Thought Police

I came across this meme and it made me think about how guarded we have all become on how we speak about issues and events. While I do think we should be considerate and respectful of others, it seems that progressives would prefer that we not express any ideas contrary to theirs. The penalty now can be as mild as a write up or as serious as firing and civil penalties. How did we reach this point where a diversity of ideas was more scandalous than promiscuity, dishonesty or murder? Every few years I reread "1984" and I'm always struck by how easily the population accepts whatever they are told to believe. Bombarded by screencast images, the population rarely deviates from the narrow patterns assigned by the powers that be. And even the higher castes are not immune to censure if they fail to give public voice to the same song. "We are at war with Eurasia, we have always been at war with Eurasia." How long will be before academia and media have conspired to scrub all diversity of ideas from our midst? If you look at the art from totalitarian regimes there are all the same-realistic, nationalistic, bland and vapid admiration to a cult of personality. Is this what Americans really want?

And So It Begins....

During the last presidential election Moveon.org and other liberal and frequently paid for posters showed up at a wide range of websites. They were almost uniform in the messaged they spread. And the messages were frequently slanderous, profane and oriented toward intimidating opposition and spreading an agenda based line. After the election they went away which leads me to think they were more or less hired guns. So as we wheel from May to June suddenly attacks, vile epithets, absolute misdirection have showed up on website. It's one thing when it's just a blog, but it gets to the point of idiocy when a huge news organization indulges.

People like to point fingers at Fox News, but let me introduce you to the censorship a Reuters. Reuters news group has a comment function on their news site and the only qualification is that it must "further the story." They had a story, which was reposted on RealClearPolitics, regarding the NEA's endorsement of Obama, which is hilarious when you consider they don't even know who else is running. I posted the following response:

"I am a teacher in a right to work state. This group does not represent me. Many of those in the rank and file of this union do not feel they are represented by the agenda or platforms proposed. It is worthwhile to remember that union leadership does not always represent the membership. If you will recall the AMA and AARP both supported Obama's healthcare bill over the objections of many of their members."


I don't see anything objectionable in that response and it did forward the story as it discussed how unions don't always represent the views of individuals. But, not only did they not post the comment, they have banned me. When you look at their censorship page it is loosely worded and quite frankly flippant in their attitude. This tells me two things-Reuters is in the tank for liberals, and they don't want to hear any objections. Free press? Ha!

Pretty Darned Odd

I don't post bad stuff on my blog. I just don't see the point.
I also give attributions to other writers or link to their stories.
So it was odd odd odd that my blogger account "went away" for awhile. It was a big scary too because I have already lost a slew of blogs on my FoxDFW site thanks to a precipitous site change that simply dumped off all the old blogs without warning. Nice.
But what is curious is that the only thing I have done is link to a couple of stories. Blogger/Google found that "suspicious."
I find myself being a bit suspicious that someone is seeking to either kill off conservative blogs or that someone is seeking to censor conservative bloggers.

Fox vs Time Warner: More Important Than You ThinkFox

For those of you who have Time Warner cable services, you have probably been made aware that negotiations between Time Warner and Fox are not going well. Many people are dismissing this as a mere business decision. It is true that Time Warner, as a subsidiary of the much larger Time, Inc, has not been doing well. But what is also true is that there is a hint of a very insidious underlying reason for Time Warner to want Fox to go away.

First, there is the rating game. Fox has been beating out some of the big network affiliates on a regular basis. But this goes farther than just ABC, NBC and CBS. Time Warner, through a variety of mergers, is also the parent company of the following networks and entities:

"...Among its subsidiaries are New Line Cinema, Time Inc., HBO, Turner Broadcasting System, The CW Television Network, TheWB.com, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Kids' WB, The CW4Kids, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Hanna-Barbera, Ruby-Spears Productions, Adult Swim, CNN, DC Comics, and Warner Bros. Games...."

Please note the primarily liberal slant of many of these entities. Turner Broadcasting was the brainchild of Ted Turner-a man too liberal even for Jane Fonda. HBO has become a hotbed of liberal thought through their many in-house productions. Even more disturbing is the way liberal concepts are inserted in children's programming. If you don't believe it, just try watching one of the news shows targeting children and see what is being passed on a fact to your kids.

Even more questionable is why this cable network would deliberately try to remove one of their top stations. This is the station that carries a great deal of big college football as well as other sports. During the height of the football bowl and playoff season, why would they do this? You can point to business as usual, but this is like shooting themselves in the foot. With Time Warner already seeing a drop off in subscriptions to their service, this would only make people who watch football less likely to join. So there's really no economic reason for this as the addition of Fox would increase their desirability in the market.

In order to make this decision which would cut Time Warner's income, somebody has to be making this worth their while. I don't know if this is from private funding or from some surreptitious political scheme, but it is no secret that this White House administration has big issues with Fox. Their various childish snubs and rants leads me to think that this is a hand in glove operation worthy of only the most astute student of Machiavellian thought. In short, this is not the simple case everyone thinks it is-this is an attempt to silence Fox with a warning shot and without bringing the Fairness Doctrine into play, which would alert conservative outlets. So this is more important than it appears and you as a citizen should be concerned that this is just the first in a series of moves to stifle dissent in our nation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BH2FX20091218

Ben Stein: NYT Purges Conservatism

What most of the recent hooha has been centered around are what is known as "free speech rights." In a nutshell, that means that all Americans, not just some, not just certain wealthy people, not just Democrats, not just Republicans, not just Christians and not just Atheists have endowed upon them the inalienable right to have their own opinions and to state them freely without repercussions. Much of what we see in the media is limited speech. By admission, most big time journalists are politically liberal. And that is their right. But there is also a necessary balance that must be served. When vast groups feel they are not being heard, confrontations occur. That is what happened with civil rights, gay rights and just about any other situation we have debated. So why then, considering the ACLU's constant mission to allegedly preserve free speech and the lipservice of the left to the idea of free speech, are conservative outlets, writers and pundits being forced into a type of journalistic purgatory? If you cannot listen to the opposition, then I would contend that your own grounding in whatever philosophy you espouse is weak and meaningless to you. We saw this idea, with the Big Lie making candidates appear to be mindless villains just because the churning entrails of the blogosphere says so. I have cautioned conservatives to avoid entering the type of debate that is a personal attack, but for many people having seen their friends, candidates and coworkers vilified, that is a difficult chore.
At any rate, the reason for writing this blog was that Ben Stein was fired from the New York Times. I am not sure what a conservative with an economics background was doing there in the first place, but I would think in order to at least pretend they gave the full scope of the political spectrum the NYT would keep a few token conservatives around. But as with so many other conservative, the NYT and its ancillary blogs, websites and such chose to create a type of aura that Stein was participating in conflict of interest situation with a company that he was a spokesman for. And to be additionally callous, they emailed the firing to his phone from someone that he had not met and did not know. Who is running the HR department at the NYT? Ron Burgundy? But as with all things, this too shall pass. I hope he writes a book detailing the idiocy that passes for reporting in liberal outlets. I also hope that if some writers, notably the idiot on Reuters, continue to defame his character that he follows up with a lawsuit.
Here's the column that Stein wrote outlining his fall from grace that began, oddly enough, with a column that was never published which criticized Obama. Are you sensing a trend here?
Excerpt:
"...But the two main things, as I see them, were that I started criticizing Mr. Obama quite sharply over his policies and practices. I had tried to do this before over the firing of Rick Wagoner from the Chairmanship of GM. My column had questioned whether there was a legal basis for the firing by the government, what law allowed or authorized the federal government to fire the head of what was then a private company, and just where the Obama administration thought their limits were, if anywhere. This column was flat out nixed by my editors at the Times because in their opinion Mr. Obama inherently had such powers..."