RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/537332-finally-a-republican-leader-declares-war-on-big-tech

A Republican leader has decided to take on Big Tech. It’s high time. While other Republican legislators complain and pontificate about Twitter, Facebook and Google’s interference in our elections and censoring of conservative voices, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared war on the tech giants. 

DeSantis is proposing legislation that asks the Florida state legislature to impose stiff fines – up to $100,000 per day – on tech companies that “deplatform” political candidates running for office in his state. Candidates like, for instance, Donald Trump.

Calling the tech giants “enforcers of preferred narratives” whose interests are “not in the public interest,” DeSantis, a Republican, wants to “ensure the protection of the people and their rights.” His proposed bill would allow individuals and the Florida attorney general to sue firms that violate newly established safeguards against privacy violations and censorship.   

DeSantis also suggested that other activities, such as colluding to ban people or companies from payment platforms or from cloud services, could also be outlawed.

Presuming that the popular governor can get his measure passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature, it could become a template for the other 23 GOP-led states. It could, in effect, be the beginning of a revolt against the unacceptable dominance and manipulation of our nation’s discourse by Big Tech.  

It’s a start.

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&

On January 1, 2021, our progressive true-believer mayor, Bill de Blasio, began his eighth year in office. Since he is limited to two terms under current law, this will be his last year, unless something changes. Now that another crowd of progressive true-believers has just swept to power in Washington, it seems like an appropriate time to look at how the seven years of super-progressive government have served us in New York.

Recall that when de Blasio became Mayor in January 2014, he followed 20 years of at least nominally Republican mayors, Rudy Giuliani (1994-2001) and Mike Bloomberg (2002-2013). Those 20 years saw dramatic improvements in New York City’s fortunes, including reductions in crime (the murder rate, for example, fell by over 80%), and resumption of a healthy rate of population increase after previous declines. Would the progressive de Blasio instead bring about some kind of immediate disaster and collapse?

For better or worse, that’s not really how it works with bad progressive public policy. Instead of immediate disaster and collapse, what we see is gradual but steady decline, particularly when compared to other jurisdictions that follow policies of, for example, lower taxing and spending and disciplined law enforcement. Thus, in a post on November 4, 2013 — the day before the Election Day on which de Blasio was elected — I made this prediction:

The good news is that even the worst left-wing policies do not lead to immediate economic collapse, but rather to slow gradual decline. It took decades of Rockefeller/Wagner/Lindsay overtaxing and overspending before New York City lost 10% of its population in the 1970s. . . .

So on to an overview of de Blasio’s “accomplishments.”

https://dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/4181/Citizen-Trump.aspx

This engraving depicts the 1793 trial of Citizen Louis Capet. He had been stripped of his title, King Louis XVI, by those who presumed to judge him. The image, the event, seems relevant on contemplating the looming impeachment trial of Citizen Trump. After the failure of Congress to pause the counting of Electoral votes to permit due process in the contested states, we may see that President Trump was also stripped of his title by those who now presume to judge him.

Louis’ trial ended infamously in regicide by guillotine. However much baying there is for Trump’s head, such a remedy lies beyond Senate recourse. On conviction of impeachment, the sentence is removal from office. Donald Trump may have won re-election, but he has no office. Such a sentence, then, would seem to be an exercise in futility, only revolutionaries don’t have time for futlity. 

There are two forms of regicide, according to research by Meagan Montanari, author of an interesting essay titled “The Good King: Louis XVI as a Religious Figure and Martyr.”

She writes:

The first type is basically that of a usurper, only wanting to kill the current king so that he can take over the throne for himself. This first type leaves the monarchy in place, never thinking of the possibility of doing away with it.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/03/polling-and-the-truth/

The Berlin Tagesspiegel recently went after a young Protestant theologian whom naïve readers might have mistaken for a polite, unassuming scholar. This figure was outed by an academic colleague who discovered that he wrote for “new Right” publications, a term that in the German context should be understood quite broadly.

One of the venues of this putative extremist is Cato, which is a classical liberal magazine known for making fun of political correctness; his other preferred site is Blaue Narzisse, an educational website on which I, too, have discoursed on literary and philosophical topics. One would have to hang out for several years with the squad in order to be inclined to locate either of these literate publications somewhere on the far-Right. But then the German government and German media apply an expansive definition of the enemy—namely anyone not in line with Islamic, feminist, and LGBT activists or who fails to hate the German language and Western culture sufficiently.  

The Tagesspiegel also showcases a poll that, we are assured, deserves our full attention. Readers are asked whether the German government “is presently taking sufficient steps to deal with right-wing threats” or whether more drastic means are required to address this danger. About half of the respondents said they believe the government is doing enough to combat raging rightism; but the other half thinks there is a need for more governmental action.