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The Purge Hits Home
On Sunday I worked at the American Freedom Alliance conference, a day-long event featuring over 20 speakers, including Charlie Kirk, David Horowitz, Brent Bozell, Michael Walsh, Rebecca Friedrichs, Bill Whittle, and others. The hall overflowed with attendees representing UCLA Republicans to pensioners. It was an outstanding day where we discussed culture, free speech, science, academia, history and politics. On Monday the President of AFA and my dear friend Karen Siegemund was summarily fired from her life-long career of teaching math (both college and high school). The reason provided by the private high school? Her “public views” – that was it. Karen never spoke about politics in the classroom nor did her AFA role crossover into teaching.
Today David Horowitz was banned from Twitter. (*At this moment it seems they have reinstated David.) This follows last weeks widely publicized sweeping ban of other conservative voices from social media, including Paul Joseph Watson (the relatively benign host at InfoWars and other platforms). More incendiary personalities were banned from Facebook and Instagram like Laura Loomer, who, while too emotional for some, raises salient points about the double standard of online free speech (why is the terrorist group Hamas allowed on Twitter, but a Jewish conservative like her is banned?) as well as Milo who is sometimes provocative for the sake of being a provocateur.
You may not like or care about these people, and many don’t, but the battle cry from the Right often branded as ‘slippery slope’ – you may not like Alex Jones, but what happens when they come for you? – is happening now. Karen doesn’t have a provocative bone in her body. She’s a patriot who dedicated her life to educating people, whether her math students or attendees at the organization.
This is the brave new world the Leftist authoritarians designed. They control speech and public discourse through our schools, pop culture, and corporations while the tech titans own it all. Any and all dissent must be purged from our platforms, and now, if you stand up to totalitarianism, you lose your livelihood.
More details will follow, including a possible Go Fund Me page to help Karen with legal. If you would like to know how you can help, please IM me.
Published in General
Now the censoring. Eventually it will be arrests, prison, death. Now is past time to withdraw from social media. Delete any electronic traces. Purge and shutdown social media. Keep your head down and your mouth shut. When the Democrats take power again in 2020 there will be hell to pay as the Left are empowered.
Story broke today or yesterday about how a former DNC big wig is now “helping” out the social media giants in their need to purge any type of true discussion.
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/huge-facebook-hired-former-hillary-press-director-to-inform-media-of-alex-jones-ban/
This is heartbreaking. Just had Karen on the phone and she read me a letter from a student, a young girl who stated “You were the only reason I looked forward to school. I learn so much from you. This is unfair. I am devastated.”
Apparently, a parent complained, maybe they saw something online about AFA.
And now comes the fallout. If Karen has to get another job teaching, she will have to end her role at AFA.
Perhaps it’s time we fire a few Democrats for their activities in their private life. There may not be any other way to force a lawsuit against employers for firing people for their political activities outside work.
I’m not thinking of this as an act of revenge, although what’s happened to Karen is infuriating. I am thinking simply that it’s an issue that needs to be taken to court. I can’t imagine another way to get the attention of Congress and the courts across the country.
If agreeing to not engage in political activities was not a “condition of hire,” if the agreement was not formally stated in a contract somewhere, then I would think it would illegal to fire someone for his or her political activities outside the job.
I’m pretty sure this type of employment issue came up during the early unionization years.
This will go legal, no doubt. A good friend is ready to get her on the networks to discuss it.
There needs to be a fight. This is a battle the advocates of free speech cannot lose.
This suppression must not stand.
Dave,
She must sue the bastards. Immediately! That will get their pompous attention.
Regards,
Jim
Carol, I read the article. Not surprised a Clinton hack is running things over at Facebook.
SPLC also put AFA on their mile-long hate list.
The Democrats understand how social media helped generate and provide fuel for the Tea Party movement and subsequently helped Donald Trump win the White House. They have been doing and will do whatever they can in the next several months, working in concert with Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, to shut down any commentary, even mildly conservative or religious (pro-life/pro-family) commentary, and any social media mechanism that serves to rally or convene groups of Trump supporters, conservatives. Short term this is all about the 2020 election. Long term it’s more destructive to the republic.
The GOP movers and shakers better move and shake and appeal immediately to the base and to major donors and encourage the establishment of a legal defense fund to help support a constant stream of lawsuits against these platforms (watch me get booted from Twitter and Facebook for suggesting this). And Senate Republicans better wise up to what’s happening. If there’s any legal mechanism the Executive branch can activate to submit a case to the Supremes it might want to get on the stick and do so.
In conjunction with this insidious voter suppression effort, look for more states to institute ballot harvesting like California has, to overturn even more House districts and Senate seats that the GOP may feel right now are safe.
Anti-Trust.
Yep.
The whole thing where libertarians argue for the free speech rights of Nazis used to be an academic question, way back two years ago. Now the left has just figured out that it doesn’t have to actually win any arguments when it has all the cultural levers of power.
It’s not a slippery slope fallacy when the slope is indeed slippery. They are acting similar to how Russia does in its quest to destabilize The West: they just poke and prod at us, going a little bit further each time, to see what they can get away with. (By this I am referring to their hacking into our electricity infrastructure, not posting memes on Facebook)
Between this post and this story about Google blacklisting the Claremont Institute, it seems they’ve taken Crimea while we have argued over and over again that it’s against the rules for them to do so. Rules don’t mean much without enforcement.
It’s hard to overstate how destructive this censorship is. We are watching our freedoms taken away right before our eyes and our Republic savaged by these Stalinist social media goons. If the Loony Left is not careful this Cold Civil War could turn white hot in a flash and they won’t even know what hit them in that violent battle if it comes to that. Some of this blacklisting like that of the Claremont Institute by Google is so way beyond jumping the shark, it’s simply unhinged and Stalinist to it’s core.
Sadly, not too many months ago a group of our usual suspect Progressives here at Ricochet put out a post that opined that those claiming our Free Speech rights were threatened were the ones who were unhinged, pathetic as that post now seems given all the blacklisting.
If you want to read a truly sickening story account:
Crushed by the Leftist Juggernaut: One Lawyer’s Story at American Thinker by Adam Sedia, some excerpts :
“I went from almost a judge to being fired within the space of forty-eight hours. Why? Because it came out that I was a conservative.
I had read stories about conservatives being blacklisted, fired, having their careers and reputations destroyed because of their political views. Never once did I dream it could happen to me, an insignificant lawyer in an insignificant part of the country. But just this past week the nightmare happened, and I learned firsthand the consequences of running against the leftist hive that dominates our world.”
“Finally, it must be said that all of this did anything but moderate my views. Indeed, it has only confirmed my opinions. The Left is a mindless, heartless, bloodthirsty mob marching in lockstep, out to destroy anyone who doubts its uncompromising and ever-changing orthodoxy. It must be stopped at all costs. The Republican Party is an ineffective means of combatting that juggernaut because its leadership lacks a spine when it counts most. And finally, if being successful requires me to be a leftist, I choose failure every single time.”
Read it all. Something just like what happened to Adam Sedia could happen to anyone who posts here at Ricochet, yes even you Valiuth because the unhinged rabid Left historically eats their own.
Name and shame now. What is the school’s name and what is the name of the person who fired her?
Quite bluntly, this happens because of the fact that leftists are willing to hurt people to gain power, and the right is not. The media then covers this up.
Expose this ruthlessly. Make the doxxers fear for their identities. Boycott corporations that cave to leftist pressure – make the decision have a cost. Patronize companies that refuse to kneel.
I’ve been noting for years that the trajectory of Leftist tyranny in the US leads straight to “re-education camps” … and that’s for who they deem redeemable.
I’d certainly like to make a contribution for Karen but, as has been noted, there’s a much bigger picture here, one that simply can’t be ignored.
link
I’ve noticed that anti-Trump Republicans have a lot of trouble holding a complicated thought about this topic, and it’s not really that complicated, either.
If these companies control speech this much, this does not comport with how the Founders set up the country. It’s not that hard to understand.
If you like this quote, follow Minnesota’s @shabbosgoy on Twitter.
He would be a great interview for Dave or the flagship. Fearless and extremely educated and smart. David Horwitz type.
This. There were many reports following the 2016 election about how those working in large technology/media companies saw themselves as responsible for the loss and were determined that it not happen again. Expect this to accelerate into 2020.
This is the attitude we are dealing with and the partisans have only become more fanatical in the interim.
https://twitter.com/JesseKellyDC/status/1123761705786454022
Life is tough for a Trumper in the increasingly one party state of California. That seems to be where many of these conflicts are happening. I’m assuming she teaches in a more rural area, but even there you’re not safe, it seems.
SPLC labels her group as a “hate group”, although they do seem to discuss many traditional conservative ideas (besides Muslim/immigration bashing). Thats probably what triggered this.
The thing is that people do create alternatives, and then the alternative platforms are they themselves deplatformed.
Channeling Kurt Schlichter: Buy guns and ammo, and train with them so you are able to defend yourself, your family, your community, and the Constitution.
We’ve got a huge problem we’ve let develop over many years. We can’t regulate them away because they will control the regulation so it has to be clear simple law. If they are a neutral platform as they pretend to be, they must be made to conform to that role. They don’t. I don’t know how to fix that, but some do and that should be the focus. They must be made to have no control whatever of the content.
Perhaps some lawfare to remove their protection under Sec. 230 (I think) of the DMCA? That would make them subject to defamation/libel suits.
Good like to her in her legal fight. Go get em ACLJ!!!!
I think these authoritarians are misplaying their hand. By the time Nov. 2020 rolls around, we may be in the backlash against this type of tyranny. Then again, I said the same thing about Kavanaugh backlash in 2016.
There was a Kavanaugh backlash in 2016? Uh oh, it’s another Mandela Effect!
danof1 : “Perhaps some lawfare to remove their protection under Sec. 230 (I think) of the DMCA? That would make them subject to defamation/libel suits.”
This is a preferred first step, however given the current unhinged anti-free speech state of the Democrat Party in Congress, a bill that actually would effectively remove their Sec. 230 protection from lawsuit I doubt would have a chance of passage. However, that said, this issue needs to be made a front and center issue for the 2020 campaign, so any way to force these issue on the Democrats is a good thing. Force these traitorous Democrats to stand up and defend this crap.
Would a bill need to be passed? Don’t have time to check, but I doubt that Twitter, Facebook, etc., are named in the bill. Seems to me that a court would have to decide on whether those protections apply, base on the actions of the social medias companies. But I’m not a lawyer, so I’ll defer to those with more knowledge on how this all works.
In my area I am a life long Democrat out of self defense. I am also known as a gun advocate. Lately, It has been surprising how many anti gun people have approached me about learning to use guns with the eye of protecting themselves from or taking the fight to the GOP. I feel there is a fight coming where the Left will take out the Right. Some of that will be marginalizing, some will be imprisonment, and a portion of the Left is expecting to have to kill the Right.