That’s right: those who created pro-2nd Amendment, pro-safe gun usage facebook pages for Everytown for Gun Safety — before billionaire nannystatist and petty liberty molester Michael Bloomberg, who launched a campaign of the same name which has nothing to do with gun safety and everything to do with trying to have a natural right heavily regulated or even rescinded, could create his own page for his own organization — were just asking for it, “stealing” what rightfully belongs to the asshole who didn’t have the foresight to secure the page name on facebook: he’s brilliant enough to run our lives, but his brilliance didn’t extend to making sure he had rights to the group name on facebook.
Which evidently didn’t sit well with Bloomberg, or with the facebook mafia (who, by the way, are helping fund some “conservative” comprehensive immigration reform groups); so the original creators of the page removed the accounts, feeling that a costly lawsuit would be the likely outcome.
It’s facebook’s business, so I guess they can do what they want with it; and there’s no doubt with whom they would side in this matter should the Bloomberg group go on the legal attack. But just because they own the business doesn’t mean we can’t point out their obvious political biases, their attempts to control speech and direct discourse, and their heavyhanded tactics in doing so — usually under the rubric of some nebulous “violation of community standards,” as reporter Todd Starnes of FOX found out when one of his posts, in support of rancher Cliven Bundy, was removed:
“Rancher Bundy should’ve told the feds that those were Mexican cows – who came across the border illegally to seek better grazing opportunities. It was an act of love.”
Any late-night comedian would have delivered this line and got lots of laughs. It satirized all the liberal clichés about immigration and liberal double standards.
Apparently it was too much for the folks at Facebook. Starnes was told, “We removed the post below because it doesn’t follow the Facebook Community Standards.” Of course, he was never told what “standard” he had violated. This is classic liberalism.
Starnes went on to write, identifying the real sin against Facebook: getting out the message to a broader audience.
“Thousands of you posted comments and many more shared that message. It’s now gone — blotted out by anonymous redactors.
“I reached out to Facebook to find out which part of the message violated their standards. Never heard back. I suspect I should’ve used the term ‘illegal alien cows.’”
The king can’t be reproached in any way.
None of this should surprise us since that the BLM/Bundy standoff, the government put up “Free Speech Zones.” These were the only places where the First Amendment applied.
[…]
Liberals can’t stand contrary thought. They are all about it when they are not in control of the process and means of expression. They use the First Amendment as a wedge to get in the door, and then once in the building they close it to shut out all competitive speech. It’s a common tactic. […]
Many colleges and universities have speech codes. Writing in Forbes, Greg Lukianoff, identifies the appalling course our nation’s schools have taken when it comes to free speech:
“We found that an appalling 62 percent of institutions surveyed maintain policies that restrict a substantial amount of speech protected under the First Amendment — what we call ‘red light’ speech codes. Such schools include Harvard, Columbia, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
[…]
“Speech codes come in many forms. The University of North Dakota bans student speech that ‘feels offensive’ or ‘demeaning.’ The University of Missouri at St. Louis boasts a policy restricting speech that will ‘discredit the student body.’ Texas’ Sam Houston State University broadly prohibits ‘abusive, indecent, profane or vulgar language.’”
So what has been a mainstay of liberal bullying on college campuses is now affecting major social media companies. Much of this has to do with the fact that there has been almost a god-like allegiance to Barack Obama. His candidacy was viewed as messianic. The liberal utopia was about to dawn, and they had found their leader.
As a result liberals have done everything to protect him and his policies, and free speech, logic, and facts be damned.
As I’ve been writing on this very thing for over a decade now — the deconstruction and re-imagining of traditional, liberty-minded values such as “tolerance” or “equality” into concepts that reflect the inverse of how such values were viewed by the Founders and Framers — I don’t have much more to add, save the gentle reminder that allowing the left control over meaning, by allowing the control over the process in which meaning is determined and legitimized, is a bad fucking idea. And pointing it out in great detail is neither “fundamentally unserious” as a matter of politics, or pseudo-intellectual as an epistemological endeavor.
Beyond that, I’ll just go to my reprise: This is the progressive left. It’s who they are. It’s what they do.
(h/t JohnInFirestone and geoff B)
Some conclusions have been jumped to prematurely here. Update:
Thoroughly understandable. Also providential, because had that not happened, would we have this?
Bob Owens says that may be parody. Or not.
Parody or not it has been seen before as linked in comments at TTAG.
The damage is already done. Nanny Bloomers has cemented his image as a Dr. Evil wannabe, stumbling around with a giant plaster globe on his head.
It would be fun to design an air rifle that fired whole cartridges just to make these images “real”.
It would be fun, at any Bloomie public appearances, to toss cartridges at him.
i can’t delete my stupid facebook account cause of I got no idea what my password is anymore
Then you will live on in virtual reality even after shuffling of this mortal coil. Just like Myspace people. And as a bonus from the Democrats, if you die in Illinois then you can not only continue voting but get healthcare after death too.
Healthcare for dead people? Well, why not… ya’d think it’d be fairly inexpensive.
“Facebook Removing Regional Pro-Gun Everytown for Gun Safety Pages.”
From Geoffb’s link:
“The Illinois Medicaid program paid an estimated $12 million for medical services for people listed as deceased in other state records, according to an internal state government memo”
So, this is what Obama meant by “bending the healthcare costs downward”.