There’s been a lot of misinformation, misdirection and flat out lies about what happened at the United States Capitol on January 6th. Let’s be clear about a couple of things. Assaulting law enforcement, destruction of property and violence in the name of legitimate protest is wrong. Those who committed illegal acts should be held fully accountable. At the same time, let’s not forget this is THE PEOPLE’S HOUSE. It does not belong to the elected representatives who infest it, it belongs to the people. As such, there should never be an instance where Congress is in session and working on behalf of the people where the doors are locked and the halls and galleries not accessible to the people.
A lot of what happened and who actually instigated the crowd to storm the Capitol will never be known. It will be buried and covered up like everything else that is politically embarrassing. Calls for a 9/11 style commission to be empaneled to ‘expose the truth’ about who was involved is nothing more than a desire to have a flashy, waste of time and money, political witch hunt where anyone who said or did anything in support of the 45th President will be portrayed as a criminal and traitor. Meanwhile, the hypocrisy for supporting a year of violence, death and destruction all across the country will be ignored.
Did anyone speaking at the political rally that day “incite” the violence or was there “non-verbal incitement”? No, of course not. There isn’t a reasonable person alive that would watch the speeches or listen to the words and say it was a call to go violently take over the Capitol building. But this isn’t about reason, reality, logic or objectivity. We’re dealing with people who are trying to find any excuse to blame the 45th President for something else he didn’t do and keep him from ever being a political threat to them again.
It’s also a chance to further promulgate the lie that white supremacy is now the greatest threat to the country and ALL OF THE VIOLENCE was because of racists and white supremacy. Everyone who ever supported the 45th President is now officially a violent racist and threat to the Constitution, democracy and the country.
As was so eloquently pointed out on the House floor, it was nice to see the Democrats finally supporting law enforcement following the incident. Alas that support was short lived. Within 24 hours the President and Vice President Elect raised the race flag and everything that happened in D.C. was officially about race. From that moment on, white supremacy has been the ONLY reason for everything. They’ve even come up with a new term to explain why non-white individuals are supporting this – multiracial whiteness.
Following that very brief time where law enforcement was thanked for protecting our elected representatives, the administration elect stated:
“No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protestors yesterday that they wouldn’t have been treated very differently than the mob that stormed the Capitol,” “We all know that’s true — and it’s unacceptable.”
Odd Stuffing’s Fact Check: False as well as true (but absolutely NOT as intended).
False: This was federal property being protected by federal law enforcement. As we saw during the non-stop BLM/Antifa riots in 2020, federal authorities aggressively defended and sought prosecution on those who were caught, as we’re now seeing with the takeover of the Capitol.
True (but absolutely NOT as intended): Had this been a BLM/Antifa “mostly peaceful” riot, local law enforcement would have been held back and allowed them to assault, destroy and burn at will. Those few who were taken into custody would have been promptly released without charges by local prosecutors or bailed out by celebrity and politician (including our new Vice President) endorsed funds. Witness what happened on the streets of D.C itself to see how hands-off local law enforcement was.
The fallout from this was a complete militarization of the Capitol and all of D.C. in preparation for the inauguration. 25,000 National Guard troops from around the country were called in to supplement the thousands of federal, state, county and local law enforcement officers to protect the Capitol from rumored threats. Fences, barricades and checkpoints were setup throughout the city. Special permission was required for residents and employees to move in the few areas of the city not completely off limits.
So great was this supposed threat of white supremist militants plotting insurrections around the country, state capitols were locked down, boarded up, fenced in and guarded by heavily armed law enforcement and National Guard troops. The public was completely prohibited.
What happened? Nothing. Not a damn thing happened. Anywhere. It was all a dog and pony show to make the public believe the supporters of the 45th President were SO violent and SO much of a threat, this was the ONLY means to stop them. It was all a lie. Still, at least 7,000 National Guard troops will now be remaining in D.C. through at least March.
Our elected officials have been acting like royalty ruling over their subjects instead of employees working on behalf of their constituents for far too long. With the new layers of fences, barricades and heavily armed security, they have effectively cut off public access to the Capitol, and more importantly, to them. They can now make their decisions on how to run our country without any input or oversight from the pesky public.
This is not acceptable.
There should NEVER be a time when the people’s business is being conducted behind closed doors. No, cameras and video feeds are not an acceptable alternative. The people must have access to where the issues that impact them are being debated, negotiated and decided, and the people who represent them are working. Our elected officials need to look us in the face on a daily basis instead of hiding behind locked doors and having interns reply to emails with a form letter.
If there is a single hearing, debate, meeting or vote being taken anywhere in the Capitol, the doors should be open, and the people allowed in. There should be no such thing as “visitor hours”. The people are NOT visitors, we are CITIZENS! This is OUR house! If our Congress is working, the doors to the Capitol need to be open. If meetings run all night long, then the public has access all night long. Individual elected officials may set their own office hours, but the Capitol – the people’s house – needs to stay open.
Bob
#oddstuffing, #Constitution, #BillOfRights, #FirstAmendment #SecondAmendment, #Congress, #ThePeoplesHouse, #EmployeesNotRoyalty, #mewe, #medium, #parler, #gab, #oddstuffing.com
Tag: #FirstAmendment #SecondAmendment
The Return of McCarthyism
In the late 1940s and 1950s, even an accused association with communism was enough to get an individual blacklisted from society or charged criminally. McCarthyism is the “practice of making accusations of subversion or treason, especially when related to communism, without any proper regard for evidence” and was a very dark time in our nation’s history. Ironically, in today’s reboot, it is the liberal, democratic socialists who are using techniques of McCarthyism to accuse others of sedition and treasonous acts. It doesn’t matter if there is proof or not, the accusation and association made by a member of the “woke” extreme left is all that is needed for someone to forever be labeled as a racist, white supremacist, insurrectionist or traitor. Woke McCarthyism has arrived!!
To be clear, the anti-Trump and Never Trump movements have been operating since before the 2016 elections. But following the takeover of the United States Capitol, the Woke McCarthyism machine went into overdrive.
The primary targets of Woke McCarthyism have been anyone associated with the President of the United States, or any of his policies. As has been going on for four years, there are organized efforts to deny anyone who worked in the administration any form of employment. Demands have been made to educational institutions to revoke these individuals’ degrees. Extremists have gone so far as to demand the high school one Republican Representative attended over 20 years ago, to “condemn” his actions.
Of course, Congress has its own special form of discrimination and hypocrisy. Left-wing extremists are demanding that any member who supported the vote to not certify the electoral college be expelled from Congress. Some are even calling for a commission to “rein in” media “disinformation and misinformation” and funding programs for “de-programming of white supremacists and conspiracy theorists.”
With the takeover of the Capitol, the goal of identifying and targeting individual supporters has been greatly boosted. Anyone who was simply in attendance at the Save America Rally are being targeted. Federal, state and local governments, schools and private employers have disciplined and terminated attendees. College and universities are being pressured to expel attending students. These actions have been done not because they committed illegal acts, but just because they attended a rally the Woke McCarthyism extremists disagree with.
Side note: I make no excuse for anyone who broke the law at the Capitol. They should be held accountable for their actions in a court of law. Period.
Airlines are now banning travelers, not only for what they call tumultuous behavior on planes, but for simply being part of the rally. Airlines have also unilaterally decided to not transport law-abiding citizens firearms into DC area airports until well after Inauguration Day. The TSA is looking to add rally attendees to the No-Fly-List.
The takeover of the Capitol has also provided an excuse to severely restrict access to the legislative buildings and curtail Constitutional rights across the country. Under the guise of supposed threats, new fences and barriers are being constructed. Access into the legislative chambers has been suspended. Severe restrictions on carrying firearms in and around legislative buildings have been enacted. They have even used this as an excuse to restrict their own members Constitutionally protected natural rights within the Capitol. While all the warzone like security precautions is being called temporary, it is doubtful meaningful access to our elected officials will ever be restored.
Large portions of the District of Columbia have been closed off and 25,000 National Guard troops have been added to the local and federal law enforcement officers in the area. Of course, the troops are being screened to “weed out any whiff of domestic extremism”. The definition of “domestic extremism” has not been disclosed.
Add this to what is going on with the technology we use every day. Big Tech has taken it upon themselves to determine what is and isn’t “truth” and “fact” as well as what information you are allowed access to. Anyone that speaks out against something Big Tech in their indisputable wisdom says is correct has their content removed and their voice silenced. Their interpretations of their own Terms & Conditions are final. All this while the Big Tech companies decry the censorship of individuals and political groups in foreign countries.
It’s not just end users; other tech companies have had their services terminated under pressure from the Big Tech companies for not implementing the same draconian rules as they do. Firearm related sites and services have been delisted and had their services cut off without warning because their hosts have been pressured into dropping them.
It doesn’t take too much vision to see where this is heading. A look at China’s social credit system is probably the best indicator of our future. China’s highly intrusive system punishes what it considers improper behavior including supporting certain religions, making late payments, excessive video gaming, criticizing the government, smoking or simply not sweeping in front of your house or store.
Consequences in the social credit system include bans on leaving the country, using public transportation, checking into hotels, hiring for high-visibility jobs, or acceptance of children to private schools. It can also result in slower internet connections and social stigmatization in the form of registration on a public blacklist. In this system, there is no legal representation and no appeal. The listed goal is to “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step.”
Perhaps our new democratic socialist society won’t be as harsh on those who speak out against unconstitutional and illegal actions by their government and its private industry enablers. But so far, it looks like Woke McCarthyism will be more than happy to punish anyone who doesn’t believe and act as they do.
Bob
#oddstuffing, #Constitution, #BillOfRights, #FirstAmendment #SecondAmendment, #WokeMcCarthyism, #BigTech, #Censorship, #CCP, #mewe, #medium, #parler, #gab, #oddstuffing.com
The First Amendment vs. Terms and Conditions of Use
The last few days have seen an unprecedented level of blatant censorship targeting the conservative community. Those who dare to speak anything other than the current politically correct propaganda are being systematically silenced. Politicians, companies and users are all being targeted. But of course, your government would never write a law to eliminate your right to free speech, that would be unconstitutional. So how did they eliminate your First Amendment protected rights? Easy, they outsourced it to private companies! Enter the Terms and Conditions of Use.
When the Founding Fathers crafted the First Amendment to the Constitution, they wanted to ensure the autonomy of the press. I have no doubt the expectation was a free and independent press would be another check and balance against the possibility of a tyrannically government.
The First Amendment
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
But what happens when the government and the press are working together? There is no dissent, there is no critique, there is no check and balance of what the government says or does. The press becomes nothing more than a tool of the government for distributing officially sanctioned information or preventing access to it.
Now add in the world of social media, online communities where the individuals and businesses communicate and share information, usually free of charge to the user, and the provider profits by selling access to the user’s information and habits. We don’t consider these private platforms “press” in the traditional sense and, as they argue, they are not publishers since the users are providing the content.
A quick look at Section 230 (47 U.S. Code § 230) – Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material – shows us the technology providers have NO liability when it comes to their ability to restrict and control content.
(2) Civil Liability
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
(B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).
With this protection, social media and internet content providers have unlimited and irrevocable discretion of what content they want to allow on their platforms. They can define anything they want as being “otherwise objectionable” and completely ban it and the users who share it. They don’t have to justify it any further than that and they don’t have to apply the standards equally across the board. They get to decide all by themselves what is true, what is false and what is acceptable for YOU to experience on their platform. It’s called Terms and Conditions of Use, or Community Standards or some other concoction that is supposed to make you think they are applying their ideology in a fair manner. They are not.
Is this censorship? Absolutely! Especially when you look at the fact the rules are applied strictly against some groups and not at all against others. One political party and faction of the government gets their message across while the other does not. You can now see why the current administration was working so hard to eliminate these protections, and why Big Tech and their allies in Congress were working so hard to defend it.
Which brings us to today. The dominant social media platforms decided to censor and ban the sitting President of the United States based on wild and unsubstantiated allegations from other politicians. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, they are the sole arbitrator of truth in their world. The masters of Big Tech have come right out and said if you don’t like it, go build your own.
Alternative social media companies have been around for years but have yet to gain widespread usage, until now. With the largest social media platforms cutting off scores of users and eliminating content, they have started to grow. What Big Tech considered nothing more than “ankle biters” are becoming relevant and becoming a threat to their monopoly on speech and thought. We now see other Big Tech companies exerting their influence to ban and eliminate these smaller companies that don’t restrict content they want eliminated.
If you think it will stop here, think again. A great deal of your world comes through information services and devices controlled by companies protected by Section 230. What happens when they deem certain website content as objectionable and blocking access to it? What happens when certain email content is deemed objectionable and they refuse to deliver it? What happens when certain books, magazines or political content is deemed objectionable and they start preventing you from buying or reading it? What happens when they determine that certain phone numbers belong to objectionable persons or companies and they don’t allow you to call them on their devices?
The Second Amendment community has been a target of Big Tech social media censorship for years. Legal content has been filtered or removed, distribution strictly limited and access to the tools and programs other content providers enjoy eliminated. The broader conservative movement has only recently begun to feel the rath on a large scale. The exodus from these Big Tech platforms has begun and they are not happy about it. Those who believe as they do are calling for even more censorship and suppression across all social media platforms and the internet. They want all content they find offensive or objectionable to be eliminated.
Like many others, my days on the major social media platforms are numbered. I’ve been on the alternate platforms for years in some cases and I’ve always maintained my own website. It will take a while for a critical mass of content providers to move to these alternative platforms, but it is happening. As we’ve seen, these platforms will be attacked and harassed, but the more users, the more content, the more communication we do there, the better off we all are.
What we now are seeing is the United States version of The Great Firewall of China. Censorship of technology, information and speech which is not approved is blocked. Only that which is official and approved will be allowed to reach you. Big Tech may be writing the code, but it is the government who is writing the specs for it.
The First Amendment is rapidly being replaced by private companies’ Terms and Conditions of Use where you have no input, no right to object, no right to appeal. You may only think, speak and act within the ever-changing and restrictive rules and regulations or face expulsion.
Welcome to the Democratic Socialist States of America.
Bob
#oddstuffing, #Constitution, #BillOfRights, #FirstAmendment #SecondAmendment, #Censorship, #BigTech, #SocialMedia, #mewe, #medium, #parler, #gab, #oddstuffing.com
Addendum:
Some comments and my reply from the Odd Stuffing Facebook page I wanted to keep with the original post material.
RE:
Jeffrey W. Hill
No Bob. It’s not censorship. If you don’t like it, buy some servers, connect them to the internet and start hosting.
Jeffrey W. Hill
Nathan Taylor Inciting violence was unacceptable long before the internet. Back then people who had interests in violent acts complained because TV news was controlled by monopolies and Newspapers could control what was distributed by thousands of paper boys across the country every morning. The Associated Press, United Press International and Reuters news services had as much control over the content of the news as Google and Facebook, and people who wanted to present their alternative views of reality complained continuously about the press services blocking them out. Bottom line, it has always taken a ton of money, vision, organization and smarts to build a big communications system, and that doesn’t change the fact that the systems are and should be controlled by the people successful enough to have built them. If “you” want “the press” to cover your alternative views, buy a printing press and get started.
—-
Jeff W. Hill, I’m going to bet the reason why you don’t feel any of this is censorship is because you and your ideology were not impacted. If it has been, you’d be screaming bloody murder like the rest of us. For heaven sakes, even the ACLU – a group who is absolutely no friend of the President or Second Amendment rights – has raised concerns about the social media censorship.
So, I tell you what I’m going to for you. I’m going to make it personal for you and ban you from commenting on my page for no other reason than you have disagreed with me.
Truth be known, I enjoy having people disagree with me and commenting with their point of view on my posts. This is how I and everyone else gains a greater understanding of the issues we face today. I absolutely abhor blocking or banning people or deleting posts. I think it squelches the free exchange of ideas and only makes matters worse. Of the VERY few people I’ve banned from my page, it was for harassing, threatening or belligerent behavior. But for you, I’m making an exception.
What do I expect as a reaction? After the obligatory <expletive deleted> you!, you and others with your point of view will report me to Facebook and other platforms, ISP’s, etc., for violating their Terms and Conditions of Use or Community Guidelines or whatever. Of course, nothing I have ever posted has ever violated the ever-shifting landscape of rules and regulations, but that’s not going to stop you or the Big Tech folks from punishing me for disagreeing with you and the cancel culture. After all, it’s okay to censor people who don’t think like you do, right?
That’s the funny thing about the First Amendment, it was written to protect ALL speech and views, even the ones you disagree with. As is often quoted, “I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend till death your right to say it.”
Restricting the ability of individuals or groups to freely and legally communicate, even if done by private companies, for political purposes and on behalf of a portion of the government is still censorship. And at a time when most people communicate through the Internet, it smacks of First Amendment infringement.
Sorry you won’t be able to respond here in my little corner of the internet Jeffrey W. Hill. You’ll have to make your own opinion page, fire up your own web servers or dust off that printing press to make your thoughts known because you’ve been censored here. My apologies to others whose comments were hidden as a result of banning Jeffrey W. Hill.