Posts Tagged ‘censorship’

The Democrats who are now in control of the Federal Government are exploiting the Capitol Hill riot to a level even I had not expected, using this one incident of violence as an excuse to begin a clamp down on those of us they consider to be the enemy. Can you guess who they are?  This is even more despicable because there is a chance this sorry affair was perpetrated by leftists.

This is right out of the standard progressive playbook and is captured in this prophetic quote by Rahm Emanuel:

You never want a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.

In response to the riot the Biden administration is proposing a rather extreme crackdown on those of us on the political right.  Of course they are cloaking their proposal in the usual progressive double speak.  Those of us who are fluent in their deceptive use of language would have no trouble deciphering the ominous message inside their proposal, which is documented in this White House Briefing Transcript.  I’ve included the full text relating to the proposal.  After each paragraph I will add my analysis and some sarcastic comments.

I also have some news to share on the President’s response to domestic violent extremism.  The January 6th assault on the Capitol and the tragic deaths and destruction that occurred underscored what we have long known: The rise of domestic violent extremism is a serious and growing national security threat. 

Of course those of us who deal with reality, unlike those on the political left know the “violent extremists” they will crack down are those who believe in individual rights, honor the Constitution, and know the truth that presidential election was stolen from President Trump.   The Democrats will ignore those who committed the vast majority of the real violence the past decade or so, their own side of the political spectrum.

The Biden administration will confront this threat with the necessary resources and resolve.  We are committed to developing policies and strategies based on facts, on objective and rigorous analysis, and on a respect for constitutionally protected free speech and political activities. 

What are the chances of the Biden Administration actually respecting the constitutionally protected free speech of those on the political right?  Negligible at best considering the track record of the extreme leftists now controlling the Democrat Party

Our initial work on DVE will broadly fall into three areas.  The first is a tasking from President Biden sent to the ODNI today requesting a comprehensive threat assessment, coordinated with the FBI and DHS, on domestic violent extremism.  This assessment will draw on the analysis from across the government and, as appropriate, nongovernmental organizations. 

The Biden Administration will be relying on the oh so corrupt deep state which is still way too full of Obama cronies.

The key point here is that we want fact-based analysis upon which we can shape policy.  So this is really the first step in the process, and we’ll rely on our appropriate law enforcement and intelligence officials to provide that analysis. 

When has the political left ever relied on actual facts?  That quote about fact based analysis is laughable.

The second will be the building of an NSC capability to focus on countering domestic violent extremism.  As a part of this, the NSC will undertake a policy review effort to determine how the government can share information better about this threat, support efforts to prevent radicalization, disrupt violent extremist networks, and more. 

The Biden Administration will be building an infrastructure to clamp down tightly on those who are not politically in lock step with the radical political left.

There’s important work already underway across the interagency in countering DVE, and we need to understand better its current extent and where there may be gaps to address, so we can determine the best path forward. 

I interpret this paragraph to mean that the Biden Administration will crackdown and harass those of us who want to share information about and educate others about the US Constitution and our founding principles.  If I’m wrong about this please let me know.

The third will be coordinating relevant parts of the federal government to enhance and accelerate efforts to address DVE.  This considered, an NSC-convened process will focus on addressing evolving threats, radicalization, the role of social media, opportunities to improve information sharing, operational responses, and more. 

The federal government will now be working closely with the corporate tyrants who have been working overtime to silence conservatives and everyone else on the political right.  That is how I interpret this last paragraph.  Free speech and the Constitution mean nothing to the Biden Administration.  Their earlier protestation is laughable in the extreme.  When have leftists ever respected the freedom of speech of those who are not leftists?

For the past couple of days I’ve been struggling to come up with a topic for this week’s article.  I’m not experiencing writer’s block.  It’s just that there is just so much wrong with our country right now, so much wrong at so many levels.  There are too many topics to choose from so I guess I’ll write about each topic that’s troubling me so much right now.

I know with all my heart that treating every single individual as the truly unique person we are is far superior to the identity politics peddled by the political left.  If you divide us up into artificial groups based on race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, or any characterization you automatically set one group against another.  Just look at how left has vilified white people.  It is just shocking to me.  I know this is nothing compared to how blacks were treated during slavery or segregation, both are also examples of liberals and their identity politics. Treating every individual the same with the same worth, no matter the color of their skin, leads to far less hate and division.

It is absolutely amazing to me how much liberal propaganda infects all levels of the news.  I noticed this decades ago, and it keeps getting worse.  Every single local news broadcast here in Massachusetts is nonstop liberal nonsense.  Hopefully it is different in red states, but I doubt it.  Even the weather is infected, they are constantly pushing global warming and climate change propaganda.  There are so few outlets that actually tell the truth left, especially after Fox News turned traitor.  I am so outraged after the firing of Lou Dobbs.

The crack down against conservatives on social media after the riot on Capitol Hill has reached levels that are on par with the most totalitarian nations.  Check out this article from the Federalist.

Censorship and blacklisting are serious unjust cultural acts that increasingly filter Americans into second-class citizens based on their political viewpoints. The censorship and blacklisting that we are seeing in America right now is viewpoint discrimination. Censorship and blacklisting need to be fully rejected by American society before they become accepted cultural norms that make even worse injustices likely and more possible.

It is truly horrific watching the Biden regime dismantle and destroy the American economy, which is documented in this American Thinker article.

the Biden Administration, the Democrats in Congress, and their fellow-travelers in the Ruling Class are determined to permanently stifle economic growth by their infatuation with hypothetical climate change thus undermining energy development as well as manufacturing.  They credulously claim that the theoretical green energy revolution will replace these jobs and wealth, but that will take decades if at all, and will be far too little and too late to prevent national insolvency. 

Their determination to raise business taxes as well as dramatically increase job- and business formation-killing regulations is anathema to promoting growth.  Their resolve to institute what is tantamount to economic central planning by the bureaucrats in Washington will cause enormous dislocation in financial resources, thus, throttling access to capital for expansion or new business formation.

There is so much more I could write about here in this article but I have to stop now because my blood is boiling too much.

I was planning on reviewing Parler on my quest to look for Facebook alternatives, and then Parler essentially disappeared. At least you could find websites that hosted articles about Parler disappearing. But what if you plugged in a website, and it never appeared? Think that couldn’t happen?

Think again. For 2021, I’m predicting that the next big thing in censorship will be DNS censorship.

DNS stands for Domain Name System. It’s a process that your web browser uses to turn the website that you type in (say, gab.com) into an IP address that the computer can actually use to route traffic. Your web browser sends a request to a DNS resolver, which talks to a name server to find the address for the website you requested. This DNS resolver then sends that IP address to your browser, which then lets your browser get the information you requested from the website. DNS resolution is one of those background tasks that just sort of works without you thinking about it.

You shouldn’t assume this is going to work well in the future. With Parler’s obvious targeting by Apple, Google and Amazon all at once, if you had doubts about FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) censorship, your doubts should be cleared up now. But imagine if you attempted to go to the “next great conservative website,” only to find it was “down.” No matter what you enter into your browser, it never resolved the website.

Like most people, you’re probably using Google’s public DNS server, 8.8.8.8, and its alternate, 8.8.4.4, without even knowing it. That means that any website you enter into the address bar of your browser has to get approval from Google to be shown to you. If you don’t think that’s a problem, read Google’s own FAQ page:

Does Google Public DNS offer the ability to block or filter out unwanted sites?

Google Public DNS is purely a DNS resolution and caching server; it does not perform any blocking or filtering of any kind, except that it may not resolve certain domains in extraordinary cases if we believe this is necessary to protect Google’s users from security threats. But we believe that blocking functionality is usually best performed by the client. If you are interested in enabling such functionality, you should consider installing a client-side application or browser add-on for this purpose.

From https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq

“…protect Google’s users from security threats.” Hmmm. Like the Capitol protests? Or “domestic terrorism?”

I’m skeptical, and while there isn’t a lot of evidence its happening now, I think its the next obvious web censorship step against anything conservative on the internet.

Yup, its coming

Fortunately there are options. CloudFlare right now seems to be sticking to neutrality, and has been concerned for years about web censorship. Their DNS servers are 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1, and I recommend you setup your computer to use them before Google’s DNS server finds a way to blacklist your conservative websites in order to “ensure the security and continuing stability” or “protect users from security threats,” for a “safe and secure society” of course.

PC Mag and Toms Hardware both have easy to use guides on changing your DNS server. I also recommend you log into your router and change the DNS server there. It’s a small pain, but unless you want websites to suddenly disappear like the Tiananmen Square Massacre, you’ll need to start thinking about what other back-end processes can be altered against your will.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

It has been understood since the very inception of the United States that freedom of speech is one of the most important ideals of this nation.  That ideal forms our very foundation.   It is beyond depressing that a significant percentage of the population of the United States no longer values freedom of speech.  It is beyond infuriating that a cabal of self appointed high tech overlords have been engaged in the systematic silencing of individuals who express ideas that conflict with the progressive orthodoxy.

The high tech fascism and censorship reached an appalling level when these corporate tyrants ganged up on the free speech social media platform Parler and forced it to close down, perhaps permanently.  Here is how the CEO of Parler described what took place.  The quote is from this Deadline article.

Parler CEO John Matze said today that his social media company has been dropped by virtually all of its business alliances after Amazon, Apple and Google ended their agreements with the social media service.

“Every vendor from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too on the same day,” Matze said today on Fox News.

Matze conceded that the bans could put the company out of business while raising free speech issues, calling it “an assault on everybody.”

“They all work together to make sure at the same time we would lose access to not only our apps, but they’re actually shutting all of our servers off tonight, off the internet,” Matze said. “They made an attempt to not only kill the app, but to actually destroy the entire company. And it’s not just these three companies. Every vendor from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too on the same day.”

Liberals on social media constantly point out that these tech companies are private companies therefore they have every right to engage in this despicable behavior.  That is true.  What liberals are implying is that we have no right to complain about this fascism and we must remain silent about it.  On that they are egregiously misguided.  I have every right to speak out against anything and everything I choose to because I have freedom of speech, and that includes private companies that are behaving like a bunch of fascists.  I have every right to speak out about this disgusting censorship and use my voice, and typing to suggest that everyone who is outraged by these direct attacks on freedom of speech to boycott any company that is involved.  Every individual has the tight to criticize, complain about, and rail against whatever they want to. I for one will never use Amazon, Google or Apple again.

I don’t know how many times someone on the political left has told me that what these high tech companies are doing is not censorship because only governments can engage in censorship.  That is utter bovine excrement   Censorship occurs whenever someone is silenced by someone else, no matter the circumstances.  Censorship is always wrong and always deserves condemnation.

Progressives, and many on the right who should know better, believes that there is such a class of speech known as hate speech and that it is not protected by the First Amendment.  The problem with the whole concept of hate speech is that no one can agree what is hate speech and what is not.  You absolutely do not want the government of high tech tyrants defining that constitutes what speech.  Far too often progressives deem something to be hate simply because it conflicts with their political beliefs and ideology.