I need to vent. I just wanted to play vidya.
The average leftist who is celebrating the censorship of certain people today, including the currently elected President, have zero appreciation for Human Rights. I am utterly disgusted with how little people seem to understand what these freedoms are and how they should be handled.
The Constitution has a provision in it that declares "Congress shall make no law...bridging the freedom of speech..." Now, yes this doesn't say a person or a private business is also prohibited from censorship. However, the undercurrent meaning and philosophy of this was that people inherently - that is, by virtue of being people and not some allowance given by the government - have a freedom of speech. A free people should never be censored. Such censorship is a direct attack and injury to an inherent freedom that we should have.
"But!" they cry, "These words are bad/wrong/hurtful!"
So what? Those words are still legal words. Incendiary speech should be the most protected because it is the most endangered. What needs to be more careful guarded? A common domesticated animal or a rare wild one?
If you are to believe that people have natural rights of any kind, either given by a God or upheld by Human Nature, you need to carefully consider how you would fence or deny those rights to everyone. Because if you do it to your worst enemy you should also consider your best friend losing them as well. And entity that is empowered to remove a part of one person's rights for one reason can suddenly take that from anyone for the same or other reasons.
"But we don't need them!" they may laugh.
Do you pay attention to how you talk? Do you pay attention to where you go? How much freedom do you use everyday without realizing it? Suddenly you can't leave your house unless you are 'essential'. Maybe next its with a piece of paper? Maybe you said something last year that suddenly is no longer acceptable? And now you can't keep your job. Maybe it will take 'training' to 'earn' the right to work back. Because it already takes training to keep your job.
I just wanted to play vidya, and take care of my family. Now I have to wonder if my friend or coworker will take note that I may have beliefs that don't align with current culture. And I'm mad that they don't realize that with the right shift in culture, they will be next. I can't stand up for them because they will not stand up for me.
A lot of people miss the point on the 1A. We really aren't talking about freedom of speech here. It's the freedom of the (printing) press that's at issue. Journalists aren't the press. The press is a technology. As such, platforms that allow individuals to publish their words shouldn't need protections beyond the 1A.
That does mean that private corporate censorship is legal, but it should also mean that censorship is entirely unnecessary.
Idealist, to be sure. We've pissed away our rights, and accept them as privilege (thanks, forebearers), but I think it's important to understand where we came from to contextualize where we currently are.
Read your Heinlein, rights don't exist.
I keep hinting at all the peripheral issues like the state of labor in China, Amazon’s shady business practices, or even that we all just forgot about the kids in the cages but nobody in my immediate circle is picking up the breadcrumbs. They’re so certain that they’re right that they can’t see that it’s a matter of time until criticizing corporations is framed as hate speech
Those on twitter, reddit, are a bunch of stupid retarded children that always want to be on the right side. By the time they realize the wrongs they've committed (once one of their beloved secret "unapproved" vices get shanked) it'll be too late.
Collectivists don't believe in rights, ironically enough.
When I was a child, I had no appreciation for the food I ate, or the clothes I wore, or my toys and games, or the fact that my parents had to pay bills to keep us warm, and to keep a roof over our heads.
I pay for those things now out of my own pocket, and I sure as hell appreciate them all, because no one else is keeping me afloat, or will step in if I lose everything.
My point is, it's hard to appreciate something that you never lacked, or had to fight for. And our society champions infantilization to the point where people are handed things, and as a result, they lack respect for those things. Speech included.
However, they'll learn; too late, but they'll learn.
People are predictable, civilizations become weak and corrupt, and history always rhymes.