Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
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
I used to say (and the names will partly reveal how long ago) that abortion is likely to remain legal because Molly Yard would be willing to kill Pat Robertson over it, but the reverse would not happen. Maybe I was more prescient than I realized?
Perhaps and perhaps not. Democrats are also not happy with that provision but of course for different reasons, they feel tech platforms are not going far enough in suppressing opinions they dislike.
Dangerous waters to navigate to be sure as what they ultimately want is more control themselves, but theoretically there could be room here to play on those fears in order to get Silicon Valley to back off.
For what it’s worth, Glenn Beck just had some devastating history on Cory Booker. I mean that guy is seriously incompetent. I don’t remember all of the details, but it sounds like Big Tech has really bought him off.
but a Jewish conservative like her is banned?
Thanks for mentioning her religion. Not sure about Ms. Siegumund. Horowitz is Jewish. I’m not onboard with the Right’s recent embrace of anti-Muslim rhetoric. Therefore, its hard for me to defend those that support that.
I did think Jews got more slack than Christians when it comes to criticizing Islam. But, I guess not.
Thanks RRJ!
There was zero “Muslim/immigration bashing”. Karen explains what happened with the SPLC here:
What recent embrace of anti-Muslim rhetoric?
NPR has a story up just today on the “Islamophobia Network” of non profits. Donald Trump ran on a Muslim Ban. I can go thru all the other ugliness, but are you really trying to claim that many on the Right don’t consider Islam incompatible with our way of life? I chalked it up to just being part of the War on Terror, but it surely goes beyond that for some. After the recent violent acts of white nationalism, unsurprisingly those people will get more scrutiny.
Respectfully, that NPR “story” is a blind regurgitation of a CAIR report. At no time did the “journalist” ask questions of the report or have a counter viewpoint. BTW, this is the same CAIR that supports HAMAS and Hezbollah and been branded as a terrorist group.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/11/cair-terror-group-daniel-pipes/
Regarding the oft-repeated phrase “Muslim Ban” (today’s media learned much from Goebbels) President Trump’s barring of certain countries was based on (checking notes) um… a bill signed by President Obama!
From the ultra-conservative, er wait. sorry, uber-liberal Mic.com?
Also, if it was a “Muslim Ban”, why did he only choose seven out of the 50+ Muslim countries? If you are banning a group of people based on their religion, wouldn’t you ban ALL of them?
For decades the Left have conflated conservatism with hate, racism, Islamaphobia, and bigotry, dividing us to the point where a not insignificant number of people believe any right-of-center person is hate-filled. This emotional manipulation of low-info voters generates fear and thus support for Leftist politicians. The media listen to each other and pretty much no one else, so they believe their own propaganda, doubling down on the epithets and lies.
Trump is certainly not politically correct and I am not here to defend everything he says, but everyone I know on the Right deplores not only racism in any form, but will no longer allow the Left’s narrative to go unanswered, and neither should anyone frequenting the pages of Ricochet.com.
Trump ran on a Moslem ban? Do you have any details because I don’t remember this. As for white nationalists, they’ve been under “more scrutiny” for decades.
To be fair, he did say in December 2015:
However, when he took office he signed an executive order that, as noted above, barred entry to people from 7 countries.
Such an awesome post, Dave. Everyone on the right in California knows Karen; She is strong willed for the right reasons, cheerfully conservative, smarter than just about anyone, and more than willing to lend both hands in our time of need. She singlehandedly runs the non-profit American Freedom Alliance on a shoe string, and never complains. She also laughs at my lame jokes and listens carefully to what people say to her. Her kindness and generosity is legendary. She has opinions, but she does’t “soapbox”.
I’ve seen her pour huge amount of effort and resources into squeezing the best of the best into her fantastic conferences, and it infuriates me that some knucklehead on the left probably made a stink about her most recent event to a board member or principal.
It’s fine to say that there may be a backlash at the polls, or that culturally, we’ll right ourselves someday, or that Trump is making a difference, but I’ll tell Ricochetti a secret; a surprising number of famous conservative writers and activists don’t make a living saving the culture, and need to supplement their income just to make ends meet. Many have been forced to abandon the airwaves and internet entirely, and struggle to make a living, sometimes at very low paying jobs, because they’ve been expelled from the one thing they were born to do.
I’ve been involved in the “movement” since 2009; some of the most effective people, and many of the most talented, have been silenced.
For the left, it’s boom times, because if you have a mouth full of hate, any socialist hell bent on ruining the country will fund you until they run out of cash. Conservatives, true to their nature, are reluctant to pay for anything. If conservatives cannot see the value of (going on a conservative diet) skipping one meal and giving the money to great activists, writers, broadcasters, and organizers, like Karen, then we are truly ******.
And trust me, no one on the right with a tip jar on their website is getting rich off of donations.
This really is the way it is.
Please donate to your favorite podcasts, etc.
I remember that, but still not a Moslem ban, such a thing would be “racist”. He called for a ban on Moslem immigration and is fully empowered by the Constitution to do so. Had he called for any steps against Moslem citizens as a group, that would have been “racist”.
As for a temporary ban on Moslem immigration, it’s entirely consistent with an interested in protecting the citizens of the US. There are Moslems who are at war with the US and continue to exploit our generosity and laws to press an advantage.
I live in Minnesota. It would be nice to slow down on immigration from certain notorious countries. I’m told this is it illegal.
Unbelievable!
@rgbact can speak for himself, but I’m assuming this is the statement he was referring to. It’s what the press constantly referred to as a “Muslim ban,” no matter how many times the “intended meaning” (for lack of a better term) was communicated to them.
FWIW, I agree with you. And DJT clarified his position when it was pointed out that his statement would prevent Muslims who are US citizens from entering the country.
I was in Minneapolis, hanging out on the West Bank when the Somalis started moving in … they struck me as gangsters … gangsters with pretty faces.
Well, those guys get in the news a lot. This isn’t debatable.
This is based on repeating a false narrative established by the media. I support Muslim reform movements and the Mecca tradition of Islam. However, the media treats any criticism of Muslim groups as Islamophobic – even groups that support terrorism and murder of non-Muslims. Many people who denounce Islamic Supremacist groups are called Islamophobic even if they are Muslim!
Islamophobic is a term that has been so abused it has lost meaning, like racist or fascist.
This is what a fearless, steel trap mind looks like:
I’m sure that was reassuring for a Muslim citizen. All they got from Trump was getting accused of cheering 9/11. But hey, those days are over…..Trump got talked out of his crazy Muslim ban ideas by his staff….so lets all forget all the provocative talk and how it really appealed to so many on the Right. Lets also deny that many on the Right learned from Trump that provocative speech can really work wonders for gaining an audience.Sorry, I want righty provocateurs to go away, so I have no desire to defend them, just like I have no desire to ever defend Trump.
Nonsense, the Moslem community has cultivated its own paranoia for its own benefit and, in my view, good citizens would understand the Presidents concerns. But for those motivated to see Moslems as the victims, sure … you make a lot of sense.
What Trump has done is to embolden a milquetoast Republican constituency to finally stand up to the ongoing nonsense of the Left. I mean look at Lindsey Graham fer crissake, he was practically a Dem before Trump came along, now he’s breathing fire.
Lookie here, while I resented Trump’s patronizing car-salesman manner along with a tone suited for elementary school children, his fight back against politically correct type blather and accusations made him a hero to myself and millions of others who have been stifled far to long by the emotionally brittle control freaks who have sucked out our freedom of speech as well as right to representation.
The worst thing that’s been happening to this country is a handful of highly motivated activists injecting their contrived morality into every damn venue of social contact. This has inspired a range of hostile acts “in the name of tolerance” … what f’n hypocrites … get the f off my lawn!
Outstanding article from our friend Ann-Marie Murrell.
“Someone has to say STOP. Someone at Karen’s school, (Name in the article) has to say STOP. And if something like this has happened to YOU, you need to speak up–contact the press. Let this be known and make it STOP!”
You will love this. Epic. Everyone please check it out.
Ep. 843 The Roots of Political Correctness, with Angelo Codevilla https://tomwoods.com/ep-843-the-roots-of-political-correctness-with-angelo-codevilla/
This is a fun article on social harmony. We had a Somali fast tracked through police training. He never should have passed. He had all kinds of work problems, and problems getting along with officers and citizens, including drawing his gun without cause. This is all documented.
He got convicted of shooting a citizen without cause. It was all very predictable.
You have to look up other articles about what he actually did to get convicted. Believe me none of it was standard operating procedure. It was an easy conviction.
Look at what the Somali community is saying, though. plus, they are conflating it with other shootings that weren’t even in the ballpark of this one, legally. Fun times.
The news is like this every other month, here.
Sounds rough. I’m sure electing a vulgarian as president will make the PC crazies see the errors in their ways. Or, they’ll become even more fanatical….while Trump causes others to join them.
Dr. Siegemund will likely have to engage her students and parents in order to get her job back.I can’t imagine someone would get fired over one complaint(is that true?), especially if many others pushback on losing their teacher. Lets see the principal defend that decision. Should be interesting to watch this play out. A sign of the times, indeed.
I’ve been following the Noor case with interest. Based on the evidence I read, he was way out of line. But the Mpls authorities were in a bind – piss off the Somalis or piss off just about everyone else.
As it turns out the hysterical media and Democratic Party overreach is serving to get the “PC crazies to see the errors of their ways.” At least more than before Trump.
As far as “vulgarian” … hey, some people strive for sophistication, others for results. Not that the two are mutually exclusive but Trump is so focused on the function he tends to ignore form.
But there are stories everyday about Trump supporters suffering punishment at the hands of the “sophisticated” … it’s not at all surprising to see.
As for me, I decided to finally get a MAGA hat after the Covington kids travesty. I was wearing it when I decided to go to the local “hippie” co-op to get some bacon. I wasn’t looking to antagonize anyone, I just wanted to look into their bacon and since I dropped my kid off across the street it was just convenient.
So I saunter casually up to the meat case and there are two workers including a large black man with a name tag reading “Abdul”. I had to assume that, working the meat counter meant he wasn’t Molsem or a religious Moslem in any event. Our transaction was cordial and uneventful though I did feel a lot of stares … maybe just paranoia.
I tell you this story but there are people who won’t wear a MAGA hat, and I won’t let my son wear it to school. Perhaps you can tell me how this kind of Brown Shirt censorship has become acceptable?