Deplatforming seems to be all the rage these days. Way back in the 1960’s, we needed to pass a piece of legistition called the Civil Rights act, due to blacks being keep out of work and being unable to patron establishments due to the color of their skin.

Today, we seem to be at a similar crossroads where, instead of skin color, it is because of ideology that people are being attacked. In other words, we’re doing the same thing to people who caused a need for the civil rights in the first place. Now, two wrongs do not make a right as the platitude goes and I happen to agree. That said, vitriolic hate speech is also something that could be disposed of. So what can be made of all this chaos? Well, we have multiple different viewpoints to choose from, let me take the first one, which is libertarian and use that as a jumping off point to get into deeper thoughts.

Freedom of association is one of the corner stones of libertarian thinking. We are all allowed to be free to fraternize with whom we wish and shop where we would like to shop, with very little to stand in our way and life works well. Everyone has always created little sub-tribes these ways, even in school, where you had jocks with jocks, or goths with goths, nerds with nerds. It is no wonder these things carry over into our adulthood, but often times with age, we should and in past have, sought out disputation or figured out ways to be friends with people whom we disagree with. I’ve had friends all over the political spectrum and we have disagreed a lot but you can never say we disrespected each other’s thinking, even if it differed. No one will ever concur with you a million percent, this is just a pipe dream. People cannot seem to get over very petty and minor things now a days and it shows up on Twitter and people see them happen in a vacuum and think this is the real world. Mass murders taking place do not help the situation. Can someone who is a white supremacist use twitter and coexist with someone whom disagrees? The answer is no! Twitter is not like having your own newsletter was 20, 30 or even 40 years ago. Twitter is more akin to yelling outside where everyone can know what you plan on doing. It is announcing your plans to coordinate and rally people in order to express a view point that people may or may not agree with or potentially harm people. White supremacy does not need a parade and never has. They were bad enough when they were just localized, but now they are far more global and bigger scale.

A long time ago, these bubbles were often referred to as terrorist cells. Even the benign ones were often monitored by the FBI in order to curb potential massive riots over peaceful protest. They would have dossiers and infiltration of each group in order to ensure the safety of the American people, or you know, make sure they kept their power. Organizations were taken down if they were deemed a threat and rightfully so. These organizations were not part of the free speech movement, nor did they given way to being free speech at any point in time. As a writer, I am obviously very anal about free speech and think people should be able to air ideas and work through them. Some people need to think aloud, no matter now stupid their point of view sounds, because it is helpful. To force them to suppress it, could exacerbate the hate of the person in question or cause massive feelings of repression and cause bubble dwelling, leading to these terrorist organizations. Both the left and right are complicit in these types of things and no matter your point of view, both sides are widening the divide between all citizens of the United States.

Actions are always louder than words and if these things were simply the ramblings of the feeble minded to attack racist, I would 100% support it, but the left has a seedy history of calling everything they disagree with racist, and using it to silence dissent. Look no further than to 1988 campaign trail with George H.W. Bush when he was attacked for his pro egalitarianism views as being racist. Christopher Hitchens has pointed out that the left tends to abuse the word and that abusing the term dilutes its power and makes it less effective. In other words, if you cry wolf one too many times, when the wolf does come for them, it will be far too late for anyone to believe you.

The left as also been very strong in silencing people they just do not like, whom are simply just conservative, which is bullshit. Ban the alt-right justly and then you can get away with a figurative beheading of people whom do not fit your agenda. Which brings us back to the top of this essay, which is, is this simply the right to not associate with someone or it is more nefarious? It depends on the platform and each case needs to be taken on an individual basis, much like each case of “censorship” needs to be taken on an individual basis. There is a far cry from saying something not-pc or that which will rub people the wrong way or maybe even saying something a tad insensitive as opposed to using Twitter or Facebook to coordinate like a terrorist cell to cause a Charlottesville and it is hard for a lot of folks to know the difference. If someone skews what, say, Mario Lopez says for personal gain and the triggered brigade attacks him, they are setting the stage for actual racist to look like victims and will allow the worst of the worst to have a chance to infect dozen of people with cancerous thought. The left needs to pick its battle wisely going into the future, because there are bad actors out there and deplatforming those with malignant intent is no different than thwarting a terrorist cell, but maybe let people say things are not politically correct or allow for the odd bit of ignorance from someone who has not been relevant in nearly 30 years go by without a lynch mob. It was only 11 years ago that we elected a black president in the same time Robert Downey Jr was making a movie where he was in black face and everything still got along ok.

Ultimately there is no real clear answers to dealing with all the negative things out there and bad people will always find a way do bad things. That does not mean we cannot stop people in their tracks and end a terrorist cell like 8chan, abusing free speech as a means to protect terrorist. We can also deplatform the daily stomer and that is not a bad idea, along with destroying the obviously racist and insane alt-right. That said, the tangled web should not tear down minor celebrites whom are a bit uncouth;the random idiots who think a video of a dog reacting to Nazi propaganda is a devious plot created by a mastermind when the reality is the guy looks like he can barely find his local 7-11 while he is stoned, let alone coordinate people to a neuvo holocaust, are just that, idiots. When you let the small fish go, you are going to end up with a much better haul and will only strengthen your side in the long run.

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minor corrections to the text 26th of August 2019 at 5:33