Censorship

Twitter’s War On Freedom | Project Veritas

Published by Papa Giorgio

Here is Sean Hannity interviewing James O’Keefe. This is sort-of an intro to the following videos…. which I will add as they are released.

ONE – A Project Veritas undercover investigation has revealed a senior network security engineer at Twitter suggesting that his company turns over the private communications and deleted tweets of President Donald Trump to the Department of Justice. If true, it is yet unknown whether Twitter is voluntarily disclosing this sensitive information or acting under a court order. Twitter is currently in the midst of defending itself from left-leaning criticism that President Trump hasn’t been removed from the enormous media platform for violations of Twitter’s Terms of Service.

TWO – In the latest undercover Project Veritas video investigation, eight current and former Twitter employees are on camera explaining steps the social media giant is taking to censor political content that they don’t like.

THREE – Project Veritas has released undercover footage of Twitter Engineers and employees admitting that Twitter employees view”everything you post” on their servers, including private “sex messages,” and “d*ck pics.” The engineers also admit that Twitter analyzes this information to create a “virtual profile” of you which they sell to advertisers.

Google Fact Checks Conservatives Sites, Not Leftist Sites

Published by Papa Giorgio

Here is some commentary by THE DAILY CALLER:

Google, the most powerful search engine in the world, is now displaying fact checks for conservative publications in its results.

No prominent liberal site receives the same treatment.

And not only is Google’s fact-checking highly partisan – perhaps reflecting the sentiments of its leaders – it is also blatantly wrong, asserting sites made “claims” they demonstrably never made.

When searching for a media outlet that leans right, like The Daily Caller (TheDC), Google gives users details on the sidebar, including what topics the site typically writes about, as well as a section titled “Reviewed Claims.”

Vox, and other left-wing outlets and blogs like Gizmodo, are not given the same fact-check treatment. When searching their names, a “Topics they write about” section appears, but there are no “Reviewed Claims.”

In fact, a review of mainstream outlets, as well as other outlets associated with liberal and conservative audiences, shows that only conservative sites feature the highly misleading, subjective analysis. Several conservative-leaning outlets like TheDC are “vetted,” while equally partisan sites like Vox, Think Progress, Slate, The Huffington Post, Daily Kos, Salon, Vice and Mother Jones are spared.

Occupy Democrats is apparently the only popular content provider from that end of the political spectrum with a fact-checking section.

Big name publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times are even given a column showcasing all of the awards they have earned over the years……

GAY PATRIOT notes the recent lawsuit by an ex-Google employee and the left-leaning cult embedded in the culture at Google:

Based on the documentation provided as part of James Damore’s discrimination suit, Google operates as a cult of left-wing progressives who promote an environment of hostility against conservatives, Republicans, Trump supporters, and white men. The Federalist has a summary, but here’s a few to give the flavor of the thing.

“Google furnishes a large number of internal mailing lists catering to employees with alternative lifestyles, including furries, polygamy, transgenderism, and plurality, for the purpose of discussing sexual topics. The only lifestyle that seems to not be openly discussed on Google’s internal forums is traditional heterosexual monogamy.”

A footnote next to the word “plurality” adds: “For instance, an employee who sexually identifies as ‘a yellow-scaled wingless dragonkin’ and ‘an expansive ornate building’ presented a talk entitled ‘Living as a Plural Being’ at an internal company event.”

[Google Manager Kim] Burchett once proposed creating a list she would personally manage of “people who make diversity difficult,” to include employees who did things like make statements “unsupportive of diversity.” She suggested the list could serve as a punishment that could incentivize “better” behavior among the offenders listed.

“You can’t support Donald Trump without also supporting his racism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia,” a Googler wrote in a lengthy communication on Trump supporters. “Or even worse, if you vote for Donald Trump because of his economic policy or because you feel the other party is corrupt, then what you’re saying is that economics is more important than the safety of your peers. This is where my tolerance ends: with intolerance.”

[…..]

BadThink at Google will get an employee cut off from opportunities for advancement, but blacklisted in the insutry, and even threatened in their private lives. (Sounds more than a little bit like Scientology.)

Oh, by the way, the Progressive-Left wants all of society run according to this model.  Discrimination against those who hold “politically incorrect” viewpoints (wrongthink), punishment for wrongthink, networks of informers to report on people for wrongthink, and ultimately violence against those who hold wrongthink.

What Happens When Google Disagrees With You?

Published by Papa Giorgio

Is Google open to a diverse array of viewpoints? Or is it an ideological echo chamber? Just ask former Google software engineer James Damore. He was fired for disagreeing with Google’s (left-wing) orthodoxy. In this video, James shares his story.

Prager University Sues YouTube/Google

Published by Papa Giorgio

WALL STREET JOURNAL via AMERICAN RENAISSANCE…

….The suit heightens a debate over tech companies’ increasing influence on public opinion and how they should police content on their sites. With the internet enabling the spread of misinformation, hate speech and foreign propaganda—especially around the 2016 U.S. election—politicians, academics and the media are increasing scrutiny on the role a handful of tech giants play in modern society.

Since last year, more than three dozen PragerU videos—on subjects including the Korean War and Israel and Palestine—have been restricted by YouTube. As a result, those who use YouTube in “restricted mode,” including students at some universities and children whose parents have put parental control filters in place, are prevented from seeing the videos; all potential ad revenue from the videos is also cut off…..

BREITBART:

PragerU, the conservative digital media organization from Dennis Prager, is suing YouTube and its parent Google over alleged censorship of their videos.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the lawsuit, which was filed on Monday, “says YouTube’s more than 30 million visitors a day make the site so elemental to free speech in the digital age that it should be treated as a public forum.”

“The suit argues the site must use the ‘laws governing free speech,’ not its own discretion, to make decisions about what to censor,” they reported, adding that PragerU “alleges that by limiting access to some of its videos without clear criteria YouTube is infringing on PragerU’s First Amendment rights.”

YouTube has repeatedly censored PragerU on their platform, labeling political videos as “restricted” adult content and even removing a video of “a Muslim man describing how he was raised to be anti-Semitic,” branding the video as “hate speech.”….

Here is more from POLITISTICK:

…PragerU isn’t the only company that has been hit by YouTube’s demonetization censorship. Big time YouTube stars like Dave Rubin and Stephen Crowder — and many other (if not all conservatives) have also been affected.

We can attest to experiencing the exact same issue as other conservative YouTube users on our own YouTube channel. Nearly every video we clip, even of the President of the United States speaking, are flagged as “Not Appropriate for All Advertisers,” especially when they make progressive leftist Democrats look bad.

You can appeal the demonetization, but only after the video gets at least 1,000 views will they review the decision with a human reviewer. This adversely effects smaller YouTube users and start-ups

A Return To The 1940’s To Mid-1960’s “Bourgeois” Norms?

Published by Papa Giorgio

Here is an excerpt from the article mentioned on the show:

Paying The Price For Breakdown Of The Country’S Bourgeois Culture

….That culture laid out the script we all were supposed to follow: Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.

These basic cultural precepts reigned from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. They could be followed by people of all backgrounds and abilities, especially when backed up by almost universal endorsement. Adherence was a major contributor to the productivity, educational gains, and social coherence of that period.

Did everyone abide by those precepts? Of course not. There are always rebels — and hypocrites, those who publicly endorse the norms but transgress them. But as the saying goes, hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. Even the deviants rarely disavowed or openly disparaged the prevailing expectations.

Was everything perfect during the period of bourgeois cultural hegemony? Of course not. There was racial discrimination, limited sex roles, and pockets of anti-Semitism. However, steady improvements for women and minorities were underway even when bourgeois norms reigned. Banishing discrimination and expanding opportunity does not require the demise of bourgeois culture. Quite the opposite: The loss of bourgeois habits seriously impeded the progress of disadvantaged groups. That trend also accelerated the destructive consequences of the growing welfare state, which, by taking over financial support of families, reduced the need for two parents. A strong pro-marriage norm might have blunted this effect. Instead, the number of single parents grew astronomically, producing children more prone to academic failure, addiction, idleness, crime, and poverty.

This cultural script began to break down in the late 1960s. A combination of factors — prosperity, the Pill, the expansion of higher education, and the doubts surrounding the Vietnam War — encouraged an antiauthoritarian, adolescent, wish-fulfillment ideal — sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll — that was unworthy of, and unworkable for, a mature, prosperous adult society. This era saw the beginnings of an identity politics that inverted the color-blind aspirations of civil rights leaders like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. into an obsession with race, ethnicity, gender, and now sexual preference.

And those adults with influence over the culture, for a variety of reasons, abandoned their role as advocates for respectability, civility, and adult values. As a consequence, the counterculture made great headway, particularly among the chattering classes — academics, writers, artists, actors, and journalists — who relished liberation from conventional constraints and turned condemning America and reviewing its crimes into a class marker of virtue and sophistication.

All cultures are not equal. Or at least they are not equal in preparing people to be productive in an advanced economy. The culture of the Plains Indians was designed for nomadic hunters, but is not suited to a First World, 21st-century environment. Nor are the single-parent, antisocial habits, prevalent among some working-class whites; the anti-“acting white” rap culture of inner-city blacks; the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants. These cultural orientations are not only incompatible with what an advanced free-market economy and a viable democracy require, they are also destructive of a sense of solidarity and reciprocity among Americans. If the bourgeois cultural script — which the upper-middle class still largely observes but now hesitates to preach — cannot be widely reinstated, things are likely to get worse for us all.

See also the interview at the NEW YORK MAGAZINE’S wonderful piece. JONATHAN HAIDT also has a fine piece defending the freedom of thought in such a piece… and those that wish to censor anything that disagrees with Leftism. Here is a snippet of it:

….The letter includes a call to action:

This is the time for members of the University of Pennsylvania community who claim to fight systemic inequality to speak up, especially those anthropologists and scholars who claim an understanding of culture and who recognize culture talk’s deleterious potential as a vehicle for racism and sexism… We call for the denunciation, not of racism as some abstract concept “out there” — in Charlottesville, in America, by the poor uneducated white or by an individual racist ideologue — but for a denunciation of racism at the University of Pennsylvania. In particular we must denounce faculty members that are complicit in and uphold white supremacy, normalizing it as if it were just another viable opinion in our educational tenures at the University. We call for the University of Pennsylvania administration — Penn President Gutmann and the deans of each school — as well as faculty to directly confront Wax and Alexander’s op-ed as racist and white supremacist discourse and to push for an investigation into Wax’s advocacy for white supremacy.

This call to denounce Wax was answered by 33 of her colleagues at the law school—nearly half the faculty—who signed and published an Open Letter to the University of Pennsylvania Community. In it, the law professors affirmed Wax’s right to express her opinions, but said:

We write to condemn recent statements our colleague Amy Wax, the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at Penn Law School, has made in popular media pieces. In an op-ed published recently at Philly.com, Wax and a coauthor wrote that “All cultures are not equal,” going on to claim that various social problems would be “significantly reduce[d]” if “the academics, media, and Hollywood” would stop the “preening pretense of defending the downtrodden,” because that would lead to “restoring the hegemony of the bourgeois culture.” In an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian about the op-ed, Wax was quoted as saying that “Everyone wants to go to countries ruled by white Europeans,” because, in the phrasing of the DP article’s author, “Anglo-Protestant cultural norms are superior.” … [they then affirm Wax’s right to express her opinions, then say:] We categorically reject Wax’s claims.

Those are the basic facts.

I think it is important for the academic community to reflect on this case. In the wake of Charlottesville, all of us on campus might encounter passions among our students beyond even what we saw in the previous academic year, a year in which violence and the justification of violence became more common on campus. This year, we are likely to find many more professors accused of “white supremacy.” Professors and administrators may face many more campaigns designed to get them to sign open letters and collectively denounce colleagues. It is important, therefore, that we think about this case carefully and draw the right lessons. When and why should professors come together to denounce and condemn other professors? Of course we are always free to dispute each other; Wax’s colleagues could certainly have written essays or a collective essay debating her claims and pointing out flaws in her reasoning, but when is it morally and professionally appropriate to issue a collective public condemnation of a colleague?

I think such collective actions are only appropriate when colleagues have clearly and flagrantly violated their professional duties. I mean things like data fabrication or taking bribes to produce dishonest academic papers desired by a trade association. I would include writing a racist and hate-filled diatribe in that list, but is that what Wax did? She wrote an essay on the importance of culture for poverty-related outcomes, and the Penn students asserted, in their open letter, that such “culture talk” has “deleterious potential as a vehicle for racism and sexism.” The students are certainly correct that claims by a professor about the value of bourgeois culture could be misused by racists to say that one race is inherently superior to another. But does that make any discussion of cultural differences taboo? Does that make Wax a white supremacist for saying that culture matters for poverty-related outcomes, that not all cultures are equally good for escaping poverty, and that the 1950s American “bourgeois cultural script” was particularly good for that purpose? No…….

(read it all)

NATIONAL REVIEW gets into the weeds as well, via, Heather Mac Donald. Why? Because of the uproar from such an article. Someone stepped out of line and needs to be corrected… sent to re-education camps!

Were you planning to instruct your child about the value of hard work and civility? Not so fast! According to a current uproar at the University of Pennsylvania, advocacy of such bourgeois virtues is “hate speech.” The controversy, sparked by an op-ed written by two law professors, illustrates the rapidly shrinking boundaries of acceptable thought on college campuses and the use of racial victimology to police those boundaries.

On August 9, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax and University of San Diego law professor Larry Alexander published an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer calling for a revival of the bourgeois values that characterized mid-century American life, including child-rearing within marriage, hard work, self-discipline on and off the job, and respect for authority. The late 1960s took aim at the bourgeois ethic, they say, encouraging an “antiauthoritarian, adolescent, wish-fulfillment ideal [of] sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll that was unworthy of, and unworkable for, a mature, prosperous adult society.”

Today, the consequences of that cultural revolution are all around us: lagging education levels, the lowest male work-force participation rate since the Great Depression, opioid abuse, and high illegitimacy rates. Wax and Alexander catalogue the self-defeating behaviors that leave too many Americans idle, addicted, or in prison: “the single-parent, antisocial habits, prevalent among some working-class whites; the anti-‘acting white’ rap culture of inner-city blacks; the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants.”

[…..]

The fuse was lit. The rules of the game were the following: Ignore what Wax and Alexander had actually said; avoid providing any counterevidence; and play the race card to the hilt as a substitute for engaging with their arguments.

First out of the gate was the Penn graduate students’ union, GET-UP. On August 11, a day after the Daily Pennsylvanian article, GET-UP issued a “Statement about Wax Op-Ed,” condemning the “presence of toxic racist, sexist, homophobic attitudes on campus.” The “superiority of one race over others is not an academic debate we have in the 21st century,” GET-UP wrote. “It is racism masquerading as science.”

But the Wax-Alexander op-ed and the Wax interview said nothing about racial superiority (much less about sex or homosexuality). It argued for a set of behavioral norms that are available to all peoples but that had found their strongest expression over the course of a particular culture. As the Daily Pennsylvanian itself acknowledged, Wax had emphasized to them that she was not implying the superiority of whites. “Bourgeois values aren’t just for white people,” she had said. “The irony is: Bourgeois values can help minorities get ahead.”

Finally, of course, comes the demand for booty and bureaucracy: a “formal, centralized Diversity & Inclusion office with staff that are charged directly with . . . providing resources for students experiencing marginalized [sic] or discrimination at Penn.” Never mind that Penn has been cranking out “Action Plans for Faculty Diversity and Excellence,” “Faculty Inclusion Reports,” “Gender Equity Reports,” and “Minority Equity Progress Reports” for two decades…..

(read it all)

Fake News – Bill Whittle

Published by Papa Giorgio

What cost Hillary Clinton the election? Well obviously it could not have had anything to do with her creepy, fake smile, her human-like warmth or the swamp of corruption and even treason that she has made for herself. It must be the Russians! And FAKE NEWS! In his latest FIREWALL, Bill Whittle picks apart this nonsense and places the blame squarely on the head of the sore loser responsible for her thrashing.

(HOTAIR H-T)

The Hillary Campaign Tried to Have Mika Brzezinski Censored!

Published by Papa Giorgio

Did the Hillary Presidential campaign prove Time Warner CEO, Jeff Bewkes’s, contention that the Democratic Party poses a greater threat to the First Amendment than from Donald Trump. (CNBC & DAILY CALLER)

(H-T YOUNG CONSERVATIVES)

On Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski reveals that after she had warned that the Clinton campaign needed to stop arrogantly assuming that the race was over, “NBC got a call from the campaign that I had done something that was journalistically inappropriate or something and needed to be pulled off the air.”

Prager University Videos Being Censored on YouTube (Google)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Sign the petition here.

The COLLEGE FIX notes the issue:

YouTube has placed 21 PragerU videos on “restricted mode,” a category meant for inappropriate and objectionable adult and sexual content.

PragerU stands for Prager University. Its four- to five-minute videos promote Judeo-Christian values and principles and are ideal for young people as they distill complex issues into concise bullet points with stimulating graphics.

“We’ve worked quietly behind the scenes for months to resolve this, but YouTube’s censorship continues, leaving us with no option but to go public,” PragerU announcedTuesday on its Facebook page.

YouTube is owned by Google, and PragerU states on its website that “in response to an official complaint we filed, Google specialists defended their restriction of our videos, and said, ‘We don’t censor anyone,’ although they do ‘take into consideration what the intent of the video is’ and ‘what the focus of the video is.’”

“There is no excuse for Google and YouTube censoring and restricting any PragerU videos, which are produced with the sole intent of educating people of all ages about America’s founding values,” the conservative nonprofit states on its website….

The WASHINGTON TIMES has this great article as well:

When fascism comes to America

Liberals love to share an old quote attributed to Sinclair Lewis that goes, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” As always, the left gets it wrong.

When fascism comes to America, it will be adorned with corporate logos. Liberal fascism is taking over America and its proponents are corporations.

Prager University is a nonprofit educational organization run by talk show host Dennis Prager. PragerU as it is sometimes called, produces educational videos that it then places on various platforms, including YouTube, which is owned by Google. Mr. Prager’s videos are definitely from a conservative or libertarian point of view.

Recently YouTube put 21 of PragerU’s videos on “restricted mode.” This is typically reserved for material that is inappropriate for teenagers. PragerU designs its videos to be educational and to be viewed by all ages. While YouTube puts PragerU videos regarding the police, racism, Feminism and Muslim women on its restricted list, videos produced by left wing organizations on the same topics are not.

YouTube’s parent company Google has been accused of altering search results in its eponymous search engine to favor Hillary Clinton. Searches done this summer by groups showed, for example, “Hillary Clinton crime” did not show stories that featured accusations that Clinton had committed crimes. Instead if directed searchers to Hillary Clinton on crime reform. Even today, a search of “Hillary Clinton cri” will not bring up any suggested searches for Clinton crimes. It will show Hillary Clinton crisis or Hillary Clinton cries, but crime is not to be found.

Meanwhile, competing search engines, will fill in those blanks. On Bing, the search “Hillary Clinton Cr” immediately brings up suggested terms for Hillary Clinton criminal. The search engine Duckduckgo also brings up similar results.

[….]

It isn’t just social media that has become fascist. Corporate America is fascist. Major American corporations have launched full force into the LGBTQ revolution. Corporation such as Paypal, General Electric, Dow Chemical, Pepsi, Hyatt and Hewitt Packard have announced they will boycott North Carolina because the people in North Carolina supported a law that says women have the right to privacy in the bathroom and have the right to use the bathroom without men coming into the bathroom.

Some of these corporations do business with some of the most repressive regimes in the world. Yet they are upset that North Carolina doesn’t want men in the women’s bathroom.

Fascism only allows one opinion. That is the approved opinion. That is what we have in America today. The leading proponents of fascism is not the government. It is big American corporations.

 

ESPN’s Censorship and the Kaepernick Caper (Medved)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Michael Medved discusses what you cannot say if you are a member of ESPN while they defend the right of NFL players to say whatever they like. [How I see it] In other words, ESPN defends players freedom of expression and thought while simultaneously demanding their own employees are not afforded the same consideration.

Medved also opines on the Kaepernick caper.

The Truth About Milo’s Twitter Flop

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Just so you know, I reject Paul Watson’s affiliation with Alex Jones BS)

Twitter and the entire media are lying about why Milo was banned.

When future generations look back on this critical juncture in the fight for liberal western ideals of free expression, they’ll see that Twitter and Jack Dorsey were on the wrong side of history.

…But Then I Started College

Published by Papa Giorgio

This comes via the Harvard Crimson… which will surely be shut down do to it violating the feelings of a minority of students (h/t to Twitchy & Truth Revolt):

I used to believe that open discourse was a value all Americans hold dear. I presumed that when asked about what makes America so unique, many Americans would respond that our pluralistic society is the foundation of so much of our success. That it was understood that without a marketplace of ideas, our society simply could not flourish.

But then I started college.

Since the beginning of my freshman year, I have come to believe that a more fitting way to describe the current culture on college campuses is a culture defined not by open expression—but by sensitivity. This undue focus on feelings has caused the college campus to often feel like a place where one has to monitor every syllable that is uttered to ensure that it could not under any circumstance offend anyone to the slightest degree. It sometimes feels as though pluralism has become an antiquated concept. Facts and history have been discarded, and instead feelings have been deemed to be the criteria that determine whether words and actions are acceptable.

It is important to have organizations and movements on college campuses that work toward protecting individuals’ identities. The past few decades have witnessed an explosion of new identities, and students should become aware of and respect the plethora of new identities that have recently emerged. But many of these movements have gone too far.

Take the University of New Hampshire’s “Bias-Free Language Guide.” The list was compiled to inform students of words that are considered offensive in conversation. According to the guide, which was removed from the school’s website a few months ago after it incited controversy, the word “American” is unacceptable, for it fails to recognize people of South American origin. “American,” it argues, should be replaced with “resident of the U.S.” The words “senior citizens,” “older people,” and “elders” should also be eliminated, and instead replaced with “people of advanced age” and “old people.” If we’re at a point where it is offensive to say that your 90-year-old grandparent is a senior citizen, it seems that pretty soon, there may not be any neutral words left.

[….]

In a class I attended earlier this semester, a large portion of the first meeting was devoted to compiling a list of rules for class discussion. A student contended that as a woman, she would be unable to sit across from a student who declared that he was strongly against abortion, and the other students in the seminar vigorously defended this declaration. The professor remained silent. In a recent conversation with peers, I posed a question about a verse from the Bible. A Harvard employee in the room immediately interjected, informing me that we were in a safe space and I was thus not permitted to discuss the controversial biblical passage. And these are just stories from the past three months.

The assaults on free expression have dire consequences. The rise of the microagression movement has been reported to be detrimental to mental health on campus. Students’ emotional distress is increasing as educators presume that fragile undergraduates need to be protected from any form of dissent. Administrators must recognize that the current restrictions are incompatible with the very premise and goal of an education.

It is time to stop focusing on feelings as the criteria for speech and actions on the college campus.

(More by Rachel E. Huebner)

While we are on the topic of censorship… Dennis Prager gives us an update to Marquette University’s Censorship of Professor John McAdams and other students:

This next video brings a damning aspect to university campuses in that it speaks to the worst countries for freedom of speech:

The New Normal… Censorship (Plus: Family Guy) [UPDATED]

Published by Papa Giorgio

Censorship is the new norm, and this is with thanks to the left. See for instance Jerry Seinfeld talking about censorship in comedy.

To even write that Bruce Jenner is a man and not a woman is hate speech.

Pittsburgh ‘News’ Room, Lobbyists Demand Columnist Firing for ‘Jenner Still a Mister’ Piece

Stating an anti-transgender opinion is close to forbidden in today’s “news” pages and “news” rooms, especially after the Bruce Jenner fawning frenzy. Exhibit A? Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist and associate editor Jennifer Graham (no relation to me) wrote a column truthfully titled “Caitlyn Jenner is still a mister.” 

JimRomenesko.com notes Jay Brown of the so-called Human Rights Campaign demanded in a letter that she be fired for “hate speech, plain and simple”: 

I am writing to you regarding a despicably offensive and inaccurate column by your employee, Jennifer Graham. Simply put, after submitting a piece so utterly lacking truth or decency, she should be relieved of her role as a columnist….

There is still time to make this right, but the solution involves taking action now. Ms. Graham has no business serving as a columnist at a publication with a reputation as sterling like yours. Instead, lift up a  Pittsburgh voice that has something meaningful to say on the issues of the day.”   

…read more…

I posted the above on my FaceBook and got the following response from a gal I adore… but who is just mimicking pop-culture:

How is it anyone’s business other than Caitlin Jenner’s to decide what/who to be called?

Here is my response to the above… and it is in the hopes to create sound thinking/reflection on how she, we, encapsulate thoughts… and thus meaning. (I AM HERE including slightly more information than in the original response):

You are making my point. So let’s change this around: “How is it anyone’s business other than ‘the Pittsburgh columnist to comment on Jenner’.”

You see, when a baker decides to not make a cake for a specific event, the power of the state gets involved. Likewise, we will soon see the state get involved in issues like these… like pastors being fined and even threatened with jail for preaching from Romans.

Also, there is a growing movement of people who had operations to become a woman speaking out against fellow “prospective” transgenders from getting the operation and deluding oneself into thinking they are the opposite sex (See my “Transgender Page” for some examples)

Again, using your premise said another way:

Self Refuting (Alvin Plantinga’s “Tar Baby”)

Again, relativism claims that all so-called truth is relative, that there really is no absolute truth, but that different things (whatever they may be) may be true for me but not for you.  This is at times called perspectivalism.

  • Statement: There is no such thing as absolute truth; [or alternatively, there are many truths.]

Is this philosophy of relativism making the statement that this is the ultimate, absolute truth about truth?  In that case, it actually asserts what it denies, and so is self-deleting, simply logically incoherent as a philosophical position[1] and in violation of the Law of non-contradiction (LNC), one of the most important laws of logical thought.[2]  I will show some common – everyday – rebukes that show how people contradict themselves, thus undermining what in fact they are trying to assert.

Some Examples ~ You Shouldn’t Force Your Morality On Me![3]

  • First Person: “You shouldn’t force your morality on me.”
  • Second Person: “Why not?”
  • First Person: “Because I don’t believe in forcing morality.”
  • Second Person: “If you don’t believe in it, then by all means, don’t do it. Especially don’t force that moral view of yours on me.”
  • First Person: “You shouldn’t push your morality on me.”
  • Second Person: “I’m not entirely sure what you mean by that statement. Do you mean I have no right to an opinion?”
  • First Person: “You have a right to you’re opinion, but you have no right to force it on anyone.”
  • Second Person: “Is that your opinion?”
  • First Person: “Yes.”
  • Second Person: “Then why are you forcing it on me?”
  • First Person: “But your saying your view is right.”
  • Second Person: “Am I wrong?”
  • First Person: “Yes.”
  • Second Person: “Then your saying only your view is right, which is the very thing you objected to me saying.”
  • First Person: “You shouldn’t push your morality on me.”
  • Second Person: “Correct me if I’m misunderstanding you here, but it sounds to me like your telling me I’m wrong.”
  • First Person: “You are.”
  • Second Person: “Well, you seem to be saying my personal moral view shouldn’t apply to other people, but that sounds suspiciously like you are applying your moral view to me.  Why are you forcing your morality on me?”

Self-Defeating

  • “Most of the problems with our culture can be summed up in one phrase: ‘Who are you to say?’” ~ Dennis Prager

So lets unpack this phrase and see how it is self-refuting, or as Tom Morris[4] put it, self-deleting. When someone says, “Who are you to say?” answer with, “Who are you to say ‘Who are you to say’?”[5]

This person is challenging your right to correct another, yet she is correcting you.  Your response to her amounts to “Who are you to correct my correction, if correcting in itself is wrong?” or “If I don’t have the right to challenge your view, then why do you have the right to challenge mine?”  Her objection is self-refuting; you’re just pointing it out.

The “Who are you to say?” challenge fails on another account.  Taken at face value, the question challenges one’s authority to judge another’s conduct.  It says, in effect, “What authorizes you to make a rule for others?  Are you in charge?”  This challenge miscasts my position.  I don’t expect others to obey me simply because I say so.  I’m appealing to reason, not asserting my authority.  It’s one thing to force beliefs; it’s quite another to state those beliefs and make an appeal for them.

The “Who are you to say?” complaint is a cheap shot.  At best it’s self-defeating.  It’s an attempt to challenge the legitimacy of your moral judgments, but the statement itself implies a moral judgment.  At worst, it legitimizes anarchy!

[1] Tom Morris, Philosophy for Dummies (IDG Books; 1999), p. 46
[2] “…is considered the foundation of logical reasoning,” Manuel Velasquez, Philosophy: A Text with Readings (Wadsworth; 2001), p. 51.  “A theory in which this law fails…is an inconsistent theory”, edited by Ted Honderich, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, (Oxford Univ; 1995), p. 625.
[3] Francis Beckwith & Gregory Koukl, Relativism: Feet Planted in Mid-Air (Baker Books; 1998), p. 144-146.
[4] Tom Morris, Philosophy for Dummies (IDG Books; 1999), p. 46
[5] Francis Beckwith & Gregory Koukl, Relativism: Feet Planted in Mid-Air (Baker Books; 1998), p. 144-146.

(See more at my SCRIBD)

I then mentioned that the first part of this “two-part import” from my old blog to my new one may fit the applications as well:

Agree or Not?

This is a combination of two posts, the first was a question I posed to someone in a forum. Below you see what that question was and where I led that person. The second is a bit of political science. Both repeat some of the same idea, but both are different.

So let’s highlight the first question by a court case that has, well, institutionalized the “post-modern” society. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1996), the 9th District Appeals Court wrote:

“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.”

In other words, whatever you believe is your origin, and thus your designating meaning on both your life and body is your business, no one else’s. If you believe that the child growing in you – no matter at what stage (Doe v. Bolton) – isn’t a child unless you designate it so. You alone can choose to or not choose to designate life to that “fetus”. It isn’t a “potential person” until you say it is first a person. Understand? That being clarified, do you agree with this general statement:

“If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be bearers of an objective, immortal truth… From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own reality…”

Sounds really close to the 9th Courts majority view doesn’t it. The above is basically saying that your opinion is just as valid as another persons opinion because both are your’s and the other persons perspective on something is formed from influences from your culture and experiences. So someone from New Guiney may have a differing view or opinion on eating dogs than an American.

Let’s compare a portion from both statements:

  1. “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery of human life…”
  2. “…the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own reality…”

Whether you’re an atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian or Muslim, it doesn’t matter. Your reality is just that… your reality, or opinion, or personal dogma. I want to now complete one of the quotes that I left somewhat edited, not only that, but I want to ask you if you still agree with it after you find out who wrote it.

Ready?

“Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition…. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be bearers of an objective, immortal truth… then there is nothing more relativistic than fascistic attitudes and activity…. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable.”

Mussolini, Diuturna pp. 374-77, quoted in A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews with an Absolutist (Ignatius Press; 1999), by Peter Kreeft, p. 18.