Will You Accept the Findings of the Muller Probe?

[silesian]

And exporting, as well as implementing....

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/technology/ecuador-surveillance-cameras-police-government.html

"They’re selling this as the future of governance; the future will be all about controlling the masses through technology,” Adrian Shahbaz, research director at Freedom House, said of China’s new tech exports."

The mental model is controlling the masses. That is the common thread. Chinese have always used the latest technology to do so. If the modern issues float your boat, I get it, it is an interesting topic. Perhaps even more interesting when understanding the historical context.

 

[Hotdog]

Yeah, I've been focused on our president's non stop attacks on our free press, his full support of a compliant press, such as Fox News state media, and his condemnation of any and all adversarial press. That's the attack on constitutionally supported freedoms with which I've been most concerned.

There is a difference between defending yourself with words and actually taking action to prohibit free speech or press. I dont see Trump putting Media out of business or silencing them. He has the right to free speech too, does he not? Notice how its his speech you want to stop? Meanwhile, big tech is taking action to stop free speech, and I notice you and everyone else here is curiously absent in defending free speech when it comes to others free speech you dont like.

 

[Gameface]

There is a difference between defending yourself with words and actually taking action to prohibit free speech or press. I dont see Trump putting Media out of business or silencing them. He has the right to free speech too, does he not? Notice how its his speech you want to stop? Meanwhile, big tech is taking action to stop free speech, and I notice you and everyone else here is curiously absent in defending free speech when it comes to others free speech you dont like.

If this is a conversation you actually want to have please acknowledge the main argument in favor of allowing big tech companies to limit what people say on their platforms.

(it doesn't mean you agree with it, or even that it's right)

 

[Stars Fan]

Ok. Wtf does D.O.N mean

Determination Over Negativity. It's DM45's slogan .

#D.O.N. is the answer to all our challenges!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using JazzFanz mobile app

 

[Red]

There is a difference between defending yourself with words and actually taking action to prohibit free speech or press. I dont see Trump putting Media out of business or silencing them. He has the right to free speech too, does he not? Notice how its his speech you want to stop? Meanwhile, big tech is taking action to stop free speech, and I notice you and everyone else here is curiously absent in defending free speech when it comes to others free speech you dont like.

Well, to myself, Alex Jones is right up there with yelling fire in a crowded theater. And Trump isn't just another citizen. He's the president. At his rallies he had the media separated in cages, and, at virtually every rally, he directs his crowd to react in anger toward the members of the media that are present. I regard a free press, the so-called 4th estate, as one of the central institutions of our democracy. They have their problems, in terms of how the public perceives them, the low regard in which they are held by many. But it's also authoritarianism 101 to regard a free press as the enemy. But, you're right, he has not closed anybody down. He has not jailed reporters wholesale. Rather it's the cumulative effect of demonizing our free press that does concern me. Every president has had problems with adversarial press, but Trump's and the Right's creation of fake news and alternative facts concerns me as well.

 

[Red]

You presented it like it was something that people were completely unaware of and shocking "....you boys even know the half of it. No, on the contrary, you're babes in the woods about all this..." when it is widely understood and consistent with the arc of Chinese history.

I was referring to the use of modern technology by the Chinese, not the arc of Chinese history. Babe said that in 10 years, what we see in China, we would see in the United States, leading me to believe he was likely not that aware of the "social credit" initiative. But, I was probably also being unfairly sarcastic toward babe and NPC, and I can also see now where you would interpret it the way you did. At the same time, I suspect not that many Americans in general are aware of what the Chinese government is attempting to put in place. Likewise with the placement of some 1 million Uighur Muslims in "re-education camps". I don't think many Americans are all that aware of that, either.

 

[Red]

The mental model is controlling the masses. That is the common thread. Chinese have always used the latest technology to do so. If the modern issues float your boat, I get it, it is an interesting topic. Perhaps even more interesting when understanding the historical context.

Sure, I understand, and agree.

 

[Red]

Do you really want to quibble about the semantic difference between "old news" and "history"? Or do you want to discuss something nontrivial and substantive?

No, I just didn't understand where you were coming from, until you focused on the fact that you felt I was introducing Chinese efforts at totalitarianism as if it was something nobody had ever heard of, at which point I understood it was just a misunderstanding.

 

[Red]

He has the right to free speech too, does he not? Notice how its his speech you want to stop?

Yes, I notice, so let's look at one of his favorite sayings, the press is "the enemy of the people".

A free press has long been one of a democracy's principle vehicles for speaking truth to power.

And a president's words would be expected to carry more weight, on topics pertaining to the functioning of our democracy and government, by virtue of being chief executive of the federal government. They may not be weighty intrinsically, but by virtue of who he is, his words will carry weight.

Is it right, given those two premises, for a president to turn the phrase the news media is "the enemy of the people" into a mantra, by virtue of stating it repetitively? If I defended his right to say it, could I nonetheless say it's irresponsible for him to say it? Yes, my free speech gives me the right to call him irresponsible in this case. And, if it's irresponsible, given the function of a free press to speak truth to power in a democracy, then should he be saying it, to the point of being a mantra?

I believe he does damage to one of our most important democratic institutions by both saying it in the first place, and turning it into a political mantra in the second place. The behavior of his rally attendees toward the press in attendance at those rallies, would suggest they believe the press is their enemy. He did not create that belief, but he promotes it, and his words carry more weight then yours or mine.

So, yeah, it is his speech I want to stop. Because it's irresponsible to say it, and damaging to a democratic institution by saying it over and over, not because he does not have the freedom to say it.

 

[babe]

Now you are getting a bit crazy. You think if a husband murders his wife, the arrest is politically driven? Dude robs a bank, ditto? Embezzles from his company? Step back from the edge, you are taking this a bit far.

The context of this discussion is political investigations. We are not investigating Hillary or Obama or Biden or McConnell or a lot of others because they are essentially "owned". But Trump we investigate the hell outta because he thinks he can be Pres without kissing the ring of the Honchos.

 

[One Brow]

From what I understand --

a) Russian intelligence made efforts to interfere with the 2016 election, including placing propaganda on social media sites and hacking Democratic computers. Some hacked emails were released to wikileaks and were published. However, this was not initiated by Trump or his campaign, nor did the campaign conspire or collude for it to happen. Hence the underlying criminality of "collusion" was shown to be a false allegation.

I wish, just occasionally, conservatives would not conflate the notions of "collusion", which clearly did happen and is not illegal, with "conspiracy", which is illegal. When the Trump team got advance word of the Wikileaks dump, it was collusion. When Trump Jr. took the Trump tower meeting with a Russian operative, it was collusion (and to my understanding, only not illegal because this was an occasion knowledge of the law was needed for an act to be illegal).

c) Now, here's the next step.... The FBI colluded with Trump's political opponents to produce the original Trump dossier,

If you mean the Steele dossier, that was produced well before the FBI got involved, as the very article you quoted explained.

 

[One Brow]

Did you see facebook make rules dictating what speech you can have if its about Alex Jones, Paul Joseph Watson, louis Farrakhan, etc..?

You want the government to force Facebook to keep people on its platform, despite what Facebook wants? Why do you support tyranny and hate capitalism?

Have you noticed the left is in bed with big tech and silencing people on the right?

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Big tech is much more aligned with right-leaning libertarians that with the left.