John Fuckface Kerry whines about how the freedom of speech is hampering “democracy”.
…in which he spells out the totalitarian nature of his political party’s philosophy. Watch, listen and rage.
Category: Gummint
Muzzling Free Speech
And speaking of people who want to attack our First Amendment, we show some foreign interference (and no, it ain’t Russians):
BRITAIN was once the envy of the world for our legal right to free speech*. However, the tide has turned, and the government’s Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU), set up in 2019 and instructed in March 2020 to combat the spread of ‘false coronavirus information online’, has helped the United States establish a dedicated team to crush what it sees as dissent.
In the name of ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’, the CDU focused on coercing social media giants to execute ‘government-wide censorship efforts’. It has now exported its blueprint to the US, despite the fact that America’s prized First Amendment specifically protects citizens’ right to express themselves freely.
*Of course, it’s a lot easier to understand this when you realize that for all its so-called “storied freedoms”, Britain has never had absolute freedom of speech, nor anything approaching it.
A duty-of-care principle was established in the UK in 1932, and it is this anti-harm legislation the British government used to demand censorship of social media content, since reinforced by the Online Safety Act passed in October 2023.
Needless to say, though, their foulness found fertile governmental soil Over Here:
In August 2021 the Biden White House hosted a team from the CDU. They taught the Biden-Harris National Security Council (NSC), an interagency policy committee (IPC), everything they knew about silencing government critics on social media.
Feel free to read the disgusting details, if you think you can stand it.
Me, I’m off to the range.
New Ban?
This is an interesting development:
Australia will ban children from using social media with a minimum age limit as high as 16, prime minister Anthony Albanese said Tuesday, vowing to get kids off their devices and ‘onto the footy fields’.
Federal legislation to keep children off social media will be introduced this year, he said, describing the impact of the sites on young people as a ‘scourge’.
The minimum age for children to log into sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok has not been decided but is expected to be between 14 and 16 years, Albanese said.
The prime minister said his own preference would be a block on users aged below 16.
Age verification trials are being held over the coming months, the centre-left leader said, though analysts said they doubted it was technically possible to enforce an online age limit.
Loath as I am to give any kind of credit to the OzGov, foul totalitarian nanny bastards that they are, I can’t help but wonder whether a) this can work and b) if it does work, will it benefit teens in any way? Given that teens nowadays appear to have absolutely no problem in accessing porn — even porn sites protected by “age walls” — I’m somewhat skeptical about it all.
It’s probably just the usual “We have to do something!” posturing so common among all politicians.
(Just an aside: Albanese’s “center-left” philosophy is somewhere around that of Bernie Sanders, politically speaking.)
Quote Of The Day
From Insty, referring to this post:
“Let’s be honest, the people running the world are not only corrupt, but spectacularly incompetent. For their lousy performance alone they should be tarred and feathered; for their “impudence” in attempting dictatorship they deserve worse. But it really seems that over the past few years the ruling class of the West has been preparing for war against its owns citizenry. Again: Why?”
Because, Professor Reynolds, the socialist state has always been better at waging war against its own people than against foreigners. The French Revolution’s Reign of Terror was not directed at the Germans, Spanish or the Italians, but against the very French citizens the Revolution had purported to liberate. The Communist Revolution in 1917 Russia ended up slaughtering and imprisoning far more working- and middle-class Russians than had ever been killed under the Romanovs.
And it will be far easier for the West’s ruling class to oppress the populace than t would be to, say, oppress foreigners. The ubiquitous surveillance cameras are in London, Los Angeles, Paris and Berlin — not in Bangalore, Rio de Janeiro or Manila. And the coming clampdown on free speech will affect Musk’s TwitterX, Bill Whittle and me and the Readers of this website, not Burmese peasants or Masai cattle herders.
Not only was it untrue that Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia; there’s a distinct possibility that Oceania had never been at war with Eastasia — the war being simply a propaganda concoction to justify the repression of the inhabitants of Oceania.
So when the lackeys of the ruling class — that would be, say, the police forces of Britain and the FBI here in the US — start muttering darkly about the “hard-Right” or “MAGA-followers” as they prepare for mass arrests and imprisonments, it’s us they’ll be coming for.
As for Glenn’s why? the answer’s simple: because they can. Glenn is a thoughtful, intelligent and civilized man, and he simply cannot comprehend the feral nature of those who would rule over us.
They — to a man — are amoral cocksuckers. And the sooner we recognize that and start treating them accordingly, the better.
If You Build It, They Will Come
…and if you try to steal it, they will leave:
Millionaires are looking to flee the UK in their droves to escape Labour’s tax raids – with a record number of wealthy Britons tipped to leave the country this year.
Advisers to the UK’s richest households told yesterday how phones are ringing off the hook as their clients rush for the exit, as Chancellor Rachel Reeves plans to hike levies in its autumn Budget on October 30.
It follows PM Keir Starmer’s speech this week in which he painted a woeful picture of the state of the country’s economy, referring to financial ‘black holes’, as he braced the UK for a difficult Autumn budget.
The smart ones left long ago — some as much as a year before this new lot of Socialists came to power, I’m told — and most of the really smart ones made plans for this eventuality even earlier than that.
You see, not only are The Rich quite intelligent (trust fund babies and nobility aside), they also have access to all sorts of intelligence that others don’t. At Rich Fart #1’s afternoon cocktail party, for instance, one of the topics might be a sharing of information as to the best bolt-holes to flee to when the financial SHTF, along with the best methods to implement such flight. And Rich Farts #2-7 hand over details of which lawyers, tax experts, bankers and so on would be the best to facilitate said flights.
They’re so far ahead of the game, in other words, that they’ll be gone long before H.M. tax sharks send out the list of desirable legislation for the Socialists to pass. Hell, I bet that most have gone — or at least, their money’s gone — already.
Work Ethic
The State (i.e. governments large and small) can always find ways to stifle individuality, especially when that individuality manifests itself in young people. Here’s a recent example:
Bored and looking for something to do this summer, Danny Doherty hatched a plan to raise money for his brother’s hockey team by selling homemade ice cream.
But a few days after setting up a stand and serving up vanilla, shaved chocolate and fluffernutter to about 20 people, Danny’s family received a letter from the Norwood Board of Health ordering it shut down. Town officials had received a complaint and said that the 12-year-old’s scheme violated the Massachusetts Food Code, a state regulation.
No surprises there, this being Massachusetts. (My only question: who complained? Some goody-goody, or someone fronting for the local ice cream shop? Either way, they need a swift slap.)
Back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, I lived in in one of the Chicagoland suburbs — Palatine, a modest middle-class neighborhood of the kind that’s so Norman Rockwell it’s almost a caricature. And while my house itself was small, it sat on just over a quarter-acre, which meant a large lawn in the backyard. Said lawn took well over two hour to cut and edge, and in the short but warm, fecund Chicago summers, the grass grew quickly, meaning it had to be cut at least weekly; actually, I would cut it about five times a month. And it was a hot, sweaty business: Chicago’s summers can be sticky, especially when contrasted with its icy winters.
At that point I was working from home (long before it became the cool thing to do) because the company was based near Fort Lauderdale. And I really couldn’t afford to spend the time doing the lawn. Anyway, one afternoon I was just about to go out and cut the thing when the doorbell rang. When I opened it, there were two boys standing there, aged about ten.
“Cut your lawn for ten bucks?”
Hell, yes.
Whereupon these two little buggers (each had their own, okay, most likely Dad’s lawnmower) cut the lawn — good grief, they ran behind the mowers, and the grass was cut to almost professional standard in just about fifteen minutes. They didn’t do edging (“Our Dads won’t let us because they say it’s dangerous”) but that was really just a half-hour job, and easily done after 5 o’clock.
“See you again next week, boys?”
They actually sounded surprised. “You want us to come back?”
Hell, yes. And over the next couple years, I never cut my own lawn again. And nor did a lot of my neighbors, once I told them about these kids at the next block party. These boys made an absolute fortune, and worked their tails off.
And if the local council gauleiters had ever tried to stop these kids from earning some money from good, honest hard work, I do believe that the neighborhood dads would have burned down their offices. They didn’t interfere, of course, either because they never learned about these budding entrepreneurs or because they just ignored them (as they should).
Now I’m not suggesting that whenever Gummint does what they did to young Danny Doherty above, the neighborhood dads should torch their offices or tar and feather the bastards. That would be incitement, and I’m never going to do that no sirree not me not ever.
But I sure as hell wouldn’t try to stop those irate folks if they did. I would offer to hold their coats, however, just as a good neighbor should.