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Posts Tagged ‘Censorship Ascendant’

In the News (#1429)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 13, 2024| 1 Comment »

Where a government deploys its soldiers will always be politics by other means.  –  Brandon del Pozo

Fallen Idol (#1305)

A strange, anticlimactic ending to this saga:

The judge overseeing the Ron Jeremy criminal case has granted the defense’s motion to dismiss the case after expert findings that the former performer is “not presently dangerous”…At a Nov. 31 mental health hearing…Judge Robert Harrison granted a petition by Jeremy’s conservator to release him from the county jail system and place him in a private residence to receive around-the-clock medical care…[while] “barred from leaving the premises…The judge said he could not keep Jeremy in jail any longer as he is incapable of being restored to competency and has not been convicted of a crime”…Jeremy’s sister, Susan Billotte, [previously had] attorney Ellen Finkelberg [appointed] as conservator…[with] authority to make decisions regarding [Jeremy’s] finances and health care…

Panopticon (#1344)

Safetyism is the police state’s most powerful fuel:

Gavin Newsom…announced the installation of hundreds of surveillance cameras in Oakland to [take advantage of] public [hysteria] about crime…and…you can bet those cameras will remain in place long after everybody has forgotten the reason for their existence…Flock Safety [will] install a network of approximately 480 high-tech cameras in…Oakland and on state freeways in the East Bay to “combat criminal activity and freeway violence [committed by people who aren’t cops]”…Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao…[applauded] the announcement [like a trained seal, barking out moralistic pap about] “hold[ing] more suspects accountable“…

Spotlight (#1375)

While I’m always glad to see “sex trafficking” profiteers fall, it’s a particular pleasure to watch it happen to Asstoon:

The intensifying sex-trafficking probe into Sean “Diddy” Combs has thrown a fresh spotlight on the rapper’s longtime friendship with Ashton Kutcher…the feds raided two of the rap mogul’s homes last week…but a source…claim[s]…that Kutcher and his wife, Mila Kunis, would stay quiet on Combs’ legal troubles following the blowup over the letters they wrote in support of Danny Masterson…

Though cops and media have repeatedly referred to the charges against Combs as “sex trafficking”, they appear to actually involve rape, assault, and related crimes rather than anything most people would conceive of as “sex trafficking”.  But given Kutcher’s misuse of the term to attack sex workers for the past 15 years, I find the irony very satisfying.

Thought Control (#1415)

No matter how awful the legislative fad, Louisiana politicians can think of a way to make it worse:

Louisiana…politicians…[have] introduced…a…bill [that] would criminalize library workers and libraries for joining the American Library Association…the largest and oldest professional organization for library workers in the nation…the ALA has been at the receiving end of criticism from [pro-censorship] politicians and organizations…[who hope] to undermine…librarianship as a profession…and…dismantle public and school libraries [as bastions of intellectual freedom]…The bill would also potentially kill one of the largest graduate school programs in the state of Louisiana, Louisiana State University’s Masters of Library and Information Science program…[which] is accredited by the ALA…

As an alumna of the LSU MLIS program, I am fully qualified to say that the politicians who are backing this are absolutely bat-shit insane.

Censorship Ascendant (#1424)

Goodness, who could have ever predicted this?

Neo-Nazi and [white nationalist] agitators are [us]ing Scotland’s new hate crime law to make vexatious complaints en masse in an attempt to “overwhelm” police systems…The leader of…one of several fringe organisations being assessed by the UK government under its new extremism definition…promoted…a “call to action” urging members to “mass report”…cases of…“anti-white” hate…“At the very least, we want to overwhelm them with reports to waste their time [so that] they eventually give up the whole system,” they wrote, adding that people could report without using their name and even if they didn’t live in Scotland…

Panopticon (#1427)

The program which first recruited kids as spies and snitches was enabled by useful idiots who swallowed drug-war propaganda:

Starting in 1983, [D.A.R.E.] sent [cops] into classrooms to [indoctrinate] fifth- and sixth-graders [in propaganda] about the dangers of drugs…it…embraced an abstinence-only model in which any use of alcohol or drugs qualified as abuse and the only acceptable tactic was to abstain…At its height, over 75 percent of American schools participated in the program, costing taxpayers as much as $750 million per year.  Historian Max Felker-Kantor revisits DARE and its legacy in DARE to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools, a new history of the program…By 1994…studies clearly indicated that [it] had little to no effect on rates of youth drug use…But while DARE didn’t “work” in the sense of keeping many kids from using drugs, Felker-Kantor argues the program was wildly successful at normalizing the presence of police, and the war on drugs, in people’s everyday lives…

To Molest and Rape (#1427)

Cops should not be allowed anywhere near legal minors:

[A] Maryland [cop named]…Jason Dyott [has been charged with molesting two]…high school…girl[s after grooming them via the internet and intimidating them with his being a cop, then molesting them]…inside his p[igmobile]…


This one apparently took advantage of a runaway:

A [typical and representative]…Kansas [cop named]…Michael Tennyson…was [arrested on March 29th [for raping]…a 15-year-old female runaway who had been missing since March 22…Tennyson…[had apparently been allowing her to hide out at his] residence…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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In the News (#1427)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »

It was like a fun game to them.  –  “Jeny”

The Prudish Giant (#1011)

Why does anyone still trust Facebook?

In 2016, Facebook launched a secret project designed to intercept and decrypt the network traffic between people using Snapchat’s app and its servers. The goal was to understand users’ behavior and help Facebook compete with Snapchat…and later Amazon and YouTube…Given these apps’ use of encryption, Facebook needed to develop special technology to get around it…Facebook’s engineers solution was to use Onavo, a VPN-like service that Facebook acquired in 2013…which when activated had the advantage of reading all of the device’s network traffic before it got encrypted and sent over the internet…

Censorship Ascendant

Safetyism has become the go-to excuse of censors pretending they aren’t:

The FBI spends “every day, all day long” interrogating people over their Facebook posts.  At least, that’s what agents told Stillwater, Oklahoma, resident Rolla Abdeljawad when they showed up at her house to [harass] her about her social media activity…[after] they [were] given “screenshots” of her posts by Facebook…Abdeljawad told…th[em] she didn’t want to talk and…later confirmed with local police that the [spooks] really were FBI agents…”we’re not here to arrest you or anything,” [said the spook pictured here]…”We do this every day, all day long. It’s just an effort to keep everybody safe and make sure nobody has any [bad thoughts].”  [Abdeljawad’s lawyer Hassan] Shibly says…it was the first time he had heard of Facebook…preemptively reporting [citizen]s to [State] enforce[rs]…

No Escape (#1333)

This will never stop while violent thugs have total power over the lives of women:

…719 civil lawsuits…were recently filed against the City of New York and the NYC Department of C[ramming Human Beings into Filthy Cages] under the Adult Survivors Act, a state law that opened a one-year window for sexual assault survivors to file claims outside of the statute of limitations…nearly 60% of the 1,256 lawsuits filed…during the…period describe assaults against people held on Rikers Island…the…abuse…span[ned] decades…from 1976 to…[the present and consists of attacks by screws ranging from] grop[ing]…to [violent anal,] oral…and…v[aginal] rape….[while] jail officials…[tacitly approved of] the ongoing attacks…The plaintiffs seek more than $14.7 billion in damages, which could pose a staggering financial burden for the city[‘s tax cattle]…

Panopticon (#1346)

Old-fashioned Stasi-type surveillance isn’t dead yet:

…a [uniparty-backed] bill…would strengthen the role of the Department of Homeland Security in school [surveilla]nce, [to] turn America’s schools into another adjunct of the national security apparatus, a veritable school for spies…The Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center, or NTAC, was created in 1998 to examine threats to the president and security at complex public gatherings.  Its focus was expanded a year later to the psychology of school shootings…Today, NTAC…brags that…it has [indoctrinat]ed hundreds of thousands of school administrators and teachers….thanks in part to NTAC p[ropaganda preten]ding…[that] “see something, say something”…is…[magically] differen[t from]…snitching…ratting…or…tattling…[because] students…[are] “potential terrorists”…

A Moral Cancer (#1369)

Crypto-moralists want people to believe they could live forever by simply eliminating every single pleasurable activity from their lives:

Women who drink more than one glass of wine a day are 45 per cent more likely to develop heart disease…[crypto-moral]ists studied the drinking habits of 430,000 adults in California, who had an average age of 44, and none of whom were teetotal.  Their habits were followed for four years, and during which 3,108 developed heart disease…The more people drank, the more likely they were to be diagnosed with heart disease, particularly in women…

Torture Chamber (#1389)

Your “leaders” call this “correction”:

Brooklyn’s troubled federal jail has been serving maggot-infested beans to [prisoners]…defense lawyers….[have also] detailed…partially cooked [chicken]…spoiled, rotting meat…milk [well past]…the expiration date…and…cockroaches and bug parts [in] the food…in January…Manhattan Federal Court Judge Jesse Furman issued a 19-page ruling laying out a litany of problems, including how the jail lost power for eight days in 2019 during a polar vortex.  “It has gotten to the point that it is routine for judges…to give reduced sentences to defendants based on the conditions of confinement in the MDC,” Furman wrote. “Prosecutors no longer even put up a fight, let alone dispute that the state of affairs is unacceptable”…His ruling, that the jail’s dreadful conditions constituted “extraordinary reasons” to not lock up a 70-year-old convicted drug dealer as he awaited sentencing, has since been cited by several defense lawyers seeking leniency or release for their clients…

To Molest and Rape (#1425)

Another example of the cop/religion molestation nexus:

A…Jacksonville [Florida cop]…was arrested…[for seducing a] 17-year-old [girl]…Josue’ Garriga III….[met the girl] at church…he told her to download WhatsApp so they could communicate [surreptitiously]…he…sen[t her dick pics]…and ask[ed] her for [nude] photos….the[n he later molested her]…in his [pigmobile]…it is believed there could be other victims.  Garriga…[murder]ed 22-year-old Jamee Johnson during a [pretextual] traffic stop…in [2019 and]…the city settled the [resulting lawsuit] for $200,000…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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In the News (#1424)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 27, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Artificial intelligence is not that intelligent.  –  Ella Dawson

Dirty Amateurs

Why are amateurs so damned averse to using condoms?

…Calmara claims to use AI to screen photos uploaded by users for STIs.  They want you to open their website, take a picture of your partner’s genitals before having sex, and upload it to their database so that a…[computer] can review it and scan for 10+ “conditions” including herpes, syphilis, and HPV.  Buried in the Q&A section…Calmara makes it clear-ish that they cannot actually diagnose anyone with any STI, the AI only “works” for penises, and you should really just go to a doctor for an accurate STI test.  But you wouldn’t glean any of that from their cocky Instagram or glossy imagery.  “No cap, just facts,” the copy reads beneath an illustration of a dancing robot.  “Up to 90% accuracy, our AI is grounded in real science.”  Uh… sure…the service is so misguided that it’s easy to dismiss it as satire.  But…Calmara is…not satire, and available to download right now…their…own fine print says, “These offerings should not be used as substitutes for professional medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or management of any disease or condition.”  So what is this service for?  Literally why does it exist when it cannot provide the service it advertises?…

Moral Climate

Never make the mistake of thinking the current zeal for library censorship is limited to either the US or the so-called “right wing”:

Cathy Simpson, the CEO of the Niagara-on-the-Lake Public Library, [h]as [been] fired…[because the board dislikes a group she quoted in] an op-ed column published by The Lake Report.  The Feb. 22 opinion piece, “Censorship and what we are allowed to read”…drew strong criticism from a few…over its promotion of some of the principles espoused by the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR)…[regarding] “hidden library censorship,” which she said takes two forms — “the vigorous defence of books promoting diversity of identity, but little to no defence of books promoting diversity of viewpoint, and the purchase of books promoting ‘progressive’ ideas over ‘traditional’ ideas”…[library board chair Daryl Novak tacitly admitted that Simpson was fired purely due to the] content related to FAIR, [because] “the balance of (Simpson’s) article, you can’t really criticize”…

Censorship Ascendant

Censors are now pretending ideas they don’t like constitute a “crime”:

Police Scotland…will in[timid]ate actors and comedians if a…[wannabe censor points at them and croaks the magic words] “threatening and abusive” [because] under the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) [Law, the taboo magic] can be communicated “through public performance of a play”…the Assistant Chief Constable responsible for overseeing the implementation of the controversial legislation has [washed his hands of it] after just a year in the post…Police Scotland has [threaten]ed that it will investigate every [incident, no matter how trivial, reported as a “]hate crime[“]…despite the force adopting a “proportionate response” approach to [actual] crimes…there [h]as [been] an outcry from artists…[pointing out] that in the past shows ha[ve] been picketed by organisations trying to get them shut down and warn[ing] that “putting theatre in its own category makes it a target”…

I Can’t Breathe (#1329)

It’s about time cops stopped being allowed to cover up their murders so easily:

The Colorado Senate [has] pass[ed] legislation that would bar the term “excited delirium” from use by [cops and medical examiners.  If signed by]…Governor Jared Polis…it would bar the term [or any of its synonyms] from being used in [cop] training or incident reports, or from being listed as a cause of death on a death certificate…Prominent medical organizations have urged [cops and medical] professionals to not use the [pseudoscientific] term…[whose sole purpose is] to justify injury or death to individuals [attacked and restrained by] police…

Thought Control (#1345)

Some censors are so mentally ill they feel threatened by the sexuality of trees:

The Floyd County (Va.) Public Schools have suspended a…community reading of Katherine Applegate’s Wishtree following complaints that the middle-grade novel depicts a monoecious red oak, a tree with reproductive parts that can pollinate and flower simultaneously.  In the book, originally published in 2017, the tree claims an identity that is “both” female and male and responds to diverse pronouns:  “Call me she.  Call me he.  Anything will work”…[wannabe censor] Jodi Farmer…took to Facebook to [warn] Floyd County residents about the [terrifying] reference to…[vegetable biology], calling the book “indoctrination at its finest”…

Apparently, Farmer imagines these scary, scary words will bewitch her children into transkingdomism.

The Next Target (#1371)

Rather than actually filing a lawsuit against Mastercard for its discriminatory policies against sex workers (which would cost them actual money), ACLU prefers to Tweet, to dilly-dally with complaints to the FTC (a bureau of a government which actively persecutes sex workers and encourages corporations to do the same), and now to file a petition which I can’t imagine will prove to be any more effective than its other slacktivist efforts.  Given the wording of the petition and the website page it’s included in, this seems more like an exercise in virtue-signaling than an actual effort to right an injustice, but I reckon it can’t actually hurt you to sign it.

The Puritan Recrudescence (#1417)

Tennessee’s float in the current “monkey see, monkey do” parade will cost it millions every year:

A Tennessee bill would make it a felony for an adult content website to allow access to a minor without age verification…[bill sponsor] Becky Massey…[burbled a lot of nonsense about magic sex-ray emitting pictures, but didn’t publicize that her exercise in morality theater] will cost the state more than $4 million in the first year and then $2 million each year after that…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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In the News (#1419)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 9, 2024| 1 Comment »

You can’t censor what isn’t said in the first place.  –  Sarah McLaughlin

Surplus Women

A classic case of “NHI”:

The family of a murdered sex worker have said police “have blood on their hands” after a man was finally brought to justice despite earlier major investigation failings..Iain Packer…was found guilty of…the “execution” of Emma Caldwell…after…[Packer] lured [her] from Glasgow’s red-light district, dr[ove] to remote woods 40 miles away, strangled [her] and dumped [her body] naked in a ditch…Packer [frequently hired] sex workers…and admitted to police in the initial 2005 investigation that he had previously [hired] Emma…[but] he was not arrested or charged for 17 years as [cops preferred to persecute] a group of Turkish men [despite other sex workers telling cops that Packer was sexually violent years before Caldwell was killed].  Packer…was convicted of 11 charges of rape against nine women among dozens of other offences…the family solicitor said: “A toxic culture of misogyny and corruption meant the police failed so many women and girls who came forward to speak up against Packer – instead of receiving justice and compassion, they were humiliated, dismissed and in some instances arrested, while the police gifted freedom to an evil predator to rape and rape again”…

Censorship Ascendant

In our increasingly-connected world governments are increasingly able to cause trouble for people who say things they dislike far beyond their own borders:

On Nov. 16, 2023, Reuters published a deeply-reported investigation about an Indian company named Appin, which…act[s] as a “premier provider of cyberespionage services for private investigators working on behalf of big business, law firms and wealthy clients.” But…Reuters has removed their reporting, and some other outlets have followed suit…[due to] a court order against Reuters…secured in India by a group operating under the Appin name…Globally, even in the United States, people are unable to read reports about Appin because a court order from half a world away limits everyone’s access to online news and information.  This…may hint at what’s increasingly the future of censorship online…authors of stories about the reporting, or even about the removals of it, face pressure now, too…Readers…can find it at Distributed Denial of Secrets…and…on Archive.Today.  But…[even] Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine [chickened out]…

Virtual Imperialism (#1202)

Governments worldwide are emulating China’s evil:

…”transnational repression” [is] a form of authoritarianism that…has becoming disturbingly common in recent years…”More than 20 percent of the world’s national governments have reached beyond their borders since 2014 to forcibly silence exiled political activists, journalists, former regime insiders, and members of ethnic or religious minorities,” finds a Freedom House report released in February…”25 countries’ governments were responsible for 125 incidents of physical transnational repression in 2023 alone, including assassinations, abductions, assaults, detentions, and unlawful deportations.”  Last year enjoyed the dubious distinction…of featuring the first documented cases of transnational repression by Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador…Sierra Leone, and Yemen…[though] the year’s main culprits [were] Russia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Turkmenistan, and China…

If Men Were Angels (#1256)

Female “youth ministers” aren’t safe either, at least if they’re married:

[The husband of a Louisiana youth minister] has been arrested [for molesting]…children…Daniel Steven Parker [has been committing] …similar…crimes…at [least since]…2020…and [probably much longer]…

No Escape

Your “leaders” refer to this mindless brutality as “correction”:

A woman [locked in a cage by the state of] Georgia…has filed a federal lawsuit [because] she was [so brut]ally [rap]ed by a[n out-of-control screw she] had to undergo surgery…for partial uterus removal…

No Difference (#1359)

Another victory for US evangelical prohibitionists:

Ghana’s parliament has passed a [horrifying] new bill that imposes a prison sentence of up to three years for anyone convicted of [merely] identifying as LGBT…[and] a maximum five-year jail term for forming or funding LGBT…groups.  [Politicians] heckled down attempts to replace prison sentences with community service and counselling…The bill, which had the backing of Ghana’s two major political parties, will come into effect only if President Nana Akufo-Addo signs it into law…[but] he previously said…he would do so if the majority of Ghanaians want him to.  Gay sex is already against the law in Ghana – it carries a three-year prison sentence…[but] activists fear there will now be witch-hunts…

To Molest and Rape (ROTW #6)

Give sexually-aggressive thugs power over teens; what could possibly go wrong?

…[A Nebraska cop named] Juan Casado Moya [has been charged] for [repeatedly molesting]…a 16-year-old [girl]…at…the…school…[where]…he [was assigned to spy on, harass, and intimidate]…student[s.  He has been rewarded with a paid vacation]…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Banned Books Week 2023

Posted in Current Events, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 2, 2023| Leave a Comment »

I’m honestly unsure where this [new wave of censorship] will end; we’re well into uncharted territory my librarian self would’ve found unbelievable.  –  “The Book Burners”

It may be difficult for my younger readers to believe that when I was a librarian, “Banned Books Week” was little more than an academic exercise.  The first few years of my blog demonstrate just how negligible a threat so-called “book banning” actually was.  In 2010, I didn’t even remember to write about the observance; in 2011 I simply noted a number of frequently-challenged books (because the number was small enough to do that), and in 2012 and 2013 I used the occasion to attack the concept of censorship from a philosophical perspective.  2014’s “Censor Chic” was the first harbinger of things to come, as I discussed the new indirect form of censorship: authoritarians both in and out of government getting risk-averse corporations to do their dirty work for them by issuing threats to either smear those companies’ reputations or attack them with increased government meddling.  The latter tactic has grown from the relatively-veiled threats issued by the Obama administration’s “Operation Choke Point” to the Biden administration’s jawboning so egregiously even federal judges couldn’t be persuaded to give it a pass.  And in the past two years, pro-censorship politicians have crafted terrible laws to empower isolated cranks to censor any books their “thought leaders” tell them are “bad”:

…School book challenges reached historic highs in America in 2021 and 2022, according to the American Library Association.  And just a handful of people are driving those records.  A Washington Post analysis of thousands of challenges nationwide found that 60 percent of all challenges in the 2021-2022 school year came from 11 adults, each of whom objected to dozens — sometimes close to 100 — of books in their districts….

2015’s “Moral Climate” pointed out that most censorship nowadays is neither top-down nor obvious nor based in pearl-clutching about “obscenity” (though in the past two years that has again become a popular excuse among censor-morons who label themselves “conservative”); rather, it is disguised lateral censorship by censor-morons who label themselves “progressive”:

…What if you read different words in your books and never even knew the original language was changed?  That’s where publishers’ growing penchant for revisionism and censorship of written works comes in — often through the use of so-called “sensitivity readers” — to eliminate “problematic” content…From Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming to R.L. Stine and Agatha Christie, this trend of editing and rewriting authors’ books…without their consent…should alarm us all…the publishers who commission it foster a chilling effect on free speech, a sanitization of art, and a corrosion of our larger cultural discourse…

Of course, some “progressive” censorship is just as blatant and top-down as that of “conservatives”:

Peel District School Board…students, parents and community members…are concerned about a [bizarre] approach to a new equity-based book weeding process implemented by the board last spring in response to a provincial directive from the Minister of Education.  They say the new process, intended to ensure library books are inclusive, appears to have led some schools to remove thousands of books solely because they were published in 2008 or earlier…neither Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce’s office, nor the Education Ministry, would comment on PDSB’s implementation of Lecce’s directive…But in a [later] statement…the education minister said he has written to the board to immediately end this practice…

By 2017, my “Banned Books Week” essays had pivoted to dealing with the new reality of “adults…not merely accepting, but demanding they be shielded from ideas they find uncomfortable for one reason or another“, and in 2018 top-down censorship enforced by violence returned with a vengeance, starting with the internet.  In 2019 I summarized developments as follows:

…in this century, the sick need to control others’ thoughts grew as the internet made it easier for those thoughts to be shared, and early last year top-down government censorship returned with a vengeance thanks to the Great Unwashed eagerly swallowing racist claims about “human trafficking” and magically baneful effects of anything to do with sex.  The US enacted FOSTA, leading to a wave of internet censorship; the UK is trying to build a massive firewall comparable to China’s; the EU has enacted law after law allowing greedy corporations and finger-pointing Prunellas alike power over others’ web-browsing; and every two-bit dictatorship has recognized that all it needs to do to justify thought control is parrot Western “hate speech” idiocy…

The pandemic gave governments a new excuse, “misinformation” (a euphemism for “disagreeing with the government”), and that year I wrote, “We are watching the advent of a new dark age, and in such times no light is entirely safe from being snuffed out by zealots, speech-cops and bureaucrats whose ideal model for human society is the anthill.”  I was, as usual, not wrong; the following year saw the arrival of a wave of censorship even the mainstream media couldn’t ignore, excuse, or hand-wave away.  My primary tag for filing items about written-word censorship is “Thought Control”; only 7 items appeared there in 2012-2020; then there were 9 in ’21 alone; 27 in ’22; and 14 so far in ’23.  And that does not include the explosion of attempts to shut down large portions of the internet because politicians, useful idiots, and other censor-morons don’t like what other people say or watch.  As I said at the top, I have no idea where this will end, but in the meantime all ethical people need to resist the book-burners and website-wreckers, loudly and defiantly, in the hopes that at least some of our fellow-humans will come back to their senses before it’s too late.

 

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In the News (#1277)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 5, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Americans are increasingly aware that their privacy is evaporating before their eyes.  –  Ed Markey

Torture Chamber

Your “leaders” refer to this as “correction”:

A W[est Virginia] man died 19 days [after the state locked him in a cage]…Alvis Shrewsbury…called his family members daily.  But as the days went on, his appearance on video calls began to worry his family members more and more…”After we were talking to him on the 10th (of September), he’d already been beaten.  His face was black,” his daughter Miranda Smith said…”He was telling us about his ribs being broken.  It was hard to breathe. He hadn’t had a bowel movement in over a week and nothing was being done about it”…Shrewsbury was the fifth person who died in the [same dungeon in the] last year…Kyle Robinson…[was the first] in September 2021.  Then a month later, John Lewis Jarrell died after [only] a week…In March, Quantez Burks died less than two days after [being condemned there and]…that [same] month, Richard Wriston…Shrewsbury’s body is in the custody of the West Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner…[but] the family plans to conduct an independent autopsy of his body…

Thought Control (Censorship Ascendant)

Censors are now pretending thoughts they don’t like constitute a “crime”:

…over the past several years, Germany has [chosen to terrorize and]…criminally prosecut[e] people for [saying things politicians dislike] online…German authorities have br[anded]…insults, threats and harassment…[as “hate speech” and sent] police [on predawn] raid[s of people’s] homes…[where they rob their victims of] electronics and [abduct them using the pretext of “]questioning[” in a campaign reminiscent of the country’s dark 20th-century past].  Judges have enforced fines worth thousands of dollars each and, in some cases, [locked victims in cages for wrongthink].  The threat of prosecution, they believe, will [terrorize people into] not e[xpressing disfavored ideas.  They pretend]…that they are encouraging and defending free speech by providing a space where people can share [favored pro-state and majoritarian] opinions without fear of being [challenged by contrary ideas]..:

Stupor Bowl (#1211)

This pathetic public promotion of misogynistic masturbatory material appears to be all that’s left of the once-popular “gypsy whores” myth:

An estimated 5% of men have or will be buyers of sex workers, [said cops making furtive movements in their pants]…“The traffickers will, of course, follow the money to Arizona”…That’s why Glendale police are working with other law enforcement agencies across the Valley to catch traffickers coming to the state…

I’ve written before about the ever-shrinking fraction of men who will admit to having paid for sex, the unreliable methodology that produces these impossibly-low numbers, the ugly and misogynistic fantasy that paying for sex is “buying a woman”, and the weird and self-contradictory inclusion of the term “sex worker” in this kind of agency-negating propaganda.  And that’s before we even get to this myth that even prohibitionists outside of Arizona now admit is deeply stupid.

Panopticon (#1256)

San Francisco pigs are no longer satisfied with waiting for useful idiots’ consent:

San Francisco [politicians rubber-stamped] a new s[urveillance] policy allowing police to access thousands of private cameras in a live feed without a search warrant…the…proposal…will take effect in 30 days and sunset in 15 months…police can monitor the cameras…for any [event that they decide to call] “significant”…or [basically any other time they can think of an excuse]…The Electronic Frontier Foundation …called the new policy a “troubling ordinance” that could have a chilling effect on First Amendment and other rights…“Misdemeanors like vandalism or jaywalking happen on nearly every street of San Francisco on any given day — meaning that this ordinance essentially gives the SFPD the ability to put the entire city under live surveillance indefinitely,” the organization wrote in a press release…

Unsafe for Human Consumption (#1260)

Cops won’t drop this fantasy until local media stop obediently parroting it:

…two [West Virginia cops] were hit in the face with an unknown substance [thrown by a man they were trying to brutalize and abduct.  Being hysterical whiny-babies, the immediately assumed the substance was the magical black magic version of fentanyl which haunts cop fantasies, and]…one…suddenly [had a panic attack.  Since this kind of hysteria is contagious among those with weak minds]…the second [pig also had a panic attack]…An off-duty nurse helped administer NARCAN, which [acted as a placebo to placate the two cowards]…

Thought Control (#1265)

Surely you didn’t think this would stop with LGBT books?

…at the start of Banned Books Week…Reshma Saujani was awakened by an alert on her phone letting her know that the Girls Who Code book series [she founded] had been banned from classrooms in the Central York School District in Pennsylvania.  On Twitter, she attributed the ban to the [pro-censorship] Moms for Liberty group…Other books banned by the…district include such controversial-sounding titles as A Is for Audra: Broadway’s Leading Ladies from A to Z; Condoleeza Rice: Being The Best; Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and his Orchestra; Elizabeth Blackwell: The First Woman Doctor; Grace Hopper: Queen of Computer Code; I Love My Hair!; Muffin Wars; The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage; I Am Rosa Parks; Who Was Lucille Ball? and about a hundred others…the…common thread [seems to be books] that…acknowledge that Black people or women of any color exist and do things…There is good news: this ban has already been defeated.  Yay!  The bad news is that it was all very stupid from beginning to end…

I Spy (#1270)

The number of politicians who support such reform is very small:

Civil rights lawyers and [a small minority of politicians] are pushing for legislation that would limit U.S. [cop shop]s’ ability to buy cellphone tracking tools to follow people’s whereabouts, including back years in time…[usually] without a search warrant.  Concerns about police use of the tool known as “Fog Reveal…also surfaced in a Federal Trade Commission hearing three weeks ago.  [Cop]s have been using the platform to search hundreds of billions of records gathered from 250 million mobile devices, and hoover up people’s geolocation data to assemble so-called “patterns of life”…

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The Book Burners

Posted in Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , on September 19, 2022| 2 Comments »

Institutions writers could once count on to defend them…now race to see who can kowtow most obsequiously to the censor-morons.
–  “Censorship Ascendant”

Until a few years ago, traditional top-down censorship was largely a thing of the past, something I wrote about annually at the beginning of Banned Books Week to remind people that it could happen again.  As recently as 2016, I used the occasion to write,

…top-down state censorship…is very rare now in the United States, and has been for decades; the majority of “challenges” now (despite the celebration’s name, it’s pretty rare that books are actually removed from public collections) originate not with state officials or other “authorities”, but with individuals seeking to “protect the children” from thoughts their parents don’t want them to have…

Of course, none of that is true any longer.  Top-down censorship has returned with a vengeance, mostly implemented by fascist corporations acting on behalf of governments.  But in the US, politicians in many states have implemented traditional censorship in school libraries, even to the point of threatening librarians with criminal charges.  The “Thought Control” tag, which formerly appeared only once in a while, has had several entries a month since this new book-burning fad took off last November.  Meanwhile, the “cancel culture” censorship which has been growing for years has grown so pervasive that even the somewhat pro-censorship New York Times can no longer endorse it.  I’m honestly unsure where this will end; we’re well into uncharted territory my librarian self would’ve found unbelievable.  So if you haven’t been paying attention, I suggest you peruse the aforementioned “Thought Control” tag, and revisit the columns I’ve quoted from below.  Because there’s only one thing about this situation which is certain: like all authoritarianism, it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

We are watching the advent of a new dark age, and in such times no light is entirely safe from being snuffed out by zealots, speech-cops and bureaucrats whose ideal model for human society is the anthill.  –  “The Convergence of Censors”

Every two-bit dictatorship has recognized that all it needs to do to justify thought control is parrot Western “hate speech” idiocy.  –  “The Return of the Censor”

Though lily-livered fools have been demanding they be “protected” from ideas they don’t like for several years now, it’s terrifying how quickly this terrible idea has moved from the lunatic fringe to the mainstream.  –  “Suppression”

[Many young adults] not only display an ovine passivity in the face of censorship, but actively run to the nanny-state to hide in her skirts lest they see or hear some idea or word, or see some image, that will cause some ripple in the placid lakes of their privileged lives and perhaps actually require them to think rather than merely consuming and regurgitating the dogma they’ve been spoon-fed.  –  “Unwise Monkeys”

The censor-morons are loose, and they’re coming after everyone who dares to disagree with them.  –  “The Censor-Moron”

It doesn’t matter whether the excuse is “sin” or “feelings”, or the injured party is conceived of as an individual or collective, or the suppression comes from above or below, or the method is violence or economics; the suppression of thought and speech is evil, tyrannical and socially self-lobotomizing.  –  “Moral Climate”

Thinking people must not let themselves be intimidated by…self-appointed guardians of the public morality; we must speak out against all forms of censorship and speech suppression, whether advanced by guns, threats, intimidation or appeals to nebulous “harm”.  –  “Censor Chic”

The belief that the state or collective has the right to [censor] is an abomination; it is nothing less than the dogma that the state owns every individual, body and soul, and has the right to torture or maim those individuals as it pleases.  –  “Crippling Thought”

The important thing to remember when listening to any demand for censorship is that no matter what excuse the censor presents to attain his goal, he is ultimately lying.  It’s not really about “public safety”, or the “children”, or “community standards”, or whatever else he may claim; it’s about the fact that his leaky mind is unable to keep unwelcome thoughts out, so he demands that society do it for him.  –  “Thought Control”

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In the News (#1179)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 13, 2021| 1 Comment »

It is difficult to imagine a situation in which parents would demand to see the driver’s licenses of neighbors handing out candy to trick-or-treaters.  –  Jacob Sullum

Crime Against Society (#609)

Courts are finally curtailing the worst of Louisiana’s nasty “sex offender” game:

The U.S. Supreme Court…declined to hear Louisiana’s appeal of a decision against its 2006 law requiring that people [condemned to] the state’s sex offender registry carry IDs or driver’s licenses that say “SEX OFFENDER” in orange capital letters.  A year ago, the Louisiana Supreme Court concluded that the requirement amounted to compelled speech and could not be justified by the state’s legitimate interest in protecting public safety…registries…are primarily punitive, exposing registrants to ostracism, harassment, and violence while impeding their rehabilitation by making it difficult to find employment and housing…Louisiana’s experiment in ritual humiliation, which branded registrants with orange letters they had to display in every transaction that required producing a government-issued ID, compounded those costs without offering any plausible benefits…

Louisiana even condemned sex workers to this “registry”; at one time, fully half of New Orleans’ victims of this monstrous punishment were sex workers.

To Molest and Rape

Prosecutors care more about magical clown costumes than about rape:

An off-duty cop has been charged with raping his girlfriend inside their Queens home…[on] Sept. 7…The girlfriend appears to have contacted police [last] week, with [rapist cop] Gilberto Salazar-Giraldo…arrested [on October 4th and]…suspended without pay…

Property of the State (#942) 

A rare rollback of state control of pregnant women:

[The Ohio Supreme] Court found that a woman can’t be charged with possession of drugs…just because she and her newborn had drugs in their systems…Kelly Foreman appealed her conviction on felony drug possession charges, which he was charged with after giving birth in March 2018…she was not “in actual or constructive control of any drugs”…and…the high court found that tests proving the presence of cocaine were “insufficient to prove that she possessed cocaine in Seneca County”…The court opinion said the argument that possession could be established through urine or umbilical cord testing leads to the possibility that a person could be charged with possession anywhere they test positive in the state, no matter where the drugs were when they were taken…

The Cop Myth (#1075)

Sleeping with a cop is one of the most dangerous things a woman can do:

…Matthew Kinne…a…[typical and representative cop] in…Oxford [Mississippi, knew that his mistress]…Dominique [Clayton] was home alone th[e]…night [of 18 May 2019], as her children were spending the weekend with a relative.  At the end of his shift, Kinne went…to a barn where the police horses were kept and left his mobile phone there…so that his movements could not be traced.  He…park[ed his pigmobile] around the corner [from]…he[r] home…[entered her bedroom] at around 2.05am…[and] shot her…in the head…Kinne [then] drove back to the barn to collect his phone and texted her at 2.20am as though nothing had happened…

Tissue of Lies (#1087)

The latest pig fad: collecting a bunch of unrelated raids, arrests & record updates and calling the resulting dog’s breakfast a “human trafficking sting”:

Ten…[legal minors officially missing in]…Ohio [records were located when] authorities conducted [a record review similar to one last year, bizarrely referring to it as an] anti-human-trafficking operation…[and linking it with] the [unrelated] arrests of 161 people [in typical prostitution stings.  Cops also abducted one sex worker’s]…2-year-old [child]…The weeklong [pogrom] involved over 90 [pigs and spooks, oinking, grunting, and rooting in people’s private business, ruining lives to get about 50] misdemeanor [charges.  Among those arrested were] 51 [legal minors, some of whom were accused of selling sex to survive]…

Ohio is especially invested in this kind of swine theater in order to call attention away from the rapes, molestation, robbery, extortion, and murders practiced by Columbus’ “vice” gang for decades.

Winding Down (#1133)

Is it too much to ask Seattle politicians to actually ban these arrests instead of merely “urging” cops not to violate people’s rights?

Seattle just became the largest city in the country with a hands-off policy for…natural psychedelics…[after] the city council unanimously approved a resolution that says “the investigation, arrest, and prosecution of anyone engaging in entheogen-related activities should be among The City of Seattle’s lowest enforcement priorities”…[but does not impose] that…as [SPD] policy…The new policy…[only] applies to…”living, fresh, dried, or processed plant or fungal material”…[but not lab-made substances such as LSD or MDMA]…Seattle joins several other U.S. cities in urging [cops to] tolera[te] psychedelic use.  In 2019, Denver voters approved a[n]…initiative that made adult possession of psilocybin the city’s lowest law enforcement priority and prohibited the use of public money to pursue such cases.  Last year, the city councils of Ann Arbor, Michigan; Oakland, California; and Santa Cruz, California, enacted similar measures…An…Oregon ballot initiative approved in November decriminalized low-level possession of drugs, including psilocybin and other psychedelics…

Seattle’s resolution, unlike Denver’s, does not deny cops funds to persecute drug users, which renders it dependent upon voluntary cop cooperation.

Censorship Ascendant

Censors are now pretending ideas they don’t like constitute a “crime”:

Local busybodies in Campbell County, Wyoming, are trying to brand children’s or young adult books about getting pregnant, sex education, and being gay as illegal obscenity…books reported to [the cops] include How Do You Make a Baby? by Anna Fiske…Dating and Sex: A Guide for the 21st Century Teen Boy…the teen sex-education book Doing It by Hannah Witton, This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson, and Sex Is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg.  The latter—an award-winning children’s comic book on the American Library Association’s 2016 Reading List—discusses concepts such as sex, gender identity, “privacy, safety, and respect,” “protecting yourself against unwanted sexual touch and abuse,” and “boundaries regarding nudity”…The…disturbing element here is…that [rather than leaving these matters to actual experts]…prosecutors are [actually] reviewing the case…

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Censorship Ascendant

Posted in Current Events, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 27, 2021| 2 Comments »

Censorship, once condemned by all ethical people, has now become almost universally popular.  –  “The Convergence of Censors”

The last week of September is “Banned Books Week“; over the 11 years I’ve been writing this blog, my columns on the topic have changed as threats to intellectual freedom have dramatically increased worldwide.  As I said last year,

When I was a librarian, [this] Week was little more than an academic exercise; censorship was an intermittent and generally impotent threat proceeding from small numbers of narrow-minded busybodies, which was easily defeated by librarians and other guardians of our shared cultural heritage.  But that was a generation ago, and would-be censors have become numerous, aggressive, well-organized and (most concerningly) popular.  Few of those under 30 even understand what free speech is or why it’s important, and the majority or those over that age imagine all sorts of exceptions that they believe should be reasons to violently suppress speech…the censor-morons…are…multiplying like bacteria and have already infested all the centers of power…

The links are all there for your perusal, but just in case you’ve been asleep for the past three or four years, here are a few stories from the past six months so you can see for yourself that I’m not exaggerating.  There’s still plenty of old-fashioned, bluenosed, school-based censorship conducted in the name of THE CHIIIIIIIIILDREEEEEEN!!!™, but now they’ve learned to pretend ideas they don’t like constitute a “crime” so as to threaten their enemies with police violence.  Furthermore, institutions writers could once count on to defend them, including libraries and publishers, now race to see who can kowtow most obsequiously to the censor-morons, sometimes even volunteering to act as censors themselves, and institutions which need free speech the most are lobotomizing themselves by peddling pro-censorship sophistry and even conducting literal book burnings.  Governments are increasingly claiming the “right” to declare which facts are “correct” and to suppress ideas they declare “disinformation” or “fake news”, and in our increasingly-connected world governments are increasingly able to cause trouble for people who say things they dislike far beyond their own borders (China is the worst offender, but is far from alone).  Soon, ideas the mob, the government, or other violent simian gangs dislike may become impossible to acquire outside of caches of virtual samizdat, at which point the censor-morons will pivot to criminalizing avenues of access to such caches while “intellectuals” cheer and pen screeds about how obedience and conformity are far better for “society” than imagination and critical thinking.

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