of empoverished and easily exploited second class citizens, endless foreign wars, corporate monopolies, crushing small business, devisive identity politics, lowering educational standards in the name of the horribly racisist "anti-racist" notion that people of color can't be intellectually competitive, exporting jobs, censorship and skyrocketing domestic energy costs in the name of combatting global warming while simultaneously encouraging corporations to pollute gratuitously overseas. As conservative Charlie Kirk once said, the best things the opponents of the DNC have going for them is that the DNC policies are just so horrribly awful for the majority of Americans.
Oh puh-leaze.
You got me. There is just no adequade rebuttal to such a carefully considered and witty takedown. I am writing a check to the DNC immediately.
Thom Prentice's non-reply is exactly what THomas Frank is referring to...the Progressive Left can't argue their policy nor justify their policies so they demand censorship and until then you get tossed scorn.
You mistake carefully considered and witty for both scorn and contempt, my dear.
Ooh, you added condescension -- what a bonus. And now I've added sarcasm. How fun. What was the point of any of it again? Oh, that's right -- there isn't one!
Might we conclude that engaging charitably is more useful?
You go first, bitch.
There is nearly no substance in what you've said with which one *could* engage charitably (assuming you don't expect a random internet commentor to become your therapist). That was, in fact, my entire point.
...and the flip-flopping Fauci....
The drift towards #McCarthyism, #censorship, #discrimination, and the abandonment of long-held #progressive principles such as #freedomofspeech started the moment Clinton blamed #Russianhacking for her losing to a TV reality star.
Today, Rep. Adam Schiff is indistinguishable from Senator Joseph McCarthy when it comes to #RedBaiting. #BigTech de-platforms and many mainstream media outlets #blacklist voices of opposing critical thought. Former Intel Agency Clinton loyalists (Brennan, Clapper, etc) all have contracts at #CNN and #MSNBC and groups like the #AtlanticCouncil and the #IntegrityInitiative - under the umbrella of the Global Engagement Center, call the shots.
Schiff is a Himmler in the making
He even LOOKS like Himmler. Slap the rimless specs on him and call it a day.
A big part of the D problem with censorship is their woke pandering and conflict between ostensible client groups under the big tent. Look at discrimination against Asians in education-it’s not whites who get screwed by affirmative action, it’s Asians-but the Ds can’t acknowledge this b/c everyone knows it’s the GOP who are the racists, and the pollsters won’t let them offends constituency-blacks-that votes D more than any other demographic.
Same thing with the crime and violence explosion in big cities. The perpetrators are largely minority and doing their thing in cities thoroughly dominated by liberal/D officials. They can’t criticize themselves, so it’s easier to censor “racists” than answer difficult questions that don’t have an easy GOP scapegoat. Asians getting attacked in the Bay Area and NYC at an alarming rate-the attackers aren’t MAGA dudes from Kentucky. The black SF school board Vice President just got fired for making questionable tweets about Asians. If free speech gets whacked for non-religious reasons, it’s b/c the powers that be have something to hide, and in this case it’s accountability that doesn’t have a GOP/MAGA scapegoat.
I came across this succinct comment by a young Asian American (I will leave his name anonymous):
It’s not that Asian-Americans are a blind spot for progressives. It’s that the social-justice business model requires perpetual victimhood. The well-being of minorities is important only so long as it can be used as a political cudgel. It simply doesn’t fit the left’s narrative that a minority group can succeed in the U.S. with a culture of hard work and discipline.
The Biden administration dropped the Justice Department lawsuit against Yale that alleged discrimination against Asian-American applicants. It isn’t interested. But when a deranged gunman strikes—in an attack that may have had nothing to do with race, we don’t yet know—President Biden flies over immediately to denounce anti-Asian-American discrimination. This one fit the narrative.
This is why it’s called social justice. The modifier gives progressives the discretion to determine which groups deserve justice at which times. It’s a detraction from one of the most profound thoughts ever to reach the human mind: Justice is blind.
Great comment. Americans don't realize that if smart & successful immigrants (many from Asia) stop coming to the US, the country is headed for a big fall.
democrats are statists, not liberals. of the fascist or socialist variety. It makes no difference. They are not committed to any rights for the induvial on any level.
Correctomundo-as a libertarian I really wish the general public would understand what statism is.
If by the 'general public' you mean Americans, then they don't understand. Bc Americans think liberalism is individualism plus armed-to-the teeth fanaticism. If the 'public' is from the more civilized parts of the world, then they know that liberalism, socialism, communism, anarchism--are similar concepts. The also believe Americans who inappropriately call themselves 'libertarian' are basically fascist. Put your maga hat back on.
Matt, American Liberalism is dead. We have an evenly-divided country, which a liberal would welcome as a challenge, and delight in insisting on reasoned discourse. Statist fascists have taken over the Democrat Party, which is in the process of becoming a permanent one-party state. Fear of criticism by Neanderthals has emasculated the Republican Party.
The big question I have is what will the Republicans do when they get back into power. Because they will get back into power, even as soon as 2024. Will they seek to restrain censorship and return to proper free speech and free press? Or will they seek revenge on those who censored them? The latter is very tempting, I'd imagine. And also worrisome.
Oh, but wouldn't it be fun #karma'sAbitch
The aberrance of the left from historical liberalism is driven by groupthink, often earnestly held opinion, driven by media they consume and social media effects. The GOP will do typical things when it is in power, like the GOP-favorable (but far from racist) moves you see in election law in GOP-controlled states right now.
But I don't think they're in a self-centered bubble dissociated from the common person, and I do think many of them are more in touch with real voters. So I think they will make moves but not Orwellian ones. Many of them talk the talk right now about FISA reform and holding Tech to account in line with DeSantis's recent moves. Perhaps they will be true to that.
Depends. Trump wins? Or Desantis?
The Democratic party has not only lost interest in free speech. It's actively promoting abandoning the First Amendnent for all but themselves.
Not just advocating restrictions. But punishment in the form of labeling and its repurcussions. AOC has declared that anyone using the term "surge" in relation to the southern border is a white supremacist.
American left will never, ever confront the root cause: radical LGBT groups that have ushered in postmodern (anti-liberal) ideology.
Even the good liberals fighting the good fight don't want to go there. Look how financially powerful and well-armed these groups are.
raging lesbians, I mean that seriously, it is amazing how much the intolerant left comes back to them. Critical Race Theory for one. Not that they don't have reason to rage, but you can't make policy out of rage.
I'm not trying to be funny or facetious. You have to separate gays and lesbians from LGBT, Inc. much like you do blacks from Woke. But there's no question that these LGBT groups are the root cause.
Interesting thought...the cancel culture / virtue spirals in the hand knitting, craft world, as well as in other smallish industries like children's book writing seems to have been lead by the 'L' in the LGBT movement as well...
LGBT orgs have moved from liberation to censorious intoleration—especially the relentless banging on in behalf of the rigid ideological patriarchal male supremacist anti-woman trans industrial complex-leaving the vast majority of lesbians, gays and bis stupefied and driving lesbians out of their own movement.
https://www.ft.com/content/c5ce0834-9a64-11e8-9702-5946bae86e6d rigid ideological industrial complex-
I don’t know how those two comments merged but they did.
Of course there is the obligatory anti-Trump quote: "Yeah, the guy’s stupid, but making fun of stupid people, that’s not a challenge."
Meanwhile, Trump was calling CDC restrictions on schools unreasonable last summer. That sounds pretty sharp to me, given that he's a non-expert and the CDC are now loosening.
For a "stupid" guy, he also did pretty well with Middle East peace and vaccine development. Not starting any new wars beats Nobel Peace Prize-winning Obama's record. Even the border wall, which Dems decry, is a rational response to the problem.
Oddly, when Nancy Pelosi wanted protection, the first thing she did was install a wall around the people’s
house. Walls and barriers work in pretty much every context where you are trying to keep people out, banks, military bases, you name it.
"Good fences make good neighbors." But common sense is too simple for the intelligentsia.
https://c19hcq.com/
Speaking of free speech, the U.S. Supreme Court just issued its opinion in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, a case that challenged the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), 47 U.S.C. § 227. If you don’t like robocalls and robotexts, this April Fool’s joke is on you. Because Facebook won, it’s open season on your cellphone now. The ripples from this won’t just open the spigot on unlimited robotexts. Now anyone can legally robocall your cellphone hundreds or thousands of times a day, and no law can stop them.
You think you can’t answer a call now from an unknown number without talking to a third-world scammer trying to sell you an auto warranty or a scam lender you never heard of who calls herself "Rachel" and offers to refinance your credit card? Just see what happens now that Facebook has won. All hell will break loose on your cellphone all day every day. Anyone could legally robocall or robotext your cellphone hundreds of times a day and no one can stop them. You can thank Facebook for this outrage.
You can also thank the gutless, corporate-captured U.S. Congress. They could’ve fixed this problem last year when they were debating the TRACED Act, originally called the Stopping Bad Robocalls Act. (As if there are any good robocalls?) While considering that bill, New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone wanted to add two sentences to the TCPA to clarify that predictive dialers, the kind of calling system that all scofflaw telemarketers use today, which dial numbers from a database, are "automatic telephone dialing systems" under 47 U.S.C. § 227 and thus illegal. But Pallone’s bill went to a committee to synchronize the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, and lobbyists for the banking industry killed his fix of the TCPA.
You can see Pallone's proposed fix to the autodialer definition – the one that the bank lobbyists killed – at the PDF linked below, page 2, section 2(a)(1): “The term ‘robocall’ means a call made (including a text message sent)....”
https://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/files/documents/PALLONE_0.pdf
It was the easiest fix imaginable – a couple of new sentences to the text of the statute for 47 U.S.C. § 227. The problem that Palone’s language would have fixed is that the imprecise definition of an illegal ATDS in 47 U.S.C. § 227 has not been updated since 1991, when telephone technology was simpler. This has caused endless problems and a circuit split in the federal courts that led to the Supreme Court hearing Facebook v. Duiguid.
Here's the problem: In 1991, autodialers only worked by dialing phone numbers sequentially or randomly. Today, no one uses a sequential or random autodialer. Instead, every telemarketer worth his or her offshore salt uses a “predictive dialer” into which they load thousands, tens of thousands, or millions of phone numbers and then pulls them into the dialer to call them: dialing from a database. The 1991 language that legally defines an autodialer – sequentially or randomly – doesn’t describe predictive dialers, so after today's SCOTUS decision, they’re legal everywhere, even if they make millions of unwanted calls a day. So you can thank our gutless Congress for that.
You can also thank the Washington State Democratic Central Committee. Last May, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a challenge to the TCPA in Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, brought by the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, a Tea Party political action committee, and three other political groups who think it’s just terrible that they can’t flood your cellphone during campaign season with text messages.
It’s a “free speech” issue, they said. I always thought free speech was when you set up a soap box in your local park or its print or online equivalent and had your say about some issue that bugs you. The American Association of Political Consultants apparently think free speech is setting up a soapbox on your cellphone to invade the privacy of your kitchen, living room, bedroom, or bathroom at any hour of the day or night. You can thank them, too.
Just remember, the U.S. Supreme Court decided as it did today because the banksters want to call tens of thousands of people like you per hour with autodialers, and Big Tech and every politician in this country want to send unlimited text messages to your cellphone. Even Bernie’s people send text messages unbidden to your phone.
Worst of all, this is not an outlier decision by the Supreme Court. It’s a strict constructionist’s dream decision. Our gutless Congress left them no choice, given the statutory text that Congress could’ve easily fixed last year or at any time in the last 20 years.
If you want to be a Duguider, write your congressperson and senator and tell them to fix the law by adding congressman Pallone’s easy fix to the TCPA. Otherwise, get ready to get robocalled and robotexted all day, every day.
Uh... valid points but... who answers unknown numbers anymore? horse/barn, train/port, ship/station., cows/something or another.. all have left. Car warranties, something about my Chase bank account in China (bit of a surprise to me), legal action blah, blah, ... A lack of acknowledgement to the "unknown" caller, small price to pay.
Even all postal mail goes right to the trash, never even look at it unless there is something expected(car registration, tax stuff, ordered-more stuff) anything else not online that matters, will be delivered in the form of legally "being served", woohoo... So, an ez life.
I can live a life quite abstracted from external influences, of any type. I only engage with those I want to engage, at a time of my choosing, in the way I wish to. Awesome.
This can only be good for society...?
You don't run a small business, then, you there enjoying your EZ life, removed from the real world of small-business owners. EVERY small-biz owner I know gets bombarded with telemarketing calls all day every day . They often work on tight deadlines, and they have to talk to any customers who call. Why should they have to lose business because their congresscritter was too corrupt to fix this law two years ago? Oh, yeah: So Facebook, Amazon, Google, and the Big Banks don't suffer. And it's going to get a lot worse because of this unanimous SCOTUS decision. As a notorious attorney who defends telemarketers wrote on Thursday night, "Yes, Facebook means that you can probably use most predictive dialers to call cell phones without consent. Yes, even for marketing purposes. Yes, even cold call solicitations to numbers that are not on the DNC list. Yes, this changes everything."
https://tcpaworld.com/2021/04/01/facebook-is-out-the-6-most-critical-take-aways-and-one-most-important-question-following-the-supreme-courts-huge-tcpa-atds-ruling-today/
Teed up well enough for you? :)
The primary issue at a broad social-cultural level is that we "citizenry" now feel, we can and should be able to isolate from "others" which is my biggest concern. It has become a primary and first choice "right" to control one's environment absolutely, secure in conformity and most importantly, unanimity. Not "gridlock", this is just walking away from participation which is vastly worse.
I doubt very seriously, that any justice on SCOTUS have telemarketing calls. There was a time when the privileged were a bit more circumspect in publicly revealing the extent of that "privilege". In fact, the difficulties of one social group are only acknowledged by another when social capital can also be developed. A bit like the old days of bitcoin mining, one sees social issues and then begins to mine them to build up individual and social identity group power.
Of course, that social currency mined, never seems to make it back to those from which extracted. Inner city as an example. Of course, at least with a particular bitcoin currency there is a determined and finite number so an end point in that case. Bitmining for social currency? Good gig, there is no end, can keep tapping that forever particularly when the patient never improves.
A bit far a field but that is why I ended my earlier comment with "This can only be good for society...?"
Regarding telemarketing calls... or scammers, let's just go there. Within a few years we will have our contact list fully integrated into our phone system, meaning that telco will require integrations into your approved list of contacts (SuiteCRM?) to manage this problem. For your benefit... This can only be good for ... ?
It is good to allow problems continuance, so that a "solution" drives to a particular path opening up new institutional opportunities for ... ? Well... it won't be small business.
I don't know what you're talking about, but I do know you're far removed from the average American small-biz owner who has to suffer robocalls all day every day, oh ye trust-fund baby. Let's just leave it at that, and excuse me, but I'm wanted back on planet Earth.
My HS journalism teacher and I fought the truly fascist John Birch Society in a suburb of its national hq hometown, Dallas, which ultimately “forced” the mossback admin to demand prior review of the student newspaper.
It was a cause celebe but we lost bec the Birchers didn’t want any commie pinko controversial articles and the admin didn’t want the pain in the neck.
The commie pinko controversial articles were about student criticism of hair and dress codes and the war moratoria days of October and November 1969.
The principal censored the p1 story about why she resigned and raised hell. When the printer, who knew the deal, called me to find out what I wanted to replace the story with, I said “nothing. Run white space so they’ll know something was there that someone didn’t want em to read.” He chuckled and did what I asked. For a time I remained editor until they finally found a young j teacher who would Stalinist purge me.
Ever since I have been fiercely opposed to censorship both by commission and omission and my mantra is “what they don’t tell you is far more important than what they do tell you.”
Prime Example of censorship by omission: How many out of the closet Marxist economists are on the business or political science faculties at Harvard, Boston, Yale, Stanford, Chicago !, UT Austin, USC, UCLA, GW, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Penn State, Michigan ...
Never did I ever think I would still be fighting censorship and the Birchers in 2021 — but the Birchers disguised as Democrats, the New York Times and CBS and msDNC news ...
and yes, despite Left Journalist Glenn Greenwald being occasionally invited on the Tucker Carlson show, still fighting out of the closet Birch media outlet Fox News itself.
The Birch Society headquarters was in South Pasadena. I knew their one Congressman.
Perhaps at one time. The Birchers were so proud of being located in Dallas that they had a billboard in the Stemmons Freeway IH 35E that proclaimed”Welcome to Dallas Home of the John Burch Society. Bruce Alger was the Bircher congressman from Dallas from 1955 to 1965. Any further questions?
"What happened? Why has American liberalism gone through such a sea change on this issue?"
The important point here is what happened after the 2008 Recession. For the last 12 years, Fed/government policies created massive investment in US cities (~765 billions across 11 cities). From this development you get the rise of (what I call) the "urban left".
Today's liberals are really just the urban bourgois of postindustrial society. I would argue you can't understand this sea change without understanding the major urban investment that's happened over the last 12 years. Three data points support this:
1. Changed nature of American left
2. Black populism manifest in Wokism - which is really a reaction to the lopsided urban development that built up white areas and either left out or gentrified black ones
3. Rural white populism/Trumpism
I’ve missed Thomas Frank in the ‘Guardian’. My brother, a professor in CA, was told by colleagues there is no such thing as honor any longer...so this ‘mute button’ tyranny is no surprise. Good luck with that.
The footnote says the rest of the article is subscriber-only. AFAIK, I am a subscriber to 'TK News' but I see no way to view the entire article. Does anyone else have this issue?
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Same here
I have same problem.
When you watch the violence in many countries in the lead up to their elections, one of the primary reasons for the bloodshed is that the government is so powerful that -- should the other side win -- your life is going to be a misery.
Piling on top of the U.S. government's already massive power the ability to silence your political opponents will make the prize that much more important -- and that much more worthwhile to shed blood over.
The idiots calling for censorship don't seem to realize the bloodbath they are willing to unleash. For all their college degrees, they aren't that smart.
I've started reading "Cynical Theories", which traces the current "Social Justice" movement to post-modernism. To that theory's adherents, notions of objective truth are anathema. So it's interesting that the movement has so many incontestable facts: election integrity, global warming, masks, systemic racism, etc. To the Social Justice movement, knowledge and facts are purely strategic tools for power, much as a psychopathic liar would see them.
The theme of these conclusions (systemic racism, the science is settled, election integrity, etc.) is that they are invented. This is the opposite of the scientific method.