Category Archives: culture

Speaking of Censorship of Conservatives

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(See nearby.)  Republican candidate for Senator from Tennessee Marsha Blackburn has had her campaign ad censored by Google:

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to show your ads on Google, our search partners, or on Display Network placements until you edit your ads or keywords to make them compliant with our policies….

Here are the ads Google says is inappropriate.

It seems it’s a violation of Google’s policies to depict the Left in an unfavorable light.

This is the nature of “free” speech to which we can look forward if the Progressive-Democrats succeed next week or in 2020 or later elections.

Another Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

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There is a nascent movement, the #WalkAway movement, that for the last five months has been urging those disgruntled with the Progressive-Democratic Party to leave the party and form a different one.

Some said the Democratic Party has become hate-filled and hostile to opposing points of view while moving further to the left. Others say they were tired of the party’s “politically correct” culture.

The movement appears to have gained steam from the Kavanaugh hearing travesty.

Of course, it can’t possibly be a legitimate effort, though; it must be an effort by those Evil Republicans to break up the Progressive-Democratic Party.  CNN‘s David Love says it’s fake and a Russian ploy.  Because everyone knows those Republicans are in cahoots with Russia.

Republicans want to split up the Democratic political opposition and divide black and Latino voters. And Russia looks like it wants to help here, too.  The most recent example of this strategy is the #WalkAway hashtag, which is presented as a grassroots effort by former Democrats who are critical of the party’s alleged intimidation, confrontation and lack of civility and want people to walk away from the party.

And this bit of Love’s hysteria:

#WalkAway has also now been connected to Kremlin-linked Russian bots, and it is now the seventh most popular Russia-influenced hashtag.  The purpose of this now-astroturf campaign is to manipulate public opinion by creating the illusion that this is a popular movement. In reality, #WalkAway has become pure propaganda, a psychological operation.

It’s vast, and it’s right wing, and it’s fake, and it’s, it’s, it’s bad.

The End of Free Speech

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At least in Europe.  The European Court of Human Rights ruled last Thursday that it’s impermissible to make crude remarks about Islam’s Muhammed if those remarks fall outside what Government deems acceptable.  It seems that, in the course of a 2009 seminar, a woman commented on Muhammed’s marriage to his child bride:

[Muhammed] liked to do it with children…. A 56-year-old and a six-year-old? … What do we call it, if it is not pedophilia?

The ECHR ruled that remark unobjective, lacking historical background, and intended to disparage Islam.

Government will decide what parameters must be present in “free” speech—here, objectivity, with Government defining that parameter—Government will decide the environment and context within which “free” speech must be made.  Government has decided that rude speech is verboten.

The answer to bad speech is not more speech, but—in Europe—no speech other than that which is Government approved.

Somebody Wants a UBI

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This is a Progressive-Democrat dream, but Andy Kessler centered it on Silicon Valley in his op-ed in Sunday’s Wall Street Journal.  He’s not far wrong, but aside from limiting the idea’s core constituency, he also only described part of the reason why a Universal Basic Income is a bad idea.

He did a good job of laying out the costs of paying for a UBI—the charges to those with earned income or profit—and how those costs cap what the earners and producers can do, but there’s the outcome of the demand side, too, that must be factored in.

What determines the price of any good or service? Of course, one component is the cost of its production. If the price doesn’t cover the cost, it won’t get produced. But that’s only a floor; the driver of cost is the demand for the good or service. That demand, though, isn’t measured by the number of folks wanting the thing, it’s the amount of money available to pay for the thing. More money means more demand, and more demand means rising price if the demand rises faster than production.

Now give everyone a UBI. Demand just inflated by the amount of the UBI, and the price of goods and services just went up to absorb that demand—every single dollar of it.

But wait—rising demand means rising production. Yep. And rising production means rising demand for labor—and rising labor costs. Rising production means rising demand for production input materials—and rising prices for those inputs.  And so rising threshold prices for the output good or service to cover those rising costs.  The minimum price for producing the good or service is above the income available, even after the UBI; the range of goods and services available is at least as limited from the perspective of the impoverished as it ever was.

The buying power of the UBI was just driven to zero, and the value of a person’s total income in real terms is just the same as it was before the UBI was instituted.

But it’s not just a zero-sum outcome; it’s a negative-sum matter.  Recall Kessler’s thesis that the cost to the earners/profit-makers of providing the UBI limited their output.  There’s a net reduction for everybody of goods and services to be had.

That’s a net reduction in the real value of income for everyone.

Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

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In the wake of a series of explosive devices being sent to or received by Progressive-Democrats and others of the Left like George Soros, ex-President Barack Obama (D), ex-Progressive-Democrat Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D, CA), Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D, FL), CNN offices, and others we get this:

Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi issued a joint statement…”Time and time again, the President has condoned physical violence and divided Americans with his words and his actions….”

This comes against the backdrop of Obama’s ex-Attorney General Eric Holder encouraging Leftists to kick Republicans and Conservatives when “they go low,” Waters encouraging Leftists to harass Republicans wherever they might be, Senator Spartacus encouraging Leftists to “get up in the faces of some Congresspeople,” Progressive-Democrat supporters attacking two Republican candidates in Minnesota (one got a concussion), the Left sending allegedly ricin-laced letters and other death threats to Senator Susan Collins (R, ME), the Left’s Antifa attacking anyone in Portland, Clinton calling 63 million Americans irredeemably deplorable racists, and on and on and on.

And: lots of bombs, and all of them intercepted.  Does anyone really think that’s plausible?  Most of them being intercepted, certainly; our guys are that good.  But 100% success?  None of them went off, too.  Does anyone think the bomber or bombers really are that incompetent?  Most not detonating, perhaps.  But 100% failure?

Maybe Schumer and Pelosi have given the game away.  At the very least, they’re demonstrating breathtaking and despicable cynicism with their jumping on the chance to make personal political hay out of all of this.