“Big Tech” social media firms like Facebook and Twitter make an editorial decision that you should not see news of the Hunter Biden laptop hard drive scandal. They’ve scrubbed links to the New York Post story that unveiled the alleged corruption, showing connections between Joe Biden and foreign influence peddling. Bill Whittle says this scheme of political protection by news suppression has crossed the Rubicon, an act which carries grave consequences, and from which there’s no turning back.
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Bill Whittle Network · Biden Stain Scrubbed: Big Tech Bleaches Biden Hard Drive Scandal from Social Media
73 replies on “Biden Stain Scrubbed: Big Tech Bleaches Biden Hard Drive Scandal from Social Media”
I was going to share this video on Facebook but….
And the video is hosted by Youtube which is owned by Google…
Aww F@UCK!
I remember using Alta-Vista back in the 2000’s while I was complete my graduate degree. Loved it because you had an opportunity to put in several different parameters in order to reach requested results. It basically went away after Yahoo bought them out in 2003.
As for search engines now, we use DuckDuckGo but that does not mean Google isn’t part of the search or the ultimate results. Google needs to go away.
The SOLUTION I believe is Simple. The Tech Giants including Goggle, Facebook and Twitter MUST be broken up into =MUCH smaller Companies to create MORE competition, period. Dan Bongino has been speaking about the MONOPOLY for years on hi9s Podcast and appearances on Fox News. The 230 roadmap would become a graver disaster. If the GIANTS were to CHOOSE between a Public Platform *(cannot be sued) or a Publisher (can be sued) and 230 status taken away then they would not Publish articles because of thought of getting SUED.
Outstanding, gentlemen!
I’ve given up all social media except for Parler. I still have a Twitter account, but I only go there to give politicians a hard time (when the mood strikes). That said, I have an email distribution list that I send articles to knowing that they wouldn’t see them otherwise. I have to believe I’m not the only one, so the word is getting out.
I all but never use Twitter and I only use Facebook for some hobby-related groups and YouTube for some content providers I subscribe to. I don’t use any other social media.
I gave up trying to communicate meaningfully on FB. Pretty much everyone there is either a shallow thinker or just plain shallow.
I’ve never had a mailing list like you have. For me, email is now only for business and commerce, not personal communication.
Question: In Parler they require some type of I.D. verification, or so it seems. Was that your experience. A friend said he had to scan some type of I.D.
Seems intrusive. I like the idea of Parler but…..
The Boys miss an important point. Granted these content providers have vast powers often to our detriment. But.
More important and way scarier is the power of those who control our access to the Internet. I’m not tech savvy enough to know who these are but I have no doubt should we begin to resist our government a la Hong Kong and others the Internet can be shut down. No phone service, no text service, no nada.
That is scary.
There aren’t enough stupid people in this country to really elect biden,I mean the “real” democrat candidate into office,are there?
Never underestimate the power of stupid.
Yes, there are.
On a clear day you can see the Streisand Effect forever…
This shutdown of information would not matter a whole lot if our education centers, that is K-12 and college, were actually educating our youth properly. Instead, they are being fed how awful our country is and how it needs to be “transformed” into something better. This brainwashing has been a common tactic with dictatorships and such as part of their goal to take over a country, and we are seeing it here. We are the only country with true liberty and rule of law by the people in the world…do not let them distroy it.
I posted this over at Backstage, but here is the link to the article at PJ Steve discusses.
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2019/04/10/hotel-googlefornia-n249055
Thanks for the link, that was an interesting read.
Google is ubiquitous in the ether of cyberspace. You can’t get away from it and still have a functional internet service. The idea that people are denying Google of anything by not having a gMail account or using an android product is just silly, they’re there whether you use those features or not …
You can however limit its access and clip its wings a bit by using ad blockers and scripting control browser extensions.You need to understand what you’re doing if you use this kind of thing but it’s not all that difficult to learn and apply. It also keeps a lot of undesirable stuff from running on your equipment without your knowledge.
This is a screen grab of the NoScript extension I’m using in Firefox. It shows the scripts that tried to load on this page, which ones I allowed and which ones I blocked.
The ones in red are unencrypted (http:// not https://) and I have to let CloudFlare run because that’s BW.com’s CDN (Content Delivery Network). I block the others and usually anything from Google I can without breaking the page’s functionality. Google bought DoubleClick and DoubleClick is a notorious privacy invader, has been for decades.
(Crap! I pasted the screenshot in here and it just loaded the code, not the pic. I’ll try another way to get that pic up.)
There, let’s see if that works …
I have used NoScript as well. Having YouTube as trusted keeps you in the Googleverse. As Steve said in the example of the woman who tried to block Google out of her life completely, you can’t because then you won’t be able to use the internet at all.
(I do wonder, though, how the woman’s helper got every one of the 1.8 million IP addresses owned by Google and how he knew they were correct. Seems to me like it’d be easy to screw that up and block non-Google addresses that matter to using the net.)
Tools like this one will do most of the heavy lifting:
https://community.spiceworks.com/tools/ip-lookup/results?hostname=8.8.8.8
I’ve used the 8.8.8.8 IP address as an example, which coincidentally is owned by none other than our favorite modern demon, Google.
OK. I’ve written programs that use web sites to pull data. Far from the most efficient way to do it, though. Software that directly does the reverse DNS lookup instead of going through an outside web site would save tons of time in gathering the data. That’s probably what they did.
Agreed. I was unaware of your level of knowledge, so I started simply. There are better command line tools available.
Additionally, this site displays entire ranges of IP addresses, both IPV4 and IPV6, that Google owns:
https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-the-ip-address-of-google-818153
As an aside for any other readers of this thread, IPV4 uses integer values of 0-255 for each of its 4 numeric values (e.g., 64.233.160.10). This translates to a paltry 2^32 possible addresses,which is too small for current internet demands. However, large blocks of IPv4 addresses are reserved for special uses and are unavailable for public allocation.
IPV6 introduces a much bigger pool of address possibility, which is a theoretical 2^128 possible addresses.
Believe it or not, Wikipedia has extensive information on this subject:
… and I never claimed it got you out of the Googleverse nor that such a thing was desirable or even possible. In fact, I said just the opposite. If you are using a scripting control and do not mark YouTube as “trusted” you cannot watch the videos on this website.
To be clear, I neither fear nor hate Google. It’s not possible to use the internet and not impinge on the Googleverse. I don’t mind that Google does that, I mind what they do with what they harvest and control. I sincerely believe that we need some sort of controls over Big Tech like Google, we broke up AT&T for less. A good model would be the antitrust suits brought against Microsoft for making Internet Explorer so integral to their other software that it was impossible to use that software without also using IE. To this very day I never let a Microsoft browser talk to the internet and only use them (IE and MS Edge) for LAN functions where I need things like OCX to make something (like security cameras) work.
It’s the boundaries that are the problem and unless some sort of boundaries are established I don’t blame Google for being Google. Google is certainly taking advantage of the lack of boundaries and this is the natural result of unrestrained, uncontrolled Capitalism. Google needs its wings clipped, not its feathers scalded off then tossed into a frying pan. We didn’t destroy Microsoft nor should we have. Microsoft found a way to operated within set boundaries and is thriving. Google is the same sort of problem.
The thread is about avoiding Google. That’s what I wrote about. “Let’s see if that works…” and an image lead the reader to assume you’re staying on topic. You can’t drop a stark non-sequitur like that and expect it to be recognized as such, then throw in unrelated commentary when it isn’t. Well, you can, but it makes you look grumpy and silly.
You’ve successfully loaded the screen shot. What site or ?? is that of? I have the feeling this is beyond my abilities.
It comes from a Chrome extension called NoScript, which blocks Javascript from running if a web site has any. These days, very few don’t. Using the extension can stop sites from working if you don’t understand what it’s doing.
If you want it, you can get it from the Chrome web store.
Thanks, Michael. I appreciate your reply. Do I want it is the question?
It can be useful if you want to block JavaScript from sites you don’t trust. You might be surprised to learn that every web site you go to refers to a number of other sites, and you have to decide whether or not you want to trust every one of them. That can mean a lot of time spent checking on all those sites.
Generally, commercial sites are trustworthy because they have no incentive to cause you or their web partners trouble. It’d be bad for business. But I guarantee that you won’t recognize many of the referral site addresses so if you don’t already know them you’ll have to do that research. I’d bet that’s too far to delve into the innards of the net for most people. I’m a retired I.T. professional and even I got tired of having to do it for at least half of the sites I tried to use. I stopped using it some time ago.
A good browser extension (or browser itself) that blocks cookies that track you across the web is probably good enough for 95%+ of people. I use Brave, a privacy-oriented offshoot of Chrome. You can do the same with Firefox but you’d have to install some extensions to accomplish the same. Can’t speak for other browsers.
Thanks for your reply. I use DuckDuckGo. Think that’s a good idea?
It always reminds me of the frustration one feels watching ‘Mr. Smith goes to Washington’ when nothing he’s saying in the Senate is being reported in his home state.
Naïve Comment coming, be kind…( I just know I’m going to regret this but here goes)
Thanks guys, intense subject.
However, I just saw this video. I saw your messages during the Obama admin too.
I see other messages too. I see Daily Caller, Just the News (Solomon), I see Fox news, I see MSNBC, I see Daily Wire, Chicks on the Right, Officer Tatum, Chad Prather,, Dan Bongino, Mark Levin, all the content on Townhall media, and some guy from PJ Media named…Vodkapundit… I even get local news of happenings from my local newspaper, crime reports, mug shots, news on pumping “cleaned sewer water” into our water table because we don’t want to build a reservoir…… all of these hundreds of points of information and more are available to me and I take advantage of them.
Others do too. Many many others. Why am I immune to the censorship? Why are WE immune to this censorship and somehow get this information? Why can I get the information I want?
Could it be because I’m not lazy, or stupid, or lazy and stupid? Could it be that very very early on, I knew that A.O.L. was only a teeny sliver of the entire web and I ventured out early to see what was out there?
Could it be that stupid or lazy people are so wrapped up in their daily lives, intoxicated with watching cat videos on FB that they don’t bother to think, ‘Maybe I should consider other sources of information about politics, domestic and foreign affairs, business and lifestyle other than what I get fed by FB?”
Guys, is the point of this video that censorship on big tech is only the beginning and that soon, very soon if Joe Biden’s handlers have their way, BW and the sites mentioned above will be literally wiped from the map? ISP’s will just not accept your URL and money?
Or is it that these arguably successful sites provided ‘free’ avenues to promote your own sites, and this is now being throttled because they don’t like your (our) message?
Or is it, sadly, that there are multi generations who, like with the early days of A.O.L., don’t think, don’t consider other sources, and live their happy lives being led around (or misled) by Twit/Goog/Fbook?
The internet is 98% cat pictures by weight.
…also by volume.
There you go again, talking about fat cats. Leave Jerry Nadler (and the rest of us with an expanding waistline ) out of it.
Jerry Nadler does not qualify as an Internet cat. He’s way too ugly.
Scott,
Are you claiming that Internet cats have a density of one unit mass per unit volume? Do you have experimental data to support this phenomenal assertion?
Or is the density infinite since Internet cats are two-dimensional, which means they have no volume?
What is the volume of a cat? I don’t know, it’s to dark inside to see my tape measurer. Also, I can’t hear in there because I can’t find the volume knob.
Regarding your final paragraph, the most concise answer I can give to your questions is: Yes.
To all of it.
tl:dr version,
The fact that you don’t rely on the easily found sources, and seek out your own confirmation sources, is part of what led you to become Conservative. It’s what led you here. It’s what makes conservatives better informed and less emotional and reactionary about what is going on in the news.
It is, I believe, why the progressive left is so emotional and violent about events in the world today. The big media companies have figured out that they can manipulate the left and its’ minions for ‘clicks’, which translate into income, which translates directly to power! For them, for the media they own (both literally and figuratively), for the politicians that they fund. Buy. Influence.
Own.
The newer generations have lived their lives being told that everything they need to know can be found on Google. But Google isn’t telling them the truth. It twists the information, de-ranks facts they don’t like. This generation doesn’t know the difference. They never had to go to foreign websites to gather information to put together a cohesive set of facts. Or to search out an article on a university server.
Google, *Click*; Here’s the skinny, trust us, our motto is ‘Don’t be Evil’! Never for an instant having it occur to them that they’re being lied to. Because…Google!
And down the rabbit hole they go.
They never had to go into the library (on the weekend or evening); find the stacks with the Periodical Guide to Literature (hard copy books); seek out the dozen to 10 dozen references to their assigned topic that they found therein; and then assemble, read, evaluate, and critically select the better sources from the rest. Plus use the card catalog to find those books with a similar topic. Sometimes an equivalent “networking benefit” was that you also found a valuable related book on the shelves next to what you were searching for.
But let’s also be honest: an internet with integrity is (was, would be) a much better (i.e., more productive) venue to search for information than the older hard copy approach. The search algorithms also have their problems and limitations, but as discussed by our crew today, some form of anti-trust breakup to re-introduce competition for our eyeballs and wallets is going to be required to retain a semblance of real liberty in our lives.
Of course it is people being misled by FB and the “mainstream” media. They dismiss all of the alternative media as “right-wing nutjobs” because that’s what their own news sources have been telling them since the beginning. They’ve cut the cable and now their only sources of news are the networks’ nightly national news shows, or things they see on FB and Twitter, because they don’t use websites and bookmarks. They passively accept what is fed to them by the Big Tech companies.
What worries me is that breaking up Google won’t be enough. All the pieces of what used to be Google will still cooperate with each other. Ditto FB and Twitter, and they’ll be even harder to break up.
I don’t know the answer.
Reminds me of those worms or lizards that rejuvenate body parts after they have been severed. Maybe you are reinforcing the idea of “keep your friends close, and your enemies closer”.
Could it be that stupid or lazy people are so wrapped up in their daily lives, intoxicated with watching cat videos on FB that they don’t bother to think, ‘Maybe I should consider other sources of information about politics, domestic and foreign affairs, business and lifestyle other than what I get fed by FB?”
Two comments Tim:
1- Laziness: Yes most people are too lazy to look any further than what someone else has sent them on FB. They take this as the God’s honest truth and have no drive to find out for themselves.
2-Stupidity: Picture in your mind someone you have met that is of average intelligence. Got it formed. Now realize that half of the people in the country are dumber than that person. Oh, and they still get to vote.
Less than 10Million people even watch the evening news or cable news. Rush gets more listeners than that, but some has to be cross over. But 130Million will vote. From where are they getting their information? Are most people taking the lazy route, or do they just vote how their parents did? Are they informed at all?
Oh Gawd…I just got really really nauseous and quite dizzy reading your comment. The ground started to give way when I read “Now realize that half of the people in the country are dumber than that person”.
We are indeed ‘sheltered’ in a strange sort of way, that we don’t see the censorship, or we find new ways of getting around it.
But there are the ‘low information’ (not my phrase) people, who only see the CNN’s of the media world, and so are only seeing half of the opinion/news world. They don’t know what they don’t know, because they don’t seek it out.
Most of these people seem to be the ones who for whatever reason can’t or won’t break away from CNN, etc. They have either cable or dish (an increasingly archaic system, if you ask me), and trust that the ‘News’ is the news. I know a couple in my life. Both also seem to have TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome), albeit mildly.
One is someone I’ve been thinking of helping w/ her voting, no, not so I can influence her, I’ve given up on that (I’m not the persuasive type), but so that she can accomplish voting (she has eye problems).
Volunteerism! Its always win win. You’re a good hearted person to help another.
The Leftist media is biased against more than just conservatives. They throttle the message of anyone who does not cower before or support their totalitarian utopia.
Just the way Stalin did and Kim of N. Korea is doing now. Just one party line. Nothing else. And, it worked in Russia for some time. N. K. will eventually hear other media…can’t stop the signal, Mal. But by then millions and millions will have died. Just like in Russia. That is what awaits us. Full control of media, our money, our possessions, our food, our brains, our lives. They go after the kids in school first. Easier to infiltrate their mailable minds. They rat on their family and friends. Most of the work is done for the ‘party’ by the kids. There is only one way. Abide or die. The kids never had a chance. Brainwashed from the beginning and nothing to compare their plight with anything else. It is normal to them. Sheep.
The image that came to mind with your comment was: “are we going to have to subject ourselves to a Sophie’s choice? ” An ugly thought that I hope is never required to be made real.
To quote one of teh few interesting lines from Star Trek: Picard: “Sheer. F***ing. Hubris.”
I can’t watch a show centered on the French captain who surrendered the Enterprise eighteen minutes (with commercials) into the series….
I only watched becasue 1) CBS All Access gave a free month, which also led me to watch STD, and 2) Even though they were awful, now I can enjoy the YouTube videos ripping on them all the more
This is a problem that needs to be corrected that is for sure. Just yesterday a story came out on Twitter where Kamala Harris‘s husband came out and introduced her as the next President of the United States. Within minutes that video disappeared from Twitter. If big tech is not broken up we’re never going to hear the truth. They will just tell us only what they want to tell us and we will never hear the whole story.
A fundamental that the deluded left of left wants to suppress is that reality is what it is and is not what it is not. They fantasize they can change reality and truth at whim simply by ignoring what it is, calling it what it isn’t, and redefining actual truth out of existence. They can’t. At least not in the long run.
The more deeply they go into their program of denying reality, the more deeply they dig their graves. Reality will win. There is no alternative. The only question will be who is going to pay the price of that denial. Will it be those who deny or will it be the rest of us? So far, it appears to be that We the People will pay the price while the deniers rob us blind. It is way past time that we say NO! A thousand times NO!
Trump 2020 is just a start. Once that is done, the real work begins. Justice must be delivered to the deluded left of left. Are we up to it? I hope so but don’t have much hope. Hope is not a strategy and wishing is not a tactic.
When you say “Justice must be delivered to the deluded left of left.” … Just what exact form of justice do you have in mind?
I seriously believe at this moment that we (the Conservative Right led by the Moderate Centrist Donald Trump) are going to win this one. I know what the “scientific” polls say and I’m more basing my opinion on the signs and symptoms, an educated guess and reading what amounts to tea leaves.
So just for the sake of discussion, let’s say the Republicans keep the White House and Senate and also take back The House. What sort of measures do you envision to accomplish this delivery of justice that you mention above?
What ever it takes to restore the republic and the rule of law rather than of men.
The minimum is to apply the law to them without reservation. Bring charges of treason. Prove the case. Sentence them to very long terms of hard labor in federal prison. Make sure they never see the light of freedom and liberty. When they die, put them in a cardboard box and consign them to an unmarked mass grave.
This is based upon the principle that there is no right to violate rights. Those who have been proven to have done so, lose their right to demand the protection of rights. We can do with them whatever we wish.
That’s very interesting. Perhaps you’d be so kind as to amplify the Constitutionality of “… there being (is, SIC) no right to violate rights … We can do with them whatever we wish”? I’d really like to hear how you come to that position in light of our Rule of Law, the principle, foundational law being the Constitution of the United States of America.
Please understand that I’m sworn to protect and defend that Constitution. From all enemies, both foreign and domestic. I took an oath to that effect and pledge utmost fealty to the idea and ideals of the United States of America as laid out in our Constitution — by that oath. The way I see it, all I have a right to outright demand from my fellow citizens is that they operate within the confines of, according to both the letter and intent as nearly as that can be accurately determined, our Constitution.
The reason I have the right to demand that from my brother and sister Americans is that is the social contract, it is the framework we all are bound to as Citizens of the United States of America. Outside of that framework we are like any other nation of peoples subject to all the perils and perfidy that is the usual state of politically dominated societies. Without the structure of the U.S. Constitution, which is the framework of the Republic of United States of America — Anyone can claim to be acting for the greater good as an excuse for whatever tyranny or depravity happens to be the flavor of the day.
Operating within that framework has raised up among mankind the greatest, most free, most prosperous nation ever known to human beings. The Constitution of the United States of America is thereby the single greatest document every devised in the mind of man and — The men whose minds the Constitution sprang from would further claim a grant of Divine Guidance and Inspiration.
You (and anyone else reading this) probably know all this to at least some degree but it’s a seriously big deal and I felt it best to spell out why that is. So ..
My point here is that if you are able to support the idea of “… there being no right to violate rights … We can do with them whatever we wish” … how you square that with the Rule of Law and the U.S. Constitution? If so please do so.
I think I’m missing something important in this conversation, I know you also said “…to apply the law to them without reservation.” and I get that, but that’s directly contradictory to the idea of “they crossed an ultimate line so we can do whatever we want to them”. I’m not taking anything out of context and I am paying attention here.
I get the “apply the law without reservation” part, and I’d even go for “apply the law without mercy” but you didn’t stop there. You went on to “do whatever we want to them” so I feel I’m being fair and right in asking you to amplify on that because it exceeds the idea of “applying the law” with the proviso we’re talking about the same laws now on the books and appropriate to our Constitutional framework. Or …
Maybe I’m just reading too much into this and you’re actually saying “It’s open season on their asses, the laws and Constitution be damned. String ’em up, boys!”???
Keep in mind, the constitution is a limitation on government and not on We the People. Our rights are not enumerated on purpose. It states that all powers, not explicitly assigned to the government, remain as property of We the People and the various free states. Within proof is due process. To hold otherwise is to blank out the meaning of rights.
The only time a proper government can act against an individual is in response to the violation of individual rights. Objectively, he who violates rights is saying “I don’t recognize your rights and I will violate them simply because I can.” Hence, such a person has abandoned claim to the protection of rights. Given due process and proof of guilt, his ass is ours to remove from society however the guilty party makes necessary. Otherwise there is no justice!
The Constitution does not reserve the right to the Several States or to the people to “do whatever they want”. There must be due process, within the Constitutional framework, applied. There is no “their ass is ours” right reserved to anyone in the Constitution.
I’m afraid I’m still not getting this. Are you saying that if someone “doesn’t recognize someone else’s rights and violates them just because he can” then that person is in an extra-legal state with no recourse to the law?
Because that’s pretty much the definition of any crime and the law limits what can be done to the perpetrator. A burglar doesn’t recognize your rights to private property and violates them just because he can.
A murderer doesn’t recognize your rights to live in peace and violates them just because he can..
A bank robber doesn’t recognize the right of a bank to engage in lawful, accountable commerce and makes an unauthorized withdrawal just because he can..
An armed liquor store robber doesn’t recognize the right of the liquor store owner to both personal security (that’s why he’s armed) or property rights and violates those rights just because he can..
Does that mean you are advocating summary executions in the streets of those criminals “because their ass is ours and if what we want to do to them is shoot them in the back of the head on the spot” … You’re OK with things like that?
Crimes are crimes, they carry the penalty of law that we have established through due process. In the matter of criminals we can’t just “do whatever we want to them” because they violated a right of some or any sort.
I’m thinking that’s not what you really mean and I’m seriously giving you the benefit of the doubt in this discussion. Because if that’s what you mean you’re as bad as any other criminal and I don’t think that’s the case here.
I will respectfully remind you though … This is a public forum and we need to be careful what we say and how we say it because anyone could be reading this.
Some of the subscribers could easily be law enforcement people, though I don’t see that your opinion violates any laws. Yet.
More likely there are people here, or as BW.com gets more traction will be here eventually, that would use statements like you have made (If I’m understanding you correctly) as ammunition against our side. Just a day or two ago I watched Keith Oberman calling for what amounts to re-education and concentration camps. He was saying that his side was perfectly justified and like you gave his reasons .. .Which like you he feels are valid because of the heinous nature of the infractions that in his view the Right has committed. Other than context I don’t see any difference between what you’re saying (“do to them whatever we want”) and what Oberman said (also “do to them whatever we want”)
I’m not being intentionally abstruse. I’ve asked you several times to clear this up for me (and any other who read this) and I’m still getting the same thing from you. So I must not be understanding you correctly. Or am I?
As usual you try overtime to misunderstand.
End of conversation!
Not so, sorry and you saying it doesn’t make it so. In fact I tried really hard to get you to explain your position. That should be clear to anyone who reads this. In fact, it was like pulling teeth to get you to explain what exactly you meant by “do whatever we want to them” and still you never did clear that up.
It seems to me that what you’re advocating is simply the flip side of the coin from what Keith Oberman (and other leftists) are calling for. You both sound suspiciously like a certain Austrian Corporal that sported a funny looking mustache and had a “Final Solution” in mind for his enemies.
I’m very sensitive to this kind of thing because I served in the military in combat roles. We fought the enemy, while he was bearing arms. If he laid down his arms and surrendered we treated him like a human being. He would not have been so magnanimous to us but we are better than him and that is the proof that’s so.
We most certainly did not nor would not “do whatever we wanted to him” and believe me, there was a lot of anger and the opportunity to do just that. We live by the Rule of Law and our laws say that enemy prisoners are to be rendered humane treatment. Whether they deserve it or not. That’s not a law for their benefit, believe it or not, it’s for ours. That kind of thing keeps a troop human in times when it would be ridiculously easy to abandon our own humanity., Those who failed to conform to that law, like at Abu Ghraib prison, were punished for their crimes. As they should be.
The Left demonizes the Right and maintains that whatever evil they do to us or evil they do to thwart us — Is our own fault because they have dehumanized the Right as evil, racist, moronic villains. YOU appear to be doing the same thing and I gave you both opportunity and benefit of the doubt to explain otherwise. The only reasonable explanation is that you did not because you could not.
I suspected as much when I read your original post and you confirmed my suspicions. Even so, by all means read back through our conversation and see that I gave you opportunity after opportunity to back away from such un-American, Hitlerian attitudes, to put your nooses and guillotines away and look as this like an American ought.
If you’re happy to end this conversation with you looking like Adolph Jr. then I’m good with that too. Your call, but I’m not letting something like you said pass without a sniff test.
You seem to be missing the underlying meaning that is conflated within Lionell’s usage of “we” and “they” and “our” to reference both individuals and the collective society at large.
Let’s break this down to a simple, albeit extreme, case. If you attempt violate my right to life by threatening me with harm, then I am within my unalienable and un-enumerated rights to defend myself to the point that I deprive you of life, which is ,unfortunately, enumerated in our Bill of Rights. Have I committed a crime? I say, “No. I have not, because you broke the implied social contract that we humans live under, and you have subsequently forfeited your rights.”
I do believe that this sums up the basics of Lionell’s position: an individual’s unalienable rights end at the nose of another; whether that “other” is an individual or all of society.
Your example of affording a disarmed enemy the unalienable rights of any human is a non-sequitor in the context of Lionell’s statements, because if that enemy refused to be disarmed I am confident you and your fellow soldiers would have ended his life to preserve your own. Not having ever been a soldier, I applaud you and anyone who has ever been in military service.
I realize that precise language is necessary; however, these are comments on the Internet; thus, they are not subject to the rigors of a court. Being overly-pedantic about another’s inability to communicate in writing with specific words completely justifies the termination of any exchange of words. In other words, Lionell is justified to give up trying to communicate when you cannot/will not comprehend what he is saying/writing. Calling him names like “Adolph Jr.” does not lend any credibility to your position — rather it makes you seem petulant and lacking a valid argument. Kudos to Lionell for not doing likewise.
Thanks.
I fully admitted several times that I must have been missing something but I don’t accept your excuses for or interpretation of what Lionell was saying.
His initial post clearly states “Justice must be delivered to the deluded left of left.”. It was me asking him what he specifically meant by justice in that specific instance that started our conversation.
I was expecting/hoping to see a response along the lines of “By justice I mean that we investigate thoroughly and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.” — and nothing beyond that because beyond that is unequivocally wrong Did I miss where he said that? Because “do what we want to them” is not the same as “hold them fully accountable under the law”.
If that had been his response, or something clearly synonymous to that, it would have been the end of our conversation. Question asked, question answered, clarification achieved.
This has nothing to do with the application of courtroom-style precise legal language.
Self-defense in the immediate moment is a natural right, hunting down the person who threatened your life (or violated your rights) and killing him (or doing whatever else you want to him because he “violated your rights”) is still murder and/or mayhem. Meting out justice with due process is not the same as the natural right of self preservation against an immediate threat.
When someone immediately threatens someone else’s life the attacker forfeits his rights because the only way to end the attack is to end the attacker. Once the attack ceases, you can’t walk up to the dude and pop ’em in the head just to be certain he will never attack you again.
Your analogy regarding the forfeiture of rights in a self defense situation is false. As is the circular logic in “if the enemy surrenders but he doesn’t’ surrender then … ” because those are two distinct states. This all smacks of sophistry to me.
In the exchange above I cannot find one single instance of Lionell moving away from “do what we want to them” to “investigate fully and prosecute vigorously”. I see not a single end position that mentions “due process” or “Rule of Law” because he goes beyond that to “their asses are ours and we can do what we want to them”.
The simplest thing would have been to simply say “I am for remaining within the bounds of the U.S. Constitution and did not mean to imply anything like atrocities or excesses”:
If I missed that somehow, please point that out to me and I will stand corrected.
I know a lot of people, Lionell included, are very, very angry about the activities of the far left. I get that. I see all kinds of keyboard tough-guy wannabes from both sides on the internet talking about firing squads, stringin’ ’em up, etc.
In my way of thinking, those people even if they’re on the “Right” are every bit as bad as the “deluded left of left”. It is exactly that sort of wrong-headed thinking that brought us the majority of the evils mankind perpetrates on mankind. It is an un-American attitude and it degrades the concept of American exceptionalism.
This is not simply high-minded, pie-in-the-sky moralism. Let me give you another example from my military experience. You do not load trench guns (shotguns) with dimes, serrate the blade on your bayonet, collect ears or teeth or any of the rest of that crap. You don’t do it not only because it’s not moral and causes unnecessary suffering but because it gives your enemy an excuse to do it to YOU in return. Getting caught with anything like that by the enemy will very likely mean torture and death. There are wholly selfish reasons not to do such things. Anyone advocating that when “their asses are ours and we can do what we want to them” is begging for that same treatment if they find themselves on the losing side of the conflict or for any reason at the mercy of the adversary.
I think that in the above conversation I gave Lionell more than enough room to back away from something like that. He did not. I had a suspicion he would not. He confirmed my suspicion. As far as I’m concerned that puts him in the same boat as Nazis, Communists, actual, real fascists like ANTIFA, and all the other groups that think they can “do what they want” to their enemies and provide some sort of lame, extralegal, tunnel-visioned, extra-moral excuse for “doing what they want to them” because “those people violated xyz so “they have it coming and their asses are ours.”
I find that indefensible. I find it somewhat disturbing that you’re defending it too.
I went to great pains and extreme effort to clearly state my position and reasoning. If you cannot read what I said and see that it’s not my fault. I was not and am not being intentionally abstruse just as an excuse for argument. If Lionell didn’t mean things the way I took them then it’s also not my fault he cannot be bothered to be clear in what he says.
Being a Conservative by label doesn’t place a person infallibly in the right. Conservatism is more in the right than leftism but it does not grant some magical license to base human impulses like retribution and revenge. We need to be very, very careful and extremely vigilant about such things because the Democrat Party is an object lesson of what happens when just let our dogs run where they will. We have exactly the same kind of dogs on the Right, we just keep them on the leash a lot better. We keep them on the leash by never letting them range too far. This is vitally important because …
I’m trying to avert a civil war. I’m trying to not give the enemy any traction or ammunition that can be denied them. Rabid dogs advocating things like “… their ass is ours and we can do what we want to them …” (which is a direct quote) is both traction and ammunition to the foes of the Republic.
It was a simple matter not to go there, but Lionell DID go there and he’s a big boy who can speak for and defend his positions or not. I didn’t call him “Adolph Jr.” lightly or in a spirit of meanness. I mean every word I say and I say exactly what I mean.
If you do not find that justified or palatable then that’s your own opinion. I’m sure many others share it. That makes no difference to me, I’m not trying to win any popularity contests or trophies for congeniality. I’m speaking my mind and I have thought long and hard on my positions which have in some cases taken decades to crystallize..
Lionell mentioned “having the will” to oppose what is clearly in the wrong and neither of you (nor anyone else) should be surprised when I demonstrate exactly that will. I’m sure I could have phrased my opinions more amicably but I do not see a need to do that in circumstances like this.
A long winded response that reinforces my opinion that you are unreasonably looking for specific words as a response. That is akin to mandating the speech of others, and I am adamantly opposed to such notions. Case in point:
As Lionell said earlier, we’re done here.
Lol, thanks for the “air time”. Wanna bet ol’ Lionell thinks twice about his belching,bellicose fulminations after this? No? I think he will, he’s been too long inside his own echo chamber and he likes sycophants like you. That’s OK, I don’t give a flying rat’s distal alimentary orifice what the flock you think.
And no “We’re not done here” until both of us agree we’re “done here” you self-righteous pimple. No one died and left you in charge of anything. Try not to be such an arrogant twit.
You, Sir, are very welcome.
You and I don’t always agree, but I cannot stand the seemingly-self-righteous preaching of folks who keep harping until they get a response they expect or wish. Such “preaching” coupled with blatant name-calling too often sounds like the tyrannical leftists and affiliated mobs of the world (left of left as you so-often state).
Good evening to you.
Apparently, I have succeeded in planting a more or less permeant Lionell Brain Bug in his mind. He is now only able to connect his thoughts to what he thinks I am thinking.
This even though what he thinks I am thinking is nothing but a projection of his own very mixed inner character. He has yielded control of his mind to “other”.
Sad!
Indeed.
Your brain bug metaphor reminds my of the movie, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, in which alien bugs were implanted in some Federation characters’ ears to achieve mind and behavioral control. That is not a pretty image.
The interesting thing is that I can tell him about the brain bug and it will have absolutely no effect on his continued second hand behavior.
I’m surprised I up-voted you, but somewhere in this heart and mind is the realization that something so horrific is being done to us, a free people, that we must act or lose our Republic. Those guilty of treason must be punished and be so shamed for what they have done that their fate will never be forgotten. MAGA 2020.
In a phrase: “Lock ‘er Up!”
Arrests need to be made for all the crimes that have been committed (and discovered by the justice dept).
As far as social media goes, all of it needs to either somehow be broken up into more manageable pieces, and/or these algorithms need to be removed so that it now becomes what it has long claimed to be, a free (as in freedom, not as in money) source of both disseminating and receiving information.
I understand that and agree but Lionell G. didn’t say that “arrests need to be made for … etc.” Which indicates the things we know about now and the things further investigation may discover. Lionell was talking not about miscreants in The Swamp, The Deep State or The Government though those entities are most certainly included. He specifically mentioned a class of people. “the left of the left”, which is an order of magnitude greater than those entities encompass.
Not everyone who grasps after power does so from an ideological platform. Some people are just plain greedy and power hungry. Such types are likely as not to use the ideology of others to manipulate them in achieving vast wealth and slaking their thirst for power.
The left often proves facile to such manipulation but the right has been caught in that hen-house with blood and feathers on its face too.
I’m not exactly sure what to do about social media, nor am I convinced that the impact of social media is as profound as it’s touted to be.
Maybe we should just take their protections away and use the courts to hold their feet to the fire. Without the special status granted in the statutes, lawsuits would soon pull them off their pedestals.
Andy McCarthy at NRO points out the distinction between the FBI/DOJ as law enforcement roles/ functions, and the FBI’s domestic counterintelligence function (which may not end up involving the judicial system in the final analysis). If Durham and Barr don’t at least publish the counterintelligence evidence against the domestic “terrorists” and “malefactors of great wealth” (Soros, et al.) then no form of justice will be available (even when publication of their results is partly hidden/ denied/ constrained. I suspect many/ most of the perps in this overall charade are lawyers and may thus have known how to walk the line between legal and illegal activity as far as actual indictments, trial, and possible convictions/ punishments may go.
Interesting … When you say “NRO” those initials mean “National Reconnaissance Office” to me but by context I think you mean something else? Wm. F. Buckley’s National Review, Online perhaps? (If so, an interesting but irrelevant aside is that I was featured in an article of that magazine years before anyone even heard of online magazines. The subject of the article was domestic terrorism by strange coincidence. I’m afraid that dates me a bit.)
Intelligence of any sort, domestic or otherwise, is a sort of a gray area by necessity. You can be open and transparent about it and then you will get zero intelligence, or you can be closed and secretive and then you will get lots of intelligence. You can’t have it both ways.
That said, there are times when, in order to explain what has occurred and how the facts about that came to be known, that the intelligence apparatus needs to step briefly into the light so that people can understand the validity of the information they’re being asked to accept. An example would be an operative who needs to testify in court in order to get a conviction against some seriously bad, bad guys.
Another informational aside — Contrary to the movies and TV portrayals of these systems, not everyone working in a domestic intelligence capacity is some low IQ snitch that got caught with his hands the cookie jar and was thereby persuaded to rat on his buddies. The Bureau and other agencies maintain a network of professional, semi-professional and volunteer operatives for means of information gathering, and other things, that doesn’t get a lot of air play.
Lawyers as targets of investigation are tricky but the difficulty lies in their knowledge of how far is too far and their ability to get others to do the dirty-work. I.E. in the classical Italian Mafioso scenario the “Consigliere” or “Counselor” is usually a lawyer and he’s kept as clean as possible to avoid losing his services to the organization. Because a dirty lawyer is a dirty lawyer and he can go to prison just like anyone else if evidence of a crime can be proven against him. So it’s generally the clients of lawyers that are the real target — But …
When those lawyers are also Government employees the temptation for corruption can be nearly irresistible under some circumstances because these are fairly smart people and they know exactly all the internal mechanisms of how the system works. This is why personal integrity is so absolutely vital as a requirement for people who hold such positions.
Most of them are good men (or women) and true.
I happened to be in a meeting at an FBI field office one time and the agents had put a plaque on the wall with a quote from Thomas Jefferson (I think, this was decades ago,and the following is a paraphrase) that said “Who enforces the letter of the law and disdains the spirit of the law serves neither”. Bear in mind that an FBI Field Office is a secure area, it’s not open to the general public so those agents didn’t put that reminder on the wall to impress anyone from the outside. It was there solely to remind them of their duty.
That’s the kind of people you want working in that kind of job.
So I don’t think it’s a matter of quasi-legal or questionable practices that are not quite illegal that’s the issue with these Swampies. I think it’s a matter of having the will and the resolve to go after clear-cut, obvious violations of the law. Then let the chips fall where they may. The message sent thereby is “Go ahead and try your little tricksy crap but if you cross the line or make a mistake there’s a jail cell waiting for you.”
BTW, a movie was released a couple days ago titled “The Plot Against the President” that spells out the current situation pretty well. I think it’s available on Amazon, at least until the Amazonian Swampies figure out what it’s about. It’s pretty good, check it out if you get the chance.
Yes, this internal inherent sense of “justice” and “fairness” seems to exist in all of us (normal) humans. That we may not all agree on just what constitutes justice in a particular case does not remove that core feeling and attribute of the human (and primate and ???) psyche.