Censorship
 

Freedom is learning new ideas and considering different views. Learning & debate are how societies advance.
Censorship is how societies rot.

If someone says something you disagree with you can simply ignored it ! But unfortunately censorship has become the way of suppressing independent thoughts and ideas.

Censorship is also agenda driven

In the past year I have learned that there are so many words that I'm not suppose to say...according to people that are offended by about everything....

Minority (not race) and special interest groups, no matter how small, are amplified to sound as thought they are the majority!!

They get away with it because the silent majority remains......silent!

Our lawmakers need to be reminded what the preamble to the constitution states;

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The constitution explained;

The U.S. Constitution: Preamble | United States Courts

For too many agendas today none of this matters!!

Unfortunately, all too many people seem to be clueless as to what the 1A actually means, covers, or to whom it applies. It does NOT mean that a private business, has to allow all opinions. Besides, with even the laziest of searches, someone can find a site that supports their own confirmation bias - so where's the problem?

We seem to have Tyranny of the minority. Wonder what Tocqueville would say about this?

Funny you mention Tocqueville.....his visits to America to study our democracy is now lost, because we, as a country have destroyed the meanings of so many important virtues of our country...

"Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom."

Was a famous quote of his....does anyone think this still,applies ?

And we sort of reversed this observation he made....

"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."


He also said quite a bit about honesty and morals, and we are not even in the same world as he thought we were and would be.

"Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all"

Well said and accurate.

The First Amendment is very specific: It protects all of us as Americans from the government limiting our speech, And so when people talk about, 'Well, if I get kicked off of Facebook, that's an attack on my free speech or on my First Amendment right' — that's just not true. The companies have the ability to decide what speech they will allow. They're not the government.

In addition, the OP said...” Learning & debate are how societies advance.”. And also said “If someone says something you disagree with you can simply ignore it”

You skip over, if someone tells a lie....a total, easily proven lie. That is and has been the subject, not censoring an opinion, but when confronted with an outright fabrication with no basis in truth.....

Enjoy America’s freedom

Say what you want. Do not let “THEY” control your thoughts or right to express your opinion.

Not sure what your meaning is, but of course everyone has a right to their own opinion.....

Problem today is an opinion is based on facts. Having "alternate facts" (I didn't coin that ridiculous term) the problem is not having a right to your opinion, but do you have a right to downright lie and deceive by making up facts ?

There is too much opinion being presented in the guise of unbiased news and fact.

Personally, I am offended by political correction. I'm offended by preferential treatment. I'm offended by discrimination. I'm offended by 'reverse discrimination'. I'm beyond offended by Affirmative Action. Where is the equality in that? Frankly, it's divisive.

What is a "fact"?
 

I love how some people say it is okay to censor "lies." Some people's lies are other people's truths. In the past few years, so many supposed "lies" have turned out to be truths. For example, I was appalled to learn that the policeman who died at the Capitol died not from being hit over the head by a fire extinguisher but from a stroke. (Report of the medical examiner.) And the death occurred long after the insurrection. The lie about the fire extinguisher was all over the supposed news. And I have yet to hear an apology from any of them. We should be allowed to hear what EVERYBODY says and decide for ourselves what is truth and what is a lie. And when the news media makes a mistake (as is inevitable from time to time), they should have the integrity to come out and admit it. Just sayin'.

All o the talk about companies "censoring" people is very interesting, since the implication is that the Government should protect peoples "freedom of speech" by forcing the companies to allow people to express themselves.

This is really fascinating, since the very people that are calling for the companies to be "controlled" by the government, also frequently the same people that say how wonderful free market capitalism is and how awful socialism is...

And yet, Socialism is where the government controls or runs the companies and capitalism is where the companies are allowed to operate as they see fit and the people vote with their money.

BTW, as others have said above the freedom of speech is very clearly defined as the GOVERNMENT can not abridge your right to say what you want (mostly - no screaming fire in the theater).

hmm...

The big problem is, some people have no concept of how to distinguish between fact and fiction. We could say The media needs to do a better job of fact checking, because so many people depend on it for information. But the media is controlled in some cases by very biased entities which are pushing their own agenda, so the media cannot always be depended on. I think a lot of it boils down to common sense, which seems to have gone out the window. Take the election results. There were blatant attempts to discredit the election results, with absolutely no facts or proof put forth, and look at the millions of people who bought into that lie. In this case, the voting machine companies are suing for billions of dollars, so the facts will come out in court. But there are many instances where people are unable or unwilling to take a stand, and lies prevail.

Apparently certain groups in our country think they do. And many opinions posited today are not based on facts but rather pure subjective opinion.

Well, when certain groups of white people with the most influence to enact change (or prevent it) in this country, stop believing that it's their right and privilege to determine whether black people "deserve" to be treated equally...

then black people will no longer need to demand equality, affirmative action, and political correction.

In other words, you ain't the boss of them. So stop insisting that you are, and stop being offended when they tell you you're not.

I have read this four times and it sounds like someone is grouping people together and saying they all think the same. THAT sounds to me like bigotry and racism.

In fact it really sounds like a political opinion.

And more than that it sounds hateful.

I don't think we will get anywhere by making people madder than they are. Nope. I didn't like this post.

You are exactly correct. As far as I'm concerned, the madder you make the racists, bigots, prejudiced and those who just stand by and allow it to continually happen - all the better.

100% agree. Looking forward to Frank speech.

Please tell us what concrete things you have done to make this better? Or are you a racist, bigot, prejudiced or stand by-er? I never run into any of those folks. Where do they stay? If we don't know any, how can we make them mad?

I find it funny that so many think they are right and those are wrong when they have no more knowledge of the so called facts than anybody else.

But yet they got voted in again last November. All this "help" has done is destroy 2 parent households, keep people on welfare and encourage them to have more babies for more money, fail to educate the children, and teach the less fortunate that they are victims.

The entire concept of race is man made and has NO basis in scientific fact. We are all the same species and all came from Africa. THAT is scientific fact. I have no truck with discrimination. Wasn't raised that way and never tolerated it. But this current "victim" movement seems to me to be a way for certain hucksters to make a living.Time to get back to a ""hand up and eliminate the "hand out".

We all evolve from what we learn over the years. There are just some things that should be dropped from our vocabularies and some gestures that are outdated and should be stopped. Live, learn, change.

Few like to discuss some of the root problems. Mainely because it's not politically correct. But Barak Obama talked about a growing problem. Don't believe me; look it up.

He said, and I'm paraphrasing a bit, there is a growing problem of too many households without a father figure. Which means, in my words, a mother working two or more jobs to support a family that the father abandoned.

And the unfortunate result too often are children being unsupervised and getting into trouble.

This is a real problem and what do you suppose anyone is doing about it to help?

I agree with almost everything you said, I would have simply said "absent father" because of so many reasons - off serving at a war, in jail for smoking pot (OMG!), died for various reasons (including being shot), and on and on.

And then to go further, when both parents are present, but they are both working full time (or more) jobs to pay the bills, pay the health insurance, etc , etc.

The WAR ON DRUGS is also a major contributor. By driving price of drugs up it is tempting to young kids to sell drugs. After all, all the people they know are shot or going to jail any way, why not make some easy money while they can. a few thousand on a street corner, vs $15 flipping burgers.

And it is going to get worse, Because politicians are NOT interested in fixing anything. Keeping the campaign issues alive is critical to getting re-elected.

And with automation coming faster everyday, more jobs are going to be lost.

I know it is popular to blame outsourcing to China (and other countries) but 80% of jobs lost in this country are a result of automation.

the old song was "freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose"... when people feel they have nothing left to lose, they will revolt.

I fear the US has to take drastic actions NOW or it will soon be too late.

One propaganda technique would be to start off by stating a "half-truth". Then pushing an audience over to your way of thinking by repetition.

Nice dog, Mr. Grumpy."Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose"!

Good post! "A post in time saves nine".

Great post and dead on.

I DID like that post! It was well written.

Demand equality? Demand? How absolutely white of some folks to believe that. Major guilt complexes or whatever.

You don't demand equality you go out and earn equality. That gives you respect.

Ask every Irish, German, Italian, Dutch, French, Asian, Hispanic, etc family. You earn it rather than believing it's owed to you.

Affirmative Action should be color blind and based upon economic status alone. Who are you discriminating against now? Some freckle faced girl from Appalachia?

Whenever "welfare and more $ for more babies" is mentioned. I kind of get the hint that one race feels the need to assert superiority over another. Kind of a throwback to the 1950s - to the deep south.

I'm done here. I don't need this negativity and discourse. Absolutely unbelievably incorrigible.

Besides, you know what they say about wrestling with certain animals.

Because the common presumptions are:

1. black people aren't capable of being wealthy
2. white people aren't capable of being poor.
3. black people are always angry and feel like they deserve to be better than where they've been pushed all their lives (see #1 for why this is nonsense)
4. white people love where they are, no matter where that happens to be (see #2 for why this is nonsense)

To help........raise the minimum wage.......change zoning to allow more affordable housing in new developments.........provide more affordable daycare........weed out the bad Police and military personnel.......encourage better PUBLIC schools..........raise property taxes, corporate taxes, and taxes on upper-income levels.......increase the number of Supreme Court Judges and make their terms about 8 years.........start a jobs program to build up infrastructure.........control and limit immigration.........give tax credits for electric and hybrid vehicles........regain America's status in combating Global Warming.....encourage consumption of plant-based protein.......stop manufacturing and importing of all semi-auto guns and produce ONLY single shot weapons to prevent mass murders (Australia did a similar thing and mass murders dropped to zero) ........buyback and melt all civilian semi-auto rifles, pistols, and shotguns......encourage hunting by bow and arrow.......restore coral reefs.......lower the cost of Universities and Colleges to 1960s level tuition (in constant dollars)....reduce the term of Senators to 4 years ........pay high school juniors and seniors to help teachers in the lower grades......require ALL US citizens to VOTE (like Australia does).......study what works in other countries and don't be afraid to CHANGE America for the better!!!!!!! I lived up to that challenge. I did my part. Let me see other's ideas!

Way to go Mr. Grumpy. - a rant for the centuries - I am deeply repressed! And to reiterate.......nice dog!

Huh?

So, the topic is censorship. Very appropriate, considering the bullying going on here on the Talk of the Villages these days. Flame-baiting, racist rhetoric that exists to scare away anything that isn't white anglo-saxon christian, basically censoring anyone who disagrees with white supremacist propaganda. The whole "oh I'm innocent, I'm ONLY asking a simple innocent question" or "I merely want to say police officers are awesome" during a period of time in our lives where a few police officers are being called to the carpet for the behavior that some of them have been able to get away with for decades, because it's no longer acceptable to use the "thin blue line" as a shield against injustice toward the people they are paid to protect.

Like it or not, being stopped on the street for "walking while black" IS a thing. Like it or not, being pulled over and harassed by the police and your car searched while the officer's partner pulls a gun on your passenger because you were "driving while black" in a mostly white neighborhood is an actual thing. What's being censored, is anyone who dares to acknowledge that it is a thing, and that this thing is a problem, and that this problem needs to be solved.

That's what's being censored, here. By the bullies who challenge anyone who dares to challenge their propaganda.

TopSpinmo and OBB are the most perceptive posters
 

True! Most everyone on here would flunk both philosophy and psychology 101. . .

There is no such concept as facts and truth, there are just common perceptions, which like minded groups call facts. But everyone as an individual experiences life as a unique individual, like every lie in golf is unique in distance, angle, and blades of grass. Likewise, everyone has a unique viewpoint, not a fact, but a perception, which is why humans are so unique as compared to the animal kingdom. Is it possible for 100,000 animals to sit during an athletic conference in a stadium and not eat each other?

Humans don't eat each other, but we share alot of similarities with the animal kingdom in fights for dominance, for survival, and for safety. . .

OBB is more philosophical and perceptive that most give her credit. . . if you have ever been to high level corporate sensitivity training, which i have more than once, you will better understand what she says. I was at one in March. . led by a black lawyer from DC. . . do you know what one of the biggest decisions non white parents or mixed racial parents have to make about the future of their child(ren) for success?

The child's name! Why? because of the employment discrimination on how a name is perceived. They have to use white anglo saxon names to pass the resume test, and they struggle with their decision as a life long potential mistake.. . and this struggle did not come from the leader of the training but from the participants, with whom I work on a daily basis.

When was the last time in your career your first name was a liability to interview and a job? If not, that is what white privilege is all about, what you have never experienced, but others have, and because you have not, you haven't had to realize the extent of inherent bias in America for differences between the past and the present.

Bias is everywhere, its a product of being human and a sense of security from experiences, and a desire for dominance/control/herding of similar perceptions. .. . .

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