Tag: free speech

Guest Post: Britain Stands at a Crossroads

The Portly Politico13 Comments

Good ol’ Tom over at Free Speech Backlash graciously sent along this powerful post about the state of free speech—or the lack thereof—in Great Britain and Europe.

American readers are likely aware of the rapid erosion of free speech in the nation that birthed the very concept, and it serves as an object lesson on the importance of the First Amendment, which has so far protected Americans from the worst excesses of government censorship.  As Tom notes, though, paper guarantees are worthless if not supported for every American.

However, government censorship has rarely been the issue in the United States; rather, corporate censorship is what haunts free speech in the United States.  The various attempts by the tech giants to censor free speech on their platforms in 2016, 2020, and 2024 indicate that the platforms that serve as our de facto public square are often restricted at the whims of the rich and powerful.  Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter did much to restore free speech online, but even that is imperfect.

Further, American banks have the nasty habit of “debanking” account holders with unflatteringly Truth-based views.  Many conservatives found their deposited funds inaccessible, or unable to accept payments through popular payment processors, because of publicly-voiced opinions that did not fit the globohomo narrative.

But, ultimately, we have the protection of the Constitution to criticize the government, even when the ostensibly private sector platforms for doing so are often censored.  Great Britain and Europe at large lack that basic protection.

Tom links this destruction of free speech to the massive influx of Third Worlders.  The two go hand-in-hand—if you need an imported slave class to a.) do all of your work for cheap and b.) make you feel good about yourself, you don’t want the native-born proles complaining.  The solution—especially in a system like Britain’s where the party in power controls the executive and legislative functions simultaneously (usually) by default—is to make it illegal to criticize the massive influx of dusky hordes into your homeland.

That brings me to another point:  why does Britain have a Home Secretary—or anyone in power—named Shabana Mahmood?  It reminds me of this clip from The Simpsons:

But I digress.  Here’s Tom with more:

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TBT^2: A Discourse on Disclaimers

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What a difference a year makes.  It seems as though the election of Donaldus Magnus last November ushered in a profound cultural shift.  Being Left is cringe and gay.  It always was, but now normies are saying it out loud.

Sure, there’s still a lot of weirdos out there, but it’s fascinating to see how the culture has moved so wildly in such a short amount of time.  The age of needless disclaimers may very well be coming in—or, perhaps, it will intensify during the death throes of hand-wringing.

Well, we’ll see.  In the meantime, life is too short to bottle everything up.  Drop Truth Bombs, my friends!

With that, here is 27 June 2024’s “TBT: A Discourse on Disclaimers“:

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TBT: A Discourse on Disclaimers

The Portly Politico29 Comments

Last week my Dad sent me a link to an old piece of mine, “A Discourse on Disclaimers.”  When I wrote it, I was still undergoing a based transformation.  This piece represents one of those many little turning points that moved me to the point of realizing that there is no reasoning with the Left.  After all, how can you reason with an ideology that has no fixed moral center, which is always shifting its own goals in the name of some amorphous, perpetual revolution?

The failure of the modern Right has been to attempt to point out the hypocrisy of the Left, based on the unspoken assumption that if we just keep pointing it out and keep using logic, they’ll see the light and convert to reason, logic, and Truth.  It’s like arguing with a pit bull when your baby is dangling from its jaws:  it’s fatally ineffective and will cost you something precious.

Fortunately, while the Left possesses all of the irrational insanity and ferocity of the pit bull, it lacks the animal’s strength.  Yes, there is a strength the Left possesses in delusion and with its control of the institutions, but even that edifice of institutional control is crumbling.

It’s time for us to be bold.  Doing otherwise is tantamount to doubting God’s Promises.  Yes, we should be wise—no good will come from shouting red-pilled Truth bombs in the wrong context—but we should be brave, too.

With that, here is 20 June 2018’s “A Discourse on Disclaimers“:

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Twitter Flies Free

The Portly Politico8 Comments

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!  Elon Musk, the whimsical Willy Wonka of our time, has purchased Twitter.

While I have a Twitter account, I don’t really use it that frequently, with the exception of checking out some spicy Tweets on occasion (but even those are gone, thanks to the platform’s arbitrary censorship).  I find the format clunky and unwieldy, especially when trying to read long threads or responses to Tweets.

It’s also a cesspool of Leftist hand-wringing and overwrought, fake stories, in which progressives claim their small children are asking them if Trump is going to kill the trannies or what not.  At its worst, it’s an outrage factory; at its best, it’s an echo chamber for the mainstream media.

There’s a long history of censorship of conservative and populist voices on Twitter.  The rumors (which will be confirmed or otherwise by the time this post goes live) suggest that Twitter’s quarterly report won’t look good, so Musk was able to scoop up the company at the price of $44 billion, or $54.20 per share.  That represents a 38% premium to Twitter’s stock price as of 1 April 2022.

Basically, Twitter went woke—like, MEGA woke—and it’s starting to go broke.

The news of Musk’s purchase of Twitter is heartening, as he describes himself as a free speech absolutist.  Trump has pledged to stay on TRUTH Social, but I still hope Musk restores his account, even if it’s a symbolic gesture.

While Musk’s takeover is promising—let a thousand crazy Tweets bloom!—it does suggest that conservatives are on hard times if we’re hoping the whims of a boyish entrepreneur/government subsidy devourer will restore free speech on a failing, but still important, Big Tech platform.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

TBT: Big Deal

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The big news in media a year ago was that Joe Rogan had signed an exclusive deal with Spotify, purported to be worth around $100 million.  At the time, it seemed that Rogan and/or Spotify was/were purging from the platform the edgiest of Rogan’s guests, the interesting dissidents like Gavin McInnes.

As I wrote last year, “Imagine, though, what [Rogan] could have done for free speech and liberty if he’d fought against the SJWs and taken the McInnes route [of starting his own platform].”

Well, it seems that Rogan is beginning to realize the price of doing business with the wokesters.  In a recent interview, Rogan bemoaned the death of comedy films, as now any bit of humor can be construed as a form of privilege, or of otherwise marginalizing some allegedly oppressed and, therefore, humorless minority.  Rogan even went so far as to claim that “it will eventually get to straight white men are not allowed to talk.”

Rogan seems to be waking up to reality, albeit belatedly.  Let’s see if he puts his money where his mouth is and pushes back against the social justice tyranny, or continues to rest on his lucrative laurels.

Here is 20 May 2020’s “Big Deal“:

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Et tu, WordPress?

The Portly Politico18 Comments

Thanks to photog for informing me about this one:  legendary conservative blog Conservative Treehouse is being deplatformed.  WordPress has given them to 2 December 2020 to find a new host.

It’s another sad casualty in the never-ending pogroms of Big Tech.  I am not a regular Conservative Treehouse reader, but it’s fairly standard, non-controversial conservative commentary.  CT was big on debunking the Russian conspiracy and Ukrainian hoaxes, and really delved deeply into the weeds of those baseless witch hunts.  It’s also been going hard to illuminate the theft of the presidential election.

But that’s enough.  In a world in which Twitter posts Orwellian “fact-check” tags to tweets about the election, any questioning of the orthodoxy is a thoughtcrime.  CT itself points to the real reason for their deplatforming:

The WordPress company is not explaining the reason for deplatforming because there is no justifiable reason for it.  At the same time, they are bold in their position. Perhaps this is the most alarming part; and everyone should pay attention. They don’t care.

Truthful assembly is now the risk.  CTH is now too big; with a site reach of 500,000 to a million unique readers each day; and with well over 200,000 subscribers; our assembly is too large, too influential, and presents a risk… we guard the flickering flame.

That’s the key—Conservative Treehouse is effective; ergo, it must be eliminated.  I’ve written far spicier posts on this blog, but I’m so small, WordPress doesn’t care (or, more likely, doesn’t notice).

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TBT: [Censored.TV] Lineup Announced

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Other than Roosh V, probably the greatest influence on my deeper red-pilling was Gavin McInnes.  McInnes’s commentary is funny, lively, and fresh.  I have consumed hundreds of hours of his popular podcast, Get Off My Lawn, so I’ve heard a lot of his thoughts on a broad range of topics.  Even when I disagree with his assessment of some event, his perspective is unique and interesting.

Milo is also a part of McInnes’s world, and his sharp, erudite, biting commentary—and excellent journalism—routinely inspire posts on this site, such as Monday’s piece “What is Civilization?“

Back in Summer 2019, McInnes—who, like Laura Loomer, has been banned from multiple platforms—launched Censored.TV, which at the time was FreeSpeech.TV (thus the brackets in this post’s title, and in the original post below; the service changed its name after another company threatened a trademark suit against McInnes).  The service, which is just $10 a month or $100 for a year, features about a dozen different personalities and shows, ranging from “Gary’s Mailbag”—a homeless man who wanders around outside the studio and reads letters—to Milo’s raucous “Friday Night’s All Right.”

The main message of the original post was to encourage readers to support content they like (myself included!), especially conservatives.  Platforms like SubscribeStar help give conservatives and dissidents a voice, but those platforms are oases of freedom in a desert of techno-tyranny.

With that, here is 2019’s “FreeSpeech.TV Lineup Announced“:

Thanks to my brother for this nocturnal news update:  Gavin McInnes’s new subscription-based service, [Censored.TV], is ready to launch.  Listeners to the excellent, hilarious Get Off My Lawn podcast know that Gavin has been planning this platform for some time now, so it’s exciting to see the lineup.  The most exciting part of that schedule:  the twice-monthly sit-downs with Milo Yiannopoulos to talk about the news.  Talk about throwing gasoline onto a raging fire of awesomeness.

The service is $10 a month, or $100 a year, which is on par with Steven Crowder’s Mug Club or Ben Shapiro’s subscription.  I just don’t think it comes with a Leftist Tears Hot-or-Cold Tumbler, much less a far superior hand-etched mug.  But with McInnes’s crazy, controversial, humorous observations about life and culture, I can live without a drinking vessel tossed in (although it would be hysterical to drink coffee from a mug made to look like McInnes’s bearded mug).

Because of constant censorship from techno-elites and their ever-shifting “terms of services,” conservative and Dissident Right voices have fewer and fewer options to raise funds.  Some sites, like immigration patriot website VDare.com, can’t even use PayPal anymore.  As such, more and more content creators are turning to alternative or free-speech-friendly services, or undertaking the cost of creating their own infrastructure, so they can continue to get their work to fans.

I am definitely a small fry in this game of commentary, but that’s why I’ve setup a page with SubscribeStar.  My goal isn’t too live off of subscriptions, but just to supplement my income slightly to make blogging more on a daily basis more feasible (and to reinvest some of the funds into maintaining and improving the experience).

For guys like Gavin McInnes, who has been hounded from even supposed safe havens like his old employer, CRTV (now BlazeTV), reliable income streams aren’t a passing lark—they’re absolutely crucial.

In a better timeline, McInnes would be hosting Red Eye.  But he’s a fighter, and I have no doubt his new service will continue to deliver the laughs.

Free speech isn’t free.  Support creators like McInness, Crowder, Shapiro, and Milo to the best of your ability to keep their content alive.

If you’d like to support MY content, consider signing up for a subscription to my SubscribeStar page.  New, exclusive content every Saturday, starting at just $1 a month.

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SubscribeStar and Free Speech

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Readers know that I’ve been using SubscribeStar to host subscription-based content—like SubscribeStar Saturdays for $1 a month subscribers, and Five Dollar Fridays and Sunday Doodles for $5 a month subs—for over a year now.  It’s a fairly rudimentary blogging platform, without some of the robustness and customization options of WordPress, but unlike WordPress, it’s leadership is not inherently left-leaning.

In other words, there’s very little chance SubscribeStar is going to shut down a “star“—their term for their content providers—over groundless accusations.  That’s one big reason I signed up for their service:  I had confidence that they wouldn’t shutter my blog posts simply for thinking critically and questioning the prevailing orthodoxy.

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Lazy Sunday LXXIX: Forgotten Posts, Volume III

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Lazy Sunday is rolling on with some more “Forgotten Posts” (check out Volume I and Volume II).  Again, the criteria for selection is pretty loose—I scroll through my archives and find posts I don’t link to very often, or which I’ve largely forgotten that I wrote.  Even that’s not a hard-and-fast rule.

This week’s selections come from June 2019.  The summer is always a slow month for new; ergo, it’s a slow month for blogging.  But with a self-imposed daily post requirement, I’ve gotta come up with something.  Here’s a taste of those somethings:

There’s another Lazy Sunday in the books.  Speaking of books, I’ll be cracking them pretty hard this week, as school resumes this Thursday.  It’s going to be an interesting year.  Wish me luck.

In the meantime, enjoy your Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Trump Takes Action on Big Tech

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President Trump finally did it—after years of calls from blackballed conservatives, GEOTUS signed an executive order yesterday removing liability protections for social media companies that censor users based on their political views.

Here is a lengthy excerpt from Fox News‘s reporting:

The president’s order, which also cuts federal funding for social media platforms that censor users’ political views, came just two days after Twitter took the unprecedented step of slapping a “misleading” warning label on two of Trump’s tweets concerning the fraud risks of nationwide mail-in balloting. The move immediately backfired: Experts disputed that Trump’s tweet was actually misleading, in part because mail-in balloting has been linked to ongoing fraud; Twitter’s fact-check itself contained false statements; and Twitter failed to apply the standard of review to other users.

At Thursday’s signing ceremony, Trump called the fact-check “egregious,” and held up a photo of Twitter executive Yoel Roth, who heads up the site’s fact-checking and rules-making operation. Fox News reported on Wednesday that Roth has mocked Trump supporters, called Trump’s team “ACTUAL NAZIS,” slammed “scary trannies” in New York City, and called GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a “bag of farts.” (In a statement, Twitter did not dispute Fox News’ reporting, but called it “unfortunate.”)

“My executive order calls for new regulations under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to make it so that social media companies that engage in censoring any political conduct will not be able to keep their liability shield,” the president said.

Essentially, social media platforms have always had a choice:  either act as a publisher, in which case you’re liable for what users post, but you can remove and censor content as you see fit; or act as a neutral platform, in which case you’re protected from liability for what users post.  Twitter, Facebook, et. al., are trying to have the best of both worlds—ban political posts and users with which they disagree under the companies’ “Terms of Services,” while disclaiming responsibility for everything else.

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