Wish this wasn't paywalled because it should be shared far and wide. Thank you for the detailed report. I've been increasingly concerned about how European speech laws are going to eventually trickle their way into the US. COVID was the test in the US and we failed miserably. Love or hate him, Musk buying Twitter at least delayed mass censorship. ... But censorship is not just government stopping speech, there is something to be said about the legacy media refusing to report on certain things because they're trying to steer public opinion.
"COVID was the test in the US and we failed miserably" if we could somehow have managed to stop time before the Great Barrington Declaration and the public revelations about the origin of the Coof virus, the megalomaniacal yammering of Fauci, and so forth.
Also recall that the Biden administration's efforts to create a ministry of disinformation was exposed, criticized, and throttled before it could exercise any control.
The Freedom of Information Act, heroic individual efforts from Elon Musk, intrepid independent reporters like Mr. Taibbi here, and the First Amendment are having a positive effect.
It is, of course, important to remain constantly aware of threats to the dissemination of truth and to free speech, but the "legacy media" continues to foul its own nest and grows more discredited by the day, and while declarations of their death have been somewhat premature, I attribute this lengthy death rattle to the sheer size, power, wealth, deviousness, and tenacity of those who would keep it alive.
Many Americans proved to be very sheepish and nasty during the Coof hysteria, but you have to consider the fact that we were bamboozled by virtually every single authority in the country and by the more dim and hateful among us with large audiences, like the late-night talk show assholes. Look at where their foolish promotion of conformity got them. They are hated and ridiculed and they deserve it.
In short, I'm pretty optimistic for the future of freedom of information and speech here in the US as things become more decentralized and more champions of truth make themselves heard. We also have the horrific examples of Germany and the UK to keep us reminded of the need for vigilance.
Well, sheeit . . . . I declared a couple of days ago I was going to disengage from current events, but I guess I'm too much in love with the sound of my own vaporings to shut up for more than a couple of days.
I really mean it this time. I'm going silent. That's my Christmas gift to you all.
The best thing about COVID was the rise in independent media. But I still think the US failed -- our people failed -- and caved into the pressure. Too many became Gladys Kravitz and enjoyed their power. My niece's soccer coach in California had the police sent to his house because he was training girls -- one-on-one! -- in violation of some stupid rule. Small businesses were destroyed but big businesses thrived. Churches shuttered. Schools closed. Kids suffered grave learning loss. People want to put it all behind us, but we forget to our own peril. ..... That all said, I am trying to disengage from current events, but I just need to know what's going on.
The upside of the richness of sources is that there are more people covering more topics with more viewpoints, which is fantastic. The downside is that the average citizen has a finite budget for information, and at $5-$10/news source/month, that quickly adds up.
Our wide open American internet viewpoint richness is wonderful, but the average apolitical working person truly has no clue or time to discover whom to trust when they want real information anymore.
And old reflexes to check CNN or whatever they grew up with die hard. I pray this part of the electorate catches up with the rest of us in time. I’m always sharing my sources with bemused friends, but still…
eastern European humor. Sometimes it was so sad you had to laugh. Zoshchenko was a master of this genre. Of course, all too often, the joke was on you. Real things were sources of humor. Such as the day my husband and I passed a group of people staring into a big hole in the ground on our way home to the "foreigners internment camp" aka apartments for diplomats on Leningrad's Vasilevskiy Ostrov one summer. We were so curious that we took our dog for a walk to that hole, looked in and saw there was absolutely nothing there. And yet...those folks had stood there looking in as if it were a tarot board. Perhaps it was.
You do not seem to understand the difference between a host making you leave his house, and the government using force of law to control your expression in all places and all circumstances.
You do not seem to understand what free speech means. You must be one of the totalitarian WOKE-folk.
And remember, these Substack hosts are those who made lots of $$$ on pretending they were upholders of free speech, while using censorship against their own subscribers.
I lost a year's worth of subscriber fees on the PUBLIC Shellenberg Substack when he cut me off for questioning him. But he kept the full fees. If an MSM site did that, wouldn't they be called for consumer fraud? Since when can a subscriber not put in a complaint or question to the media site they subscribe to? And if they do, they get cut-off and the site keeps the fees?
And this man is supposed to be testifying in Congress about free speech? He makes a farce of it. I do you a favour by calling him out.
Michael Shellenberger was a leftwing activist for a long time, and still lives in Berkeley. He has only an M.A., so he could not establish an academic career. But he saw financial opportunities in renting a Substack page and pretending that he had awakened from WOKE and seen the light. As if he the king of the awakened. Hah! I notice that subscribers are leaving his Substack. The commenters have really dwindled there. Shellenberger just keeps repeating the same old, same old, at increasingly wide intervals. And he thinks it is magnificent insight. People are only going to be fooled for so long. Although if you have invested in him as your Substack rock star, it is unlikely you will take to the truth here.
Shame on you for supporting this! Totalitarians such as those today in Germany use the same threadbare deceitful excuse that you do. Even after this article, you do not learn?
How childish and silly that concept of yours is. There is law involved here. And possibly consumer fraud by Substack hosts who do this. Not to mention huge hypocrisy by those who have readers believing they are protectors of free speech and democracy…hah! Substack is a big money-making venture for those who score here.
You sound like a disgruntled rock star groupie in a teen fan magazine, who had learned that her hero has feet of clay. But she is going to make-up silly things to defend him anyway.
In these cases, Substack was a paid product, on a public platform.
It was as if these hosts who practice banning had refused service to someone because that someone was a certain ethnicity. Since the host decided they did not like them.
This is not the host's private home, into which I am freely invited. It is a business, for which the host is renting a page on a digital platform. I paid what they charged for the access and the service options. If you subscribe to the NYT and pay your fees, then they cut your service because you had written a letter to the editor disagreeing with a story they printed....you think that is OK? Are you a Russian bot rather than an American? You seem unfamiliar with consumer rights and free speech.
You seem unfamiliar with American standards of freedom of association.
fwiw, I have also been blocked by a substack that claims to be for free expression and anti-woke, and grossly insulted by the substack blogger as she blocked me. She is an asshole, and maybe the people who blocked you are assholes, I don't know your situation. But, I chose not to let some jerk whom I will never meet get under my skin.
I am calling out the various Substack myths. Of which there are several. Notice that there is usually nowhere you can discuss Substack myths and problems...on Substack? I think they planned it that way, Even though several Substack hosts make a living from calling-out others, you cannot do the same to them. What an irony!
I am also pointing out how con-artistry operates.
Plus the fact that people who are the readers here can be taken for a ride by their rock stars....as the popular Substack hosts are assumed to be.
These readers are like wide-eyed children believing in Santa Claus. All just because some person found a way to make loads of money on a digital platform where they rent a page, and it is possible to write lots of opinion and airy-fairy unsubstantiated nonsense for the paying punters. They know what the readers will pay for, so they give it to them. Even though this requires zero credentials or reference work or real knowledge. Many Substack hosts just make it up as they go along. And watch the folks out there lap it up!
I think I have higher standards than you. I expect better from paid reading material and those who produce it.
The Substack platform is a Wild West with no oversight whatsoever. This must be a gift from Heaven for con-artists who can make up anything they think you will pay for. And rake in the subscriber fees. There have been grifters like this even under established publishing houses -- Laurens van der Post, Carlos Casteneda, Greg Mortenson, Lance Armstrong, Raynor Wynn.
You need to have more adult discernment and less childlike naivete.
Has anyone here ever calculated how much Matt T. must make out of Substack? Mind-boggling. I write more than he does, and I do not receive a penny. Matt seems to be an honest sort.....but I never knew that honesty paid this well. Only in the Substack world......
Not certain whether that was directed at me. If so, I will have to re-tool my opinion of you. I once thought you had some wisdom and decency, Brian. What has happened to you?
I am a writer, my friend. Voluminous text out of voluminous thought is what I do best. Isn't Substack exactly the right place for that?
Now if I signed-up for renting a Substack page, that talent of mine would be considered a real asset. But while I remain a commenter only, it is considered a fault?
My theme today is ironies. Cough, cough.
Don't you all come to Substack in order to -- wait for it -- read writing? Then I offer it to you, without charge, and there are those who complain?
Upside-down land. This must be Silly Sunday.....
It could be that all that screen time has halved your attention span, and so your reading volume is limited and less than average. I have no such problem. Never have. So I cannot offer you any tips to improve. Alas.
Who else has banned me for truth-telling on Substack? Sasha Stone, Michael Shellenberger, Eugyppius, and El Gato/Bad Cattitude.
Note that these hosts all run their Substack product on the theme of "Free Speech/No Censorship"? I learned this is only a marketing ploy for them.
They mean they believe in free speech only until the moment someone's free speech does not sit well with them. And my free speech was always reasonable. Nothing extremist or hateful. But it may have caused a few awkward moments for these hosts, as all good debate does. Because I questioned a few things they had already proclaimed to be truth. And you, know.....they have paying subscribers who might stop subscribing.
How is this any different from corrupt MSM?
I know a great deal on the subject of totalitarianism. I have more formal education and experience on that a subject than all of them combined.
Therefore, they need to get the competition (me) off their Substack. Ahem.
I can always tell when the various Cluster-B types arrive on the forum. When they smell blood. When they see the possibility of needling someone into an emotional argument, which gets them their daily Narcissistic Supply.
You types are SO transparent. You and Kathy run along. Your goose is cooked.
Well they would be wrong, Kathy. Sounds to me like a very manipulative excuse to get rid of someone who does not bow to your supposed magnificence, or who shines a light on false narratives or omissions. Are you a paid-up subscriber to "Yuri" by chance?
Perhaps you are a troll, Kathy. You do not seem to understand the lesson of this article about totalitarianism in Germany when they trash free speech. You seem to agree with the modern German way.
A., I don’t subscribe to Yuri, but I see his comments on many substacks I do subscribe to. I never made a judgement on whether it was right or wrong to ban you. I’ve never heard of you. I don’t know what you write in the comments that causes people to ban you. I don’t like moderated comments and it’s the main reason I cancelled my subscription to the Wall Street Journal after 20 years. Once they started moderating comments and deleting anything that didn’t conform to some 23 year old intern’s ideology, I cashed out. Anyway, I was just trying to give you a possible answer as to why so many writers have banned you.
Is that your own special brand of truth? You of course have your own 'stack to present all of that, right? Or is your performance more in the character of a gadfly?
You should change your name to Very Curmudgeonly. You have gone beyond Rather.
You appear to think that not only do you know me, but that you know the subject of totalitarianism inside out. Which I doubt. And btw, I have a higher level of formal education than you, going by your bio.
Too funny! Your sort does pop up here every so often. And we feel obliged to put them in their place.
It's hard to take seriously someone with an ego so inflated that they think they're smarter than everyone else put together: "I have more formal education and experience on that subject than all of them combined."
Free speech assumes everyone has an a different view. I think some of these writers have valuable viewpoints and do not write to gain brownie points including subscriptions. That assumption seems askew.
Sheesh.....for an article on free speech, too may commenters here today have not put much thought into it. Or else the trolls are coming out of the woodwork because they smell blood.
Nor have they read the Robert Cialdini books on evolutionary patterns of Influence and Persuasion.
Get with it! Do your homework.
We have comment forums on each Substack where I have regularly read material equal to or better than what many Substack hosts offer.
The Substack schtick is just another way for some people to profit on a digital platform. It does not mean they know any more than the commenters below, necessarily. Though many hosts let their arrogance run away with them, and believe they are minor gods, at least.
Why do so many people out there confuse what Substack is? It's a profit-making rent-a-page platform where if you can work the Influence element, even mediocre material can be a money-maker. Whereas I have also seen excellent Substack material which goes unnoticed. Perhaps because those writers are not quite as full of themselves, and it never occurs to them to add their own PR. They actually believe that good work sells itself.
Though the reality is that popularity and entertainment and con-artistry are more likely to sell. And commenters here, no matter how good or how generous with their information, may be treated like scum if they question the "celebrity" hosts.
People whose sense of self has been projected onto a god or a supposed celebrity are going to bark at anyone who questions that.
I find it hilarious! Especially under an article on the trashing of free speech.
only longer than a migrant rapist until Adolph's Second Coming has all the power he needs, and then ka-pow. My goodness, they'll be lucky to escape with their lives.
I respectfully disagree---if only they were mere cowards! They are possessed by the will to power, and will not be sated until their power is nearly absolute--or, as John Kerry put it a few years ago, the First Amendment is a problem that stands between them and "total control."
And they continue to seek to do to the First Amendment what they have largely done to the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth, and have been trying with limited success to do to the Second. We will be left with the form but little of the substance.
Cowards failed to stand up for those rights. Cowards do bad things to others on purpose to sound good at the country club. Cowards do nothing in the face of enemies who tell them they want them dead. Cowards let drug addicts die on the streets beneath the feet of those who just need to get to work today. That’s what I mean. It isn’t courageous to grift an elected position to get rich. That’s easy now. Too easy.
This is about Britain, but all the same ideas, tactics, goals and lies apply. Our globalist overlords are not going to take NO for an answer and are done trying to persuade or reach any compromise with its populace. It's just easiest for now with Germans, as they've never been so great when it comes to individual liberty and always seem to get carried away when it comes to mass utopian schemes that promise transcendence through obedience—in this case the German desire for public atonement and uniformity, which in the end will end up installing a techno-dictatorship all in the name of NOT being Nazis—Renaud Camus calls this "the second career of Adolf Hitler"—History always shows that people are more likely to achieve only the opposite of whatever grand plan they set out to create.)
"There’s a grim honesty to what is happening in Britain now: the state no longer pretends it trusts the public. It has stopped trying to persuade, and started to monitor, manage and pre-empt. The latest plan – to link live facial recognition cameras with the passport database of 45 million Britons – is not a policing reform. It’s the quiet construction of a national surveillance net, a system that treats every citizen as a suspect-in-waiting, to be scanned, tagged and logged as they move through daily life.
The sales pitch is as predictable as it is hollow. Ministers talk of “serious criminals,” “dangerous offenders,” “public safety,” and the “biggest breakthrough since DNA.” Every authoritarian state has used the same script. What matters is not the slogan. What matters is the architecture: a biometric network reading faces in public spaces, connected to a na-tional identity database, and authorised to run searches without consent, knowledge or warrant. That’s not law enforcement. It’s population management.
We should stop pretending this is about crime. Crime is the pretext. The state wants a system that knows who you are, where you are, who you meet, and what you do – because it believes liberty is not an asset but a risk. Free people cannot be managed. They must be persuaded, and persuasion requires humility, patience, and consent. This government wants none of that.
Well said, as always. This whole globalism thing is friggin creepy. The so-called Rules-Based International Order practically advertises its own flaw: rules for whom, and made by whom? The premise assumes a class entitled to dictate terms — naked elitism dressed up as governance.
What’s wild is how predictable this all feels in hindsight. The Soviet collapse cleared the field, and with no counterweight a handful of Western Allies mistook a temporary moment of dominance for a permanent mandate. You’d think the rise of China — a civilizational superpower with its own interests and zero appetite for Western tutelage — would have forced a serious re-think. Yet here we are, doubling down instead. If this keeps up I'm moving to Israel.
As Houllebecq says (paraphrasing): For those of us with no Israel, where do we go?
(I personally am much closer to moving into a cemetery than to Israel.)
Many books and thinkers, maybe the best example here being Burnham's "Managerial Revolution", found a commonality in all our modern ideologies, from capitalism to Marxism to Nazism to socialism etc: the idea that society could be guided, conditioned and controlled by a ruling class blessed with some sort of gnostic wisdom, from a vanguard class armed w "critical consciousness" to our modern economic technocracy—because of their education credentials and esp bc "the masses" are too ignorant and volatile to know what's best for them and always refuse to obey their betters. (All of this being an update of Plato's philosopher-kings except substituting ideology for wisdom and virtue.)
Our current globalist aristocracy are as arrogant and deluded as any of their predecessors and really seem to believe in their own moral and intellectual infallibility and their divine right to rule (well, they did go to the best of schools!). They will never willingly give up power, they will lock in some sort of Potemkin utopia and defend it till the money runs out.
The revolutionary concept, 250 years ago, was that liberty = individual = desired outcome. Government is necessary to maintain a certain order, but other than that . . .
So the other day our IL AG plus others won a case in Rhode Island fed dist court prohibiting the Trump admin from defunding several federal groups, including some commission on homelessness.
We are being smothered by government, aka, the connected class. They want more than enough. Free speech is an important target.
Your closing line really nails it. It's mayhem here in America, but it's pretty straightforward in Europe. When I turn towards the Westminster set, I see high-tone upper middle class elites shoving people out of the lifeboat while they scramble to stay ahead of the decline that they are managing over.
I've always said they test things out through Hollywood before they roll it out to the real world. We are living through a mixed version of the movie "In Time" and "Minority Report."
"In Time" is a really off the wall movie and one you can't really find easily anymore. It starred Justin Timberlake in a futuristic Eutopia where they essentially lived in 15 minute cities and had implants that counted down time. You worked to add more time to your life, and crossing the "Authorities" lost you time.
I hold out hope for my Anglo-Saxon relatives. My english ancestors left in 1635, due to their perceived religious persecution. Hopefully those left behind are stubborn enough to shake-off the chains of this new form of persecution.
«the architecture: a biometric network reading faces in public spaces»
In private spaces too: all those cameras at self-service tills in most shops have been sending for some years their feeds to the security services.
A much large percent of voters than in the past is made of affluent older and retired people who have are living well and see the future purely as threats with no opportunities and accordingly want comfort and safety for them at any cost to everyone else and demand more authoritarianism or outright fascism to protect them and their property and stocks prices.
The mass base for fascism has always been the "petty bourgeoisie" and the UK has a large "petty bourgeoisie" called "Middle England" and they are demanding more repression and more practical fascism from the political class.
It would be bad enough if authors like Hopkins were arrested for satire and promoting their own work. But as CJ points out on his Substack, magazines like Stern and Der Spiegel get away with printing swastikas on their front covers all the time. The main difference is that they do so in order to mock Trump and the AfD as opposed to the German establishment or its political parties. The fact is that German speech laws, like all speech laws, are weaponized to punish political malcontents while shielding the powers that be.
I think Matt is incorrect in suggesting that this is what Trump is going for. Trump's actions have been against foreigners coming into the country under false pretenses. Matt thinks it's ok to let the foxes into the hen house.
That's reasonable - it was generous of Matt to print Hopkins's quote on this. I think Hopkins goes on nonsensical rants about the "MAGA/Musk cult." He was one of many Substackers to become completely unhinged about Gaza, at one point demanding that Matt genuflect toward the Palestinians or else. He's all but acknowledged that the German government has a legitimate right to punish speech crimes via Section 86A and that the issue is simply that his prosecution was a perversion of the law, comparing his case to the Trump administration's actions against Mahmoud Khalil: https://cjhopkins.substack.com/p/an-open-letter-to-jay-bhattacharya
Obviously, I don't agree with everything that Hopkins has written. But even someone like him deserves justice. We should strive to be like Matt and rise above issues that don't really matter and work with people like Hopkins on the issues that do.
Who's funding these muzzling non-governmental organizations? USAID? Bezos's ex- wife? They proliferate like paramecium, and not in a good way. Per the Somali scam and the "private organizations" that got billions, it's got to stop. The government partnership is really bad news. These "organizations" get tons of taxpayer dollars- the fraud has to be enormous.
The Trump Administration is the only one with the stones to do something about it and I'm pretty sure it's going to be one term and beginning in the midterm, Democrats, for whatever they are, are going to go in the opposite direction.
Meh, I think Trump is the tool they are using to beat it into people's heads that we should watch what we say. Trump is just so unlikable, and has been for a VERY long time. Even if he's right, even if he's painted out worse than reality (he is), he's still just so awful to listen to.
Trump isn't going to get anywhere, and I do think the masses and especially the youth are fully on board with protect me because I don't want to hear or see certain things, and yes please, bring me that Communism that allows me to live without working.
Ha! Gotta say watching him get The First Ever FIFA Peace Prize yesterday was hilarious.
Trump is Trump. And always will be. But somebody actually tried to kill him, and did manage to kill and severely injure others in the crowd. Am I allowed to weigh that in my judgment when I consider — what’s going on.
that's the problem. I don't agree with how he runs things either. I think many of his policies are shortsighted, and his ego is worthy of a politician.
I know. I get it, I just think that once again, like last term, they've been effectively neutered. They are revealing all of this "stuff," but the system in place is doing what it does. Making it all nothing burger news. In the end, we'll be back under the Umbrella of the center left group that desires us all just shut up and do what we're told, and if we resist...
I don't think they've been entirely neutered. That's why everyone from governors to ex-astronauts and ex-CIA are trying to foment uprisings. Stir up rebellion in the military. I think the scope of what they're trying to do- in the courts, in public statements, makes Shay's Rebellion look like a picnic.
What's clear is the Left now refuses to tolerate the two-party system. They will not accept being out of control even for a term, in the name of"democracy," and have gone round the bend. Something has got to give somewhere.
How about Obamacare, aka, The Affordable Care Act. Did it raise the price of health care? Is health care better? Did it cause thousands of physicians to retire to avoid the bureacracy?
What aboutism isn't going to cut it. Health Care is criminal in this country. I was one that wanted Medicare for all, but.. that was pretty dumb too. The death of all of us is Corporate run Healthcare. All of your doctors bundled under one giant corporation forcing you to travel wherever they are sent in the "network."
Also.. health care was MUCH cheaper back when you only had Blue Cross. Then HMO came, and all the rest, and in truth. Competition did NOT breed cheaper costs. Competition caused the Hospital complex to ramp up "administrative" workers to deal with the massive amounts of papework.
Not sure where you are but Trump won every swing state and the popular vote. He also gained support from the young demographic, especially young men of all colors.
The American people are fully behind Trump. Disregard the media especially in Europe and Britain. They are totally lying to you. The media said Harris was going to win and she lost badly. Most Europeans thought Harris was going to win and she lost badly.
...its not just in China and the old Soviet Union where government shows up and disappears people for defiance. Humanity has gone week in the last 20 years.
Now, if we could just keep the momentum growing in the USA against this backwards, communistic globalism.
This is so fucking depressing. Has everyone in power lost their moral compasses? All I see is a giant game of "race to the bottom" poker - I see your moral atrocity and raise. No checks, no calls, just round after round of raises.
How scary is that. But when I saw a video on X about 2 English Bobbie’s go to the house of a 10 year old to take her phone because she viewed something on it that the censor police thought was inappropriate I got chills. How about a picture of Starmer saying there is no censoring in England and anyone who says so will go to jail. Who are these people that think THEY know what is best or who should be in charge. Sounds like the old English aristocracy.
I find it highly ironic that modern Germany tries to obliterate the concept of Nazism in any and every way -- Nazism was a form of totalitarianism -- while at the same time Germany builds and adheres to a newer version of totalitarianism. Which for want of a better term, we might call far leftwing WOKE-ism
So it is not totalitarianism per se that they have an issue with. It seems to me they want to virtue-signal by outlawing the Nazism that gave them a bad image.... which most of the Western world agrees is a bad image.....while coming up with a new version of totalitarianism which they believe will be acceptable. They want to change their external stripes, but not their internal damaged soul.
Reminds me of far rightwing types of persons who see the light and leave the far rightwing....only to move just as far into the leftwing. Which means they are at essentially the same point. And any extreme is bad. Such as a once-dedicated Mormon writer I know of who ultimately dropped Mormonism, only to become uber-WOKE. And she did not see the problem there.
It's always been about Power. Control is the only way to true Power. Even Forbes 400 billionaires seek that. Money is nothing, and once you get a few million, you don't really need anymore, but POWER thirst is never satiated.
These are all variants of the same phenomenon. In this case, it is political totalitarianism
You also find it in abusive families, in cults, in gangs, in human trafficking rings, in secret societies, in extremist religions - and the list goes on
In any kind of social unit where individualism has been given-up for collective mob rule under a Cluster-B leader. It is a form of no-empathy serfdom.
I think many of you would remember him as the German-American lawyer who produced the fine video series on "Coronavirus" early in the scamdemic. He was a truth-teller, and they took him down for that reason.
It is horrific what they are doing to him, that and what we are seeing in the UK, Germany and EU against speech does not bode well for the future unless people start pushing back against the speech ‘dis/misinformation’ freaks.
That rings a bell. I remember he was starting a huge lawsuit against the global organizations (WHO, CDC, Davos) for crimes against humanity. IIRC, his partner on the Corona Investigative Committee Vivienne Fischer brought embezzlement accusations/charges against him. I remember thinking the whole ordeal sounded very fishy. That's the last I heard. So sad.
Normally "Public relations techniques" suffice to keep the population in "right think" mode with almost no one recognizing how they're being controlled. Most Will deny vociferously that anyone can control them. They are the easiest to control. I believe that the current war on Free speech is related to the Long term decline of the EU countries exacerbated by the failure to subdue Russia and the unwillingness to admit that they failed. If you think it's any different in the US try seriously taking on the chosen people that basically run the country and you'll find out that the constitution isn't worth the paper it's written on. When the ruling classes feel threatened, the velvet gloves of mind control come off to reveal the mailed fist underneath.
Matt is correct. The West is at a tipping point where free speech vs anti-hate are nearly in balance, but it is a tense balance that can't continue into the future indefinitely. Trump's new National Security Strategy released under his signature ( https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf ) has a clear message to Europe: Get on board with American standards of free speech or find yourself another "Daddy" because we are done with your authoritarian BS.
We can debate whether Trump is engaged in defending free speech or defending the economic interests of American tech and social media. It is clear to me that America can't defend free speech at home if we condone its suppression in our European vassals. Europe is building a totalitarian state in plain sight and if we do nothing about it then we should expect it and deserve it here.
Europe is not the only place in the West where totalitarianism is building. The WOKE/Democrats in the USA are at least as totalitarian. Then you have Canada, the UK, Australia, NZ.
I think that paid "hate-speakers" have been funded in order for the globalists to be able to say, "Look at that terrible hate speech. We must do something to stop this!"
They created the supposed problem, which their draconian laws are now going to fix.
See how this works? Like 1960s corporate advertisers creating the halitosis and dandruff "problems", because they could sell masses of their new products which claimed to solve the issue. Even though it rarely existed.
Wish this wasn't paywalled because it should be shared far and wide. Thank you for the detailed report. I've been increasingly concerned about how European speech laws are going to eventually trickle their way into the US. COVID was the test in the US and we failed miserably. Love or hate him, Musk buying Twitter at least delayed mass censorship. ... But censorship is not just government stopping speech, there is something to be said about the legacy media refusing to report on certain things because they're trying to steer public opinion.
"COVID was the test in the US and we failed miserably" if we could somehow have managed to stop time before the Great Barrington Declaration and the public revelations about the origin of the Coof virus, the megalomaniacal yammering of Fauci, and so forth.
Also recall that the Biden administration's efforts to create a ministry of disinformation was exposed, criticized, and throttled before it could exercise any control.
The Freedom of Information Act, heroic individual efforts from Elon Musk, intrepid independent reporters like Mr. Taibbi here, and the First Amendment are having a positive effect.
It is, of course, important to remain constantly aware of threats to the dissemination of truth and to free speech, but the "legacy media" continues to foul its own nest and grows more discredited by the day, and while declarations of their death have been somewhat premature, I attribute this lengthy death rattle to the sheer size, power, wealth, deviousness, and tenacity of those who would keep it alive.
Many Americans proved to be very sheepish and nasty during the Coof hysteria, but you have to consider the fact that we were bamboozled by virtually every single authority in the country and by the more dim and hateful among us with large audiences, like the late-night talk show assholes. Look at where their foolish promotion of conformity got them. They are hated and ridiculed and they deserve it.
In short, I'm pretty optimistic for the future of freedom of information and speech here in the US as things become more decentralized and more champions of truth make themselves heard. We also have the horrific examples of Germany and the UK to keep us reminded of the need for vigilance.
Well, sheeit . . . . I declared a couple of days ago I was going to disengage from current events, but I guess I'm too much in love with the sound of my own vaporings to shut up for more than a couple of days.
I really mean it this time. I'm going silent. That's my Christmas gift to you all.
The best thing about COVID was the rise in independent media. But I still think the US failed -- our people failed -- and caved into the pressure. Too many became Gladys Kravitz and enjoyed their power. My niece's soccer coach in California had the police sent to his house because he was training girls -- one-on-one! -- in violation of some stupid rule. Small businesses were destroyed but big businesses thrived. Churches shuttered. Schools closed. Kids suffered grave learning loss. People want to put it all behind us, but we forget to our own peril. ..... That all said, I am trying to disengage from current events, but I just need to know what's going on.
Don't go away Bull. Great summary. Great observations.
Tiny Tim hoists a crutch.
and even more to be said about a society that does not make being informed from all the richness of sources now available to us a goal in life.
The upside of the richness of sources is that there are more people covering more topics with more viewpoints, which is fantastic. The downside is that the average citizen has a finite budget for information, and at $5-$10/news source/month, that quickly adds up.
Our wide open American internet viewpoint richness is wonderful, but the average apolitical working person truly has no clue or time to discover whom to trust when they want real information anymore.
And old reflexes to check CNN or whatever they grew up with die hard. I pray this part of the electorate catches up with the rest of us in time. I’m always sharing my sources with bemused friends, but still…
absolutely right. I think hard about how much I like a writer's views!
MSM in the US is a failed model. It now shows up under the Democrats on the org chart.
Meanwhile, they erect barricades and post heavy armed police at Christmas markets. Their problem is cowardice, nothing more.
Diversity is our strength! If you disagree, the German Stasi will throw you in jail for longer than a migrant rapist. Hans - are we the baddies?
Careful what you joke about. Ever read Milan Kundera's "The Joke"?
eastern European humor. Sometimes it was so sad you had to laugh. Zoshchenko was a master of this genre. Of course, all too often, the joke was on you. Real things were sources of humor. Such as the day my husband and I passed a group of people staring into a big hole in the ground on our way home to the "foreigners internment camp" aka apartments for diplomats on Leningrad's Vasilevskiy Ostrov one summer. We were so curious that we took our dog for a walk to that hole, looked in and saw there was absolutely nothing there. And yet...those folks had stood there looking in as if it were a tarot board. Perhaps it was.
They were looking into the future.
That's a great story. Get in the queue and then ask what we're lining up for.
There was nothing there there. G.Stein.
Well you're one to talk, "Yuri". Although in my experience, you have no shame.
I recall you banning me on your Substack because I failed to agree 100% and to bow in worship before you.
Therefore I laugh at Substack hosts such as yourself who jump on the "Protect Free Speech' bandwagon simply because it brings in subscriber fees.
You do not seem to understand the difference between a host making you leave his house, and the government using force of law to control your expression in all places and all circumstances.
You do not seem to understand what free speech means. You must be one of the totalitarian WOKE-folk.
And remember, these Substack hosts are those who made lots of $$$ on pretending they were upholders of free speech, while using censorship against their own subscribers.
I lost a year's worth of subscriber fees on the PUBLIC Shellenberg Substack when he cut me off for questioning him. But he kept the full fees. If an MSM site did that, wouldn't they be called for consumer fraud? Since when can a subscriber not put in a complaint or question to the media site they subscribe to? And if they do, they get cut-off and the site keeps the fees?
And this man is supposed to be testifying in Congress about free speech? He makes a farce of it. I do you a favour by calling him out.
Michael Shellenberger was a leftwing activist for a long time, and still lives in Berkeley. He has only an M.A., so he could not establish an academic career. But he saw financial opportunities in renting a Substack page and pretending that he had awakened from WOKE and seen the light. As if he the king of the awakened. Hah! I notice that subscribers are leaving his Substack. The commenters have really dwindled there. Shellenberger just keeps repeating the same old, same old, at increasingly wide intervals. And he thinks it is magnificent insight. People are only going to be fooled for so long. Although if you have invested in him as your Substack rock star, it is unlikely you will take to the truth here.
Shame on you for supporting this! Totalitarians such as those today in Germany use the same threadbare deceitful excuse that you do. Even after this article, you do not learn?
How childish and silly that concept of yours is. There is law involved here. And possibly consumer fraud by Substack hosts who do this. Not to mention huge hypocrisy by those who have readers believing they are protectors of free speech and democracy…hah! Substack is a big money-making venture for those who score here.
You sound like a disgruntled rock star groupie in a teen fan magazine, who had learned that her hero has feet of clay. But she is going to make-up silly things to defend him anyway.
In these cases, Substack was a paid product, on a public platform.
It was as if these hosts who practice banning had refused service to someone because that someone was a certain ethnicity. Since the host decided they did not like them.
This is not the host's private home, into which I am freely invited. It is a business, for which the host is renting a page on a digital platform. I paid what they charged for the access and the service options. If you subscribe to the NYT and pay your fees, then they cut your service because you had written a letter to the editor disagreeing with a story they printed....you think that is OK? Are you a Russian bot rather than an American? You seem unfamiliar with consumer rights and free speech.
You seem unfamiliar with American standards of freedom of association.
fwiw, I have also been blocked by a substack that claims to be for free expression and anti-woke, and grossly insulted by the substack blogger as she blocked me. She is an asshole, and maybe the people who blocked you are assholes, I don't know your situation. But, I chose not to let some jerk whom I will never meet get under my skin.
Good day.
You are missing the point.
I am calling out the various Substack myths. Of which there are several. Notice that there is usually nowhere you can discuss Substack myths and problems...on Substack? I think they planned it that way, Even though several Substack hosts make a living from calling-out others, you cannot do the same to them. What an irony!
I am also pointing out how con-artistry operates.
Plus the fact that people who are the readers here can be taken for a ride by their rock stars....as the popular Substack hosts are assumed to be.
These readers are like wide-eyed children believing in Santa Claus. All just because some person found a way to make loads of money on a digital platform where they rent a page, and it is possible to write lots of opinion and airy-fairy unsubstantiated nonsense for the paying punters. They know what the readers will pay for, so they give it to them. Even though this requires zero credentials or reference work or real knowledge. Many Substack hosts just make it up as they go along. And watch the folks out there lap it up!
I think I have higher standards than you. I expect better from paid reading material and those who produce it.
The Substack platform is a Wild West with no oversight whatsoever. This must be a gift from Heaven for con-artists who can make up anything they think you will pay for. And rake in the subscriber fees. There have been grifters like this even under established publishing houses -- Laurens van der Post, Carlos Casteneda, Greg Mortenson, Lance Armstrong, Raynor Wynn.
You need to have more adult discernment and less childlike naivete.
Has anyone here ever calculated how much Matt T. must make out of Substack? Mind-boggling. I write more than he does, and I do not receive a penny. Matt seems to be an honest sort.....but I never knew that honesty paid this well. Only in the Substack world......
Stone everyone who says Yahweh.
Oops.
okay, so is it okay to say Wawa's? It will be a major issue if you can't.
It seems Mr. Hole has lots of spare time, and a persecution complex. Just an observation based on your voluminous comments.
What is the feminine variant of Mr. Hole? I've forgotten my Latin for lack of use. No audience for it these days.
Help me out here, Brian. There's a good lad.
Not certain whether that was directed at me. If so, I will have to re-tool my opinion of you. I once thought you had some wisdom and decency, Brian. What has happened to you?
I am a writer, my friend. Voluminous text out of voluminous thought is what I do best. Isn't Substack exactly the right place for that?
Now if I signed-up for renting a Substack page, that talent of mine would be considered a real asset. But while I remain a commenter only, it is considered a fault?
My theme today is ironies. Cough, cough.
Don't you all come to Substack in order to -- wait for it -- read writing? Then I offer it to you, without charge, and there are those who complain?
Upside-down land. This must be Silly Sunday.....
It could be that all that screen time has halved your attention span, and so your reading volume is limited and less than average. I have no such problem. Never have. So I cannot offer you any tips to improve. Alas.
Who else has banned me for truth-telling on Substack? Sasha Stone, Michael Shellenberger, Eugyppius, and El Gato/Bad Cattitude.
Note that these hosts all run their Substack product on the theme of "Free Speech/No Censorship"? I learned this is only a marketing ploy for them.
They mean they believe in free speech only until the moment someone's free speech does not sit well with them. And my free speech was always reasonable. Nothing extremist or hateful. But it may have caused a few awkward moments for these hosts, as all good debate does. Because I questioned a few things they had already proclaimed to be truth. And you, know.....they have paying subscribers who might stop subscribing.
How is this any different from corrupt MSM?
I know a great deal on the subject of totalitarianism. I have more formal education and experience on that a subject than all of them combined.
Therefore, they need to get the competition (me) off their Substack. Ahem.
Maybe they think you’re just a troll.
Or maybe they think his last name is “Hole”.
😂
I can always tell when the various Cluster-B types arrive on the forum. When they smell blood. When they see the possibility of needling someone into an emotional argument, which gets them their daily Narcissistic Supply.
You types are SO transparent. You and Kathy run along. Your goose is cooked.
Well they would be wrong, Kathy. Sounds to me like a very manipulative excuse to get rid of someone who does not bow to your supposed magnificence, or who shines a light on false narratives or omissions. Are you a paid-up subscriber to "Yuri" by chance?
Perhaps you are a troll, Kathy. You do not seem to understand the lesson of this article about totalitarianism in Germany when they trash free speech. You seem to agree with the modern German way.
A., I don’t subscribe to Yuri, but I see his comments on many substacks I do subscribe to. I never made a judgement on whether it was right or wrong to ban you. I’ve never heard of you. I don’t know what you write in the comments that causes people to ban you. I don’t like moderated comments and it’s the main reason I cancelled my subscription to the Wall Street Journal after 20 years. Once they started moderating comments and deleting anything that didn’t conform to some 23 year old intern’s ideology, I cashed out. Anyway, I was just trying to give you a possible answer as to why so many writers have banned you.
"banned me for truth-telling"
Is that your own special brand of truth? You of course have your own 'stack to present all of that, right? Or is your performance more in the character of a gadfly?
You should change your name to Very Curmudgeonly. You have gone beyond Rather.
You appear to think that not only do you know me, but that you know the subject of totalitarianism inside out. Which I doubt. And btw, I have a higher level of formal education than you, going by your bio.
Too funny! Your sort does pop up here every so often. And we feel obliged to put them in their place.
If I knew you, I would've made statements instead of asking you questions.
"We feel" - is that you and the mouse in your pocket? I'm thinking you're Pinky to him being the Brain.
Maybe you got banned because you try to cite your “higher level of formal education“ to win arguments.
It's hard to take seriously someone with an ego so inflated that they think they're smarter than everyone else put together: "I have more formal education and experience on that subject than all of them combined."
Well, well Alvie. So you are outing yourself as another one of the Cluster-B personalities here who is desperate for his Narcissistic Supply just now.
I can always smell them out. Too funny. Crawl back in your hole.
Free speech assumes everyone has an a different view. I think some of these writers have valuable viewpoints and do not write to gain brownie points including subscriptions. That assumption seems askew.
Sheesh.....for an article on free speech, too may commenters here today have not put much thought into it. Or else the trolls are coming out of the woodwork because they smell blood.
Nor have they read the Robert Cialdini books on evolutionary patterns of Influence and Persuasion.
Get with it! Do your homework.
We have comment forums on each Substack where I have regularly read material equal to or better than what many Substack hosts offer.
The Substack schtick is just another way for some people to profit on a digital platform. It does not mean they know any more than the commenters below, necessarily. Though many hosts let their arrogance run away with them, and believe they are minor gods, at least.
Why do so many people out there confuse what Substack is? It's a profit-making rent-a-page platform where if you can work the Influence element, even mediocre material can be a money-maker. Whereas I have also seen excellent Substack material which goes unnoticed. Perhaps because those writers are not quite as full of themselves, and it never occurs to them to add their own PR. They actually believe that good work sells itself.
Though the reality is that popularity and entertainment and con-artistry are more likely to sell. And commenters here, no matter how good or how generous with their information, may be treated like scum if they question the "celebrity" hosts.
People whose sense of self has been projected onto a god or a supposed celebrity are going to bark at anyone who questions that.
I find it hilarious! Especially under an article on the trashing of free speech.
only longer than a migrant rapist until Adolph's Second Coming has all the power he needs, and then ka-pow. My goodness, they'll be lucky to escape with their lives.
Or they outright close them.
Letitsnow!!! Where have you been?
I respectfully disagree---if only they were mere cowards! They are possessed by the will to power, and will not be sated until their power is nearly absolute--or, as John Kerry put it a few years ago, the First Amendment is a problem that stands between them and "total control."
And they continue to seek to do to the First Amendment what they have largely done to the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth, and have been trying with limited success to do to the Second. We will be left with the form but little of the substance.
Cowards failed to stand up for those rights. Cowards do bad things to others on purpose to sound good at the country club. Cowards do nothing in the face of enemies who tell them they want them dead. Cowards let drug addicts die on the streets beneath the feet of those who just need to get to work today. That’s what I mean. It isn’t courageous to grift an elected position to get rich. That’s easy now. Too easy.
Oh, but they’re barricades of peace.
This is about Britain, but all the same ideas, tactics, goals and lies apply. Our globalist overlords are not going to take NO for an answer and are done trying to persuade or reach any compromise with its populace. It's just easiest for now with Germans, as they've never been so great when it comes to individual liberty and always seem to get carried away when it comes to mass utopian schemes that promise transcendence through obedience—in this case the German desire for public atonement and uniformity, which in the end will end up installing a techno-dictatorship all in the name of NOT being Nazis—Renaud Camus calls this "the second career of Adolf Hitler"—History always shows that people are more likely to achieve only the opposite of whatever grand plan they set out to create.)
https://x.com/JChimirie66677/status/1996552368360472649
"There’s a grim honesty to what is happening in Britain now: the state no longer pretends it trusts the public. It has stopped trying to persuade, and started to monitor, manage and pre-empt. The latest plan – to link live facial recognition cameras with the passport database of 45 million Britons – is not a policing reform. It’s the quiet construction of a national surveillance net, a system that treats every citizen as a suspect-in-waiting, to be scanned, tagged and logged as they move through daily life.
The sales pitch is as predictable as it is hollow. Ministers talk of “serious criminals,” “dangerous offenders,” “public safety,” and the “biggest breakthrough since DNA.” Every authoritarian state has used the same script. What matters is not the slogan. What matters is the architecture: a biometric network reading faces in public spaces, connected to a na-tional identity database, and authorised to run searches without consent, knowledge or warrant. That’s not law enforcement. It’s population management.
We should stop pretending this is about crime. Crime is the pretext. The state wants a system that knows who you are, where you are, who you meet, and what you do – because it believes liberty is not an asset but a risk. Free people cannot be managed. They must be persuaded, and persuasion requires humility, patience, and consent. This government wants none of that.
Well said, as always. This whole globalism thing is friggin creepy. The so-called Rules-Based International Order practically advertises its own flaw: rules for whom, and made by whom? The premise assumes a class entitled to dictate terms — naked elitism dressed up as governance.
What’s wild is how predictable this all feels in hindsight. The Soviet collapse cleared the field, and with no counterweight a handful of Western Allies mistook a temporary moment of dominance for a permanent mandate. You’d think the rise of China — a civilizational superpower with its own interests and zero appetite for Western tutelage — would have forced a serious re-think. Yet here we are, doubling down instead. If this keeps up I'm moving to Israel.
As Houllebecq says (paraphrasing): For those of us with no Israel, where do we go?
(I personally am much closer to moving into a cemetery than to Israel.)
Many books and thinkers, maybe the best example here being Burnham's "Managerial Revolution", found a commonality in all our modern ideologies, from capitalism to Marxism to Nazism to socialism etc: the idea that society could be guided, conditioned and controlled by a ruling class blessed with some sort of gnostic wisdom, from a vanguard class armed w "critical consciousness" to our modern economic technocracy—because of their education credentials and esp bc "the masses" are too ignorant and volatile to know what's best for them and always refuse to obey their betters. (All of this being an update of Plato's philosopher-kings except substituting ideology for wisdom and virtue.)
Our current globalist aristocracy are as arrogant and deluded as any of their predecessors and really seem to believe in their own moral and intellectual infallibility and their divine right to rule (well, they did go to the best of schools!). They will never willingly give up power, they will lock in some sort of Potemkin utopia and defend it till the money runs out.
Thanks!
The revolutionary concept, 250 years ago, was that liberty = individual = desired outcome. Government is necessary to maintain a certain order, but other than that . . .
So the other day our IL AG plus others won a case in Rhode Island fed dist court prohibiting the Trump admin from defunding several federal groups, including some commission on homelessness.
We are being smothered by government, aka, the connected class. They want more than enough. Free speech is an important target.
Your closing line really nails it. It's mayhem here in America, but it's pretty straightforward in Europe. When I turn towards the Westminster set, I see high-tone upper middle class elites shoving people out of the lifeboat while they scramble to stay ahead of the decline that they are managing over.
«This whole globalism thing is friggin creepy. The so-called Rules-Based International Order»
It is usually a misspelling: "Ruler-based International Order" and we all know which country is that ruler.
I've always said they test things out through Hollywood before they roll it out to the real world. We are living through a mixed version of the movie "In Time" and "Minority Report."
"In Time" is a really off the wall movie and one you can't really find easily anymore. It starred Justin Timberlake in a futuristic Eutopia where they essentially lived in 15 minute cities and had implants that counted down time. You worked to add more time to your life, and crossing the "Authorities" lost you time.
I saw both. Both great!
Or the persuasion that the EU wants would be lies repeated endlessly in the absence of alternatives.
I hold out hope for my Anglo-Saxon relatives. My english ancestors left in 1635, due to their perceived religious persecution. Hopefully those left behind are stubborn enough to shake-off the chains of this new form of persecution.
«the architecture: a biometric network reading faces in public spaces»
In private spaces too: all those cameras at self-service tills in most shops have been sending for some years their feeds to the security services.
A much large percent of voters than in the past is made of affluent older and retired people who have are living well and see the future purely as threats with no opportunities and accordingly want comfort and safety for them at any cost to everyone else and demand more authoritarianism or outright fascism to protect them and their property and stocks prices.
The mass base for fascism has always been the "petty bourgeoisie" and the UK has a large "petty bourgeoisie" called "Middle England" and they are demanding more repression and more practical fascism from the political class.
It would be bad enough if authors like Hopkins were arrested for satire and promoting their own work. But as CJ points out on his Substack, magazines like Stern and Der Spiegel get away with printing swastikas on their front covers all the time. The main difference is that they do so in order to mock Trump and the AfD as opposed to the German establishment or its political parties. The fact is that German speech laws, like all speech laws, are weaponized to punish political malcontents while shielding the powers that be.
I think Matt is incorrect in suggesting that this is what Trump is going for. Trump's actions have been against foreigners coming into the country under false pretenses. Matt thinks it's ok to let the foxes into the hen house.
That's reasonable - it was generous of Matt to print Hopkins's quote on this. I think Hopkins goes on nonsensical rants about the "MAGA/Musk cult." He was one of many Substackers to become completely unhinged about Gaza, at one point demanding that Matt genuflect toward the Palestinians or else. He's all but acknowledged that the German government has a legitimate right to punish speech crimes via Section 86A and that the issue is simply that his prosecution was a perversion of the law, comparing his case to the Trump administration's actions against Mahmoud Khalil: https://cjhopkins.substack.com/p/an-open-letter-to-jay-bhattacharya
Obviously, I don't agree with everything that Hopkins has written. But even someone like him deserves justice. We should strive to be like Matt and rise above issues that don't really matter and work with people like Hopkins on the issues that do.
Introducing… The Blurred Reich. Where censorship doesn’t announce itself — it just smears the boundaries until no one knows what’s allowed.
More like the Turd Reich.
They're even arresting people for making fun of state officials by mocking them with a poop emoji.
Hey... I resemb... or.. rather... resent that... :D
Lolol. I think subconsciously I got it from your handle.
Thx for the assist!
Who's funding these muzzling non-governmental organizations? USAID? Bezos's ex- wife? They proliferate like paramecium, and not in a good way. Per the Somali scam and the "private organizations" that got billions, it's got to stop. The government partnership is really bad news. These "organizations" get tons of taxpayer dollars- the fraud has to be enormous.
The Trump Administration is the only one with the stones to do something about it and I'm pretty sure it's going to be one term and beginning in the midterm, Democrats, for whatever they are, are going to go in the opposite direction.
Meh, I think Trump is the tool they are using to beat it into people's heads that we should watch what we say. Trump is just so unlikable, and has been for a VERY long time. Even if he's right, even if he's painted out worse than reality (he is), he's still just so awful to listen to.
Trump isn't going to get anywhere, and I do think the masses and especially the youth are fully on board with protect me because I don't want to hear or see certain things, and yes please, bring me that Communism that allows me to live without working.
Trump is so unlikable. That’s why he got a majority of popular vote …. Sure he is…
Ha! Gotta say watching him get The First Ever FIFA Peace Prize yesterday was hilarious.
Trump is Trump. And always will be. But somebody actually tried to kill him, and did manage to kill and severely injure others in the crowd. Am I allowed to weigh that in my judgment when I consider — what’s going on.
His speech is cringeworthy. I know lots of people that voted for him that don't like him.
Liking him and agreeing with his policies are very different things. The sooner you accept that the better off you will be.
that's the problem. I don't agree with how he runs things either. I think many of his policies are shortsighted, and his ego is worthy of a politician.
No doubt. I’m not crazy about him, but sure as hell beats the alternative
Trump vs Kackala (sorry, Kamala) was definitely a "lesser of two evils" election.
I am 50 something years old. Every election is a lesser of two evils election.
I wasn't talking about Trump as a personality, I was talking about his administration.
I know. I get it, I just think that once again, like last term, they've been effectively neutered. They are revealing all of this "stuff," but the system in place is doing what it does. Making it all nothing burger news. In the end, we'll be back under the Umbrella of the center left group that desires us all just shut up and do what we're told, and if we resist...
I don't think they've been entirely neutered. That's why everyone from governors to ex-astronauts and ex-CIA are trying to foment uprisings. Stir up rebellion in the military. I think the scope of what they're trying to do- in the courts, in public statements, makes Shay's Rebellion look like a picnic.
What's clear is the Left now refuses to tolerate the two-party system. They will not accept being out of control even for a term, in the name of"democracy," and have gone round the bend. Something has got to give somewhere.
The “war crime” screed now deployed. Please.
How about Obamacare, aka, The Affordable Care Act. Did it raise the price of health care? Is health care better? Did it cause thousands of physicians to retire to avoid the bureacracy?
What aboutism isn't going to cut it. Health Care is criminal in this country. I was one that wanted Medicare for all, but.. that was pretty dumb too. The death of all of us is Corporate run Healthcare. All of your doctors bundled under one giant corporation forcing you to travel wherever they are sent in the "network."
Also.. health care was MUCH cheaper back when you only had Blue Cross. Then HMO came, and all the rest, and in truth. Competition did NOT breed cheaper costs. Competition caused the Hospital complex to ramp up "administrative" workers to deal with the massive amounts of papework.
Not sure where you are but Trump won every swing state and the popular vote. He also gained support from the young demographic, especially young men of all colors.
The American people are fully behind Trump. Disregard the media especially in Europe and Britain. They are totally lying to you. The media said Harris was going to win and she lost badly. Most Europeans thought Harris was going to win and she lost badly.
w hat is the endgame?
Vee must use der Nazi tactics to DESTROY zose who vee call Nazis.
Yeah, exactly, because everyone knows the only solution for socialism is communism!
...its not just in China and the old Soviet Union where government shows up and disappears people for defiance. Humanity has gone week in the last 20 years.
Now, if we could just keep the momentum growing in the USA against this backwards, communistic globalism.
I've been wearing Helly Hansen gear all my life, didn't know that made me a Nazi sympathizer.
I was hoping someone would notice that amazing detail!
This is so fucking depressing. Has everyone in power lost their moral compasses? All I see is a giant game of "race to the bottom" poker - I see your moral atrocity and raise. No checks, no calls, just round after round of raises.
I'd never heard of it -- maybe I should get a piece to wear.
Always helpful to have an idiot filter.
Commercial fisherman gear, available at your local marine supply store. That double H should ward them off.
Was just on their website looking at some of the hats and gloves :-)
They have a website?
Unless I am hallucinating -- for both consumer and the workwear (https://www.hellyhansen.com/ , https://www.hhworkwear.com/ )
Looks like pretty solid quality.
Top quality. I've been buying it at the same store for 50 years.
How scary is that. But when I saw a video on X about 2 English Bobbie’s go to the house of a 10 year old to take her phone because she viewed something on it that the censor police thought was inappropriate I got chills. How about a picture of Starmer saying there is no censoring in England and anyone who says so will go to jail. Who are these people that think THEY know what is best or who should be in charge. Sounds like the old English aristocracy.
It’s always been this way….
I find it highly ironic that modern Germany tries to obliterate the concept of Nazism in any and every way -- Nazism was a form of totalitarianism -- while at the same time Germany builds and adheres to a newer version of totalitarianism. Which for want of a better term, we might call far leftwing WOKE-ism
So it is not totalitarianism per se that they have an issue with. It seems to me they want to virtue-signal by outlawing the Nazism that gave them a bad image.... which most of the Western world agrees is a bad image.....while coming up with a new version of totalitarianism which they believe will be acceptable. They want to change their external stripes, but not their internal damaged soul.
Reminds me of far rightwing types of persons who see the light and leave the far rightwing....only to move just as far into the leftwing. Which means they are at essentially the same point. And any extreme is bad. Such as a once-dedicated Mormon writer I know of who ultimately dropped Mormonism, only to become uber-WOKE. And she did not see the problem there.
It's always been about Power. Control is the only way to true Power. Even Forbes 400 billionaires seek that. Money is nothing, and once you get a few million, you don't really need anymore, but POWER thirst is never satiated.
Power corrupts, and absolute power absolutely corrupts. George Washington broke the mold, it’s not the earth the meek or poor inherit it’s the dirt.
Such is history
It’s Neo-Naziism trying to obliterate the memory of naziism.
These are all variants of the same phenomenon. In this case, it is political totalitarianism
You also find it in abusive families, in cults, in gangs, in human trafficking rings, in secret societies, in extremist religions - and the list goes on
In any kind of social unit where individualism has been given-up for collective mob rule under a Cluster-B leader. It is a form of no-empathy serfdom.
Reminds me of that saying - History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
Of course the German state will fund a parade float using a swastika to smear Elon and that is OK
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1896672349442986219
Reiner Fuellmich is still in prison in Germany.
I think many of you would remember him as the German-American lawyer who produced the fine video series on "Coronavirus" early in the scamdemic. He was a truth-teller, and they took him down for that reason.
It is horrific what they are doing to him, that and what we are seeing in the UK, Germany and EU against speech does not bode well for the future unless people start pushing back against the speech ‘dis/misinformation’ freaks.
I was a big fan of his panels/round-tables with many dissenting voices during the scamdemic. I'm so sad to hear this!
He was apparently set up. Captured by secret police while in Mexico, outside of the US where he also practices law.
That rings a bell. I remember he was starting a huge lawsuit against the global organizations (WHO, CDC, Davos) for crimes against humanity. IIRC, his partner on the Corona Investigative Committee Vivienne Fischer brought embezzlement accusations/charges against him. I remember thinking the whole ordeal sounded very fishy. That's the last I heard. So sad.
Reiner was too close to the whole truth. So they took him out.
My thought exactly!
Normally "Public relations techniques" suffice to keep the population in "right think" mode with almost no one recognizing how they're being controlled. Most Will deny vociferously that anyone can control them. They are the easiest to control. I believe that the current war on Free speech is related to the Long term decline of the EU countries exacerbated by the failure to subdue Russia and the unwillingness to admit that they failed. If you think it's any different in the US try seriously taking on the chosen people that basically run the country and you'll find out that the constitution isn't worth the paper it's written on. When the ruling classes feel threatened, the velvet gloves of mind control come off to reveal the mailed fist underneath.
I can write this because, having been to Germany a single time to visit my family roots, there's not a chance in hell I'll ever return to face the Stasi/Gestapo to explain myself. The place is a shithole. Told by our hotel in Munich to walk to Oktoberfest with only a little cash to spend that day, and to return before dark, we walked past almost no one except pack after pack of six to twelve swarthy glowering men. My lady demanded we depart the fake Marianplatz where the fake glockenspiel is (it's all faux post-war replicas) because we were hemmed in by Muslims who were looking none too friendly. A bombing waiting to happen. This is why the Nazi-like totalitarian crackdown on speech. Native Germans and everyone else must be prevented from protesting the forced transformation of their country into Deutschland Unter Allah©.
Same thing happening in Britain and Ireland. Sinking fast.
Matt is correct. The West is at a tipping point where free speech vs anti-hate are nearly in balance, but it is a tense balance that can't continue into the future indefinitely. Trump's new National Security Strategy released under his signature ( https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf ) has a clear message to Europe: Get on board with American standards of free speech or find yourself another "Daddy" because we are done with your authoritarian BS.
We can debate whether Trump is engaged in defending free speech or defending the economic interests of American tech and social media. It is clear to me that America can't defend free speech at home if we condone its suppression in our European vassals. Europe is building a totalitarian state in plain sight and if we do nothing about it then we should expect it and deserve it here.
Europe is not the only place in the West where totalitarianism is building. The WOKE/Democrats in the USA are at least as totalitarian. Then you have Canada, the UK, Australia, NZ.
I think that paid "hate-speakers" have been funded in order for the globalists to be able to say, "Look at that terrible hate speech. We must do something to stop this!"
They created the supposed problem, which their draconian laws are now going to fix.
See how this works? Like 1960s corporate advertisers creating the halitosis and dandruff "problems", because they could sell masses of their new products which claimed to solve the issue. Even though it rarely existed.
Great comment.