It’s been fun watching the news gush from Elon Musk about how Twitter interfered with elections, helped squash reports about Hunter Bidens laptop and news coverage of his alleged criminal behavior, and banned people and companies for posting what was clearly sarcasm, and therefore speech protected by the First Amendment. It’s even more fun watching the liberals squirm as they try to justify Twitter’s behavior.
The Problem with Large Companies
What we’re seeing is the curtains thrown open and the airing of dirty laundry specific to Twitter, but thinking people know it’s the same across the rest of social media. This illustrates the problems of a few large companies being in control of a significant amount of our internet news and speech. The big three who control what hundreds of millions of people see and hear are: Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram; Google, which owns the largest search engine and YouTube; and Twitter.
Dominated by young snowflakes and liberals who can’t handle opposing viewpoints, these companies developed policies to limit, constrain, or ban people who offended them. Being snowflakes, lots of things offended them, including jokes and memes. Things got worse when politics got involved. For example, there have been plenty of reports about one-sided search results on Google relating to Biden and Trump. YouTube videos can get demonetized or blocked for talking about COVID and vaccine, even for reporting clinical studies published in respected medical journals. Because a bunch of art history and gender studies majors who are working as content moderators apparently know better than PhD scientists.
The whole concept of misinformation is made up to control your access to information. Information is information. Whether information is accurate, inaccurate, pleasing, offensive, widely believed, or considered false is not the point. Freedom of speech should apply to them all.
The Answer to Censorship
What’s the answer to censorship? The truth. You should speak the truth bluntly and loudly when confronted with lies. Better yet, back it up with facts and data.
I realize that there time when the truth may be unwelcome or when speaking it may put you in an uncomfortable situation. On the other hand, if we back down, their lies prevail.
I don’t go around contradicting people in front of me in the grocery store line, or arguing with the person at the next gas pump who has a bumper sticker I disagree with. It’s not worth arguing with idiots. Although I avoid arguments, I also drop truth bombs. A good truth bomb is one that knocks them back and makes them think for a change.
Acquaintance: “Have you had the new booster?”
Me: “Do you realize that the majority of people dying from COVID are those who have been vaccinated? Yeah, more than 60 percent. It seems like every politician or celebrity who gets COVID has been vaccinated and double boosted. Crazy, isn’t it?”
You can see that 1) I didn’t answer the question, 2) I told the truth and gave a verifiable fact, and 3) I hopefully made her think twice.
Blunt Talk
Sometimes, bluntness can burst the bubble of lies people build up to shelter themselves. This might not be a happy occasion for them, but it can have positive results in the long run. For example, long ago, a young coworker complained that CYS took her baby from her and wanted her to go to parenting and anger management classes. She said this was because her social worker didn’t like her. I said something like, “Your baby suffered a traumatic brain injury, and if they could prove you did it, they would arrest you. If you want your baby back, you better pass those classes with flying colors.” She looked shocked, but the truth somehow penetrated. She took the classes and got her baby back.
I fired another young woman for missing 12 days of work (often a Monday or Friday) over a six-week period. She was incredulous. She was warned, but all she gave me was excuses. (This was well before quiet quitting was a thing.) A year later, she called me out of the blue and thanked me for firing her. She said it was the wake-up call she needed, and as a result, she had just gotten promoted at her subsequent job. I congratulated her, said nice things, and we parted on much friendlier terms than he had the year prior.
The Truth Will Out
I expect we all know at least a few people who know we are preppers, even if they don’t know the extent of our prepping, but don’t bother getting prepped. These are the people who will bring a cooler of frozen food over to your house during a power outage and ask if you can squeeze it in to your generator-powered freezer. I give them one pass, and say, “I’ll help you, but just this one time. I suggest you get your own generator at Harbor Freight so you can keep your own food cold and recharge your electronic devices.” I’ll help them get basic preps. I’ll even help them pick out a generator and show them how to run it, but what I won’t do is be their emergency power source or survival plan more than once.
Some people don’t learn unless you beat them over the head. When we lived in a big city, we jokingly called one mall “the stabbing mall” because someone got stabbed there two years in a row. We also had the “shooting Walmart” because there were occasional shootings, usually in the parking lot. A friend of my adult daughter witnessed a shooting at this Walmart. She was quite traumatized as the bleeding body collapsed in the lot just a few spaces from her car. Most people were sympathetic. “Oh, you poor dear.”
I was like, “Why were you at that Walmart? They call it the Shooting Walmart for a reason.”
“But it’s the closest Walmart!” she wailed.
“I guess you just saw the price of convenience.” She started driving the extra ten minutes to the nicer Walmart in a better neighborhood.
The truth offends a shocking number of people. That’s their problem. Let them deal with it. If they have to run off to their safe place to grapple with the fact that not everyone thinks adults should have sex with children, that’s fine with me. (Maybe we can find some way to lock them in there.) If you have to tell the boss you won’t work with someone because they are drunk/stoned/or otherwise impaired on the job, just do it. It beats letting their mistake kill you.
The Truth will Set you Free
I no longer depend on the goodwill of others to keep me employed, so I am free to speak the truth without worrying that I’ll get fired. That kind of freedom is a nice feeling.
If you have a valuable skill and enough money in your reserve fund to support yourself for six months, you can enjoy this freedom too. I’m not saying to become a pompous ass; I’m saying don’t let the other side get away with setting the agenda and writing history. When you drop your truth bombs, make like the stealth bomber. Sneak in there, drop the truth, and move on. Don’t satisfy them with an argument.
