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Max Boot and ‘Democracy’
What is this “democracy” that Max Boot seeks to protect? It seems undeniable that his understanding of “moderation” includes the elimination of “content” (even if completely accurate) that puts left of center political interests and candidates in a bad light. The thin pretense that Boot is deeply committed to the truth is part of the same vision animating Nancy Pelosi’s claim that legislation intended to make election cheating vastly easier is needed to “save” democracy.
The weird use of “democracy” here is more than a cynical attempt to gain an electoral edge for one side. There appears to be a coherent tacit redefinition of “democracy” at work:
Voting is meant to be an opportunity for the people to affirm the order established by the right sorts. If the people are disappointed in the regime, they can vote for and even occasionally elect an acceptable “protest” candidate like Romney or McCain. If the people or their elected representatives fail to implement some measure necessary to sustain “progress” then the federal courts must discover some previously unknown provision in the Constitution to mandate its implementation. Bureaucratic inertia grinds on in service to the preferred order. “Democracy” is the entire system devoted to the imposition of a social, political, and economic order consonant with the sensibilities of a self-identified ruling class. Anything that disrupts that is “undemocratic” even if it a large majority supports the disruptive position.
The suppressed Hunter Biden laptop story was not just a threat to a preferred election outcome but personified corruption and privilege providing enormous wealth despite a complete absence of both competence and personal honor. Hunter Biden is Boot’s “democracy” and was entitled to elite protection out of necessity. Anne Applebaum declared that her disinterest in the story was sufficient grounds for its suppression. Take a moment and reflect on the level of self-regard required to generate and then express that thought without embarrassment. “Democracy” is the property of such people.
Bogus ballot harvests and Soviet-style content manipulation in service to spectacular incompetence, gross self-dealing, judicial imperialism, and intellectual bankruptcy is not a sustainable system, especially if democracy manages to intervene.
Published in General
And/or Jonah’s “If you’d just get the jab we wouldn’t have to force you to get the jab!”
Great pickup! We watch that movie every Groundhog Day.
The people who blocked the Hunter Biden story and pushed the Steele Dossier/Russian Collusion story via social media are complaining about Musk control of twitter
He was 7 years old when his parents emigrated from the USSR to America.
Maybe they are hoping that George Soros will step in.
I’ve always found the Max Boot Ned Ryerson resemblance to be uncanny, of course the ridiculous hat helps it along:
Old Needle Nose
From the Wikipedia article on Boot:
In an opinion piece for Foreign Policy in September 2017, Max Boot outlined his political views as follows: “I am socially liberal: I am pro-LGBTQ rights, pro-abortion rights, pro-immigration. I am fiscally conservative: I think we need to reduce the deficit and get entitlement spending under control. I am pro-environment: I think that climate change is a major threat that we need to address. I am pro-free trade: I think we should be concluding new trade treaties rather than pulling out of old ones. I am strong on defense: I think we need to beef up our military to cope with multiple enemies. And I am very much in favor of America acting as a world leader: I believe it is in our own self-interest to promote and defend freedom and free markets as we have been doing in one form or another since at least 1898.”[45]
And
Boot expressed hope that if conservative TV news channels—Fox News Channel, One America News and Newsmax—do not “stop propagating lies”, “large cable companies such as Comcast and Charter Spectrum need to step in” and “boot” them off, dealing with them “just as we do with foreign terrorist groups”.[51]
I am not sure what Max is, but I suspect he is trolling for a new patron with deep pockets.
See the Bulwark gang
The democracy he speaks of is the one with the capital D. I think that’s what critics of the old Democratic machines a century ago used to call their corrupt influence: the Democracy.
Immoderate.
Really immoderate.
Twitter has now taken a poison pill.
https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-elon-musk-shareholder-rights-board-of-directors-35b7210a6c847d055ba690167a9092fb?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP
SpaceX lands its rocket boosters upright on automated ships floating on choppy seas, because Elon Musk decided to spend his money making that happen.
I expect he will eventually control Twitter.
Whether he owns it or not.
“Open borders, open markets, open minds.” When you don’t believe in any kind of Truth you’re left to believe in institutions And have no limiting principle in defence of those institutions, no matter how hollowed-out and unfit for purpose they might have become.
(clip)
This is a perfect example of content moderation.
More immoderation, since Max (not ours, the other one) has put me in the mood.
Yonder are the Hessians. They were bought for seven pounds and tenpence a man. Are you worth more? Prove it. Tonight the American flag floats from yonder hill or Molly Stark sleeps a widow!
— Gen. John Stark, prelude to the Battle of Bennington, 1777.
In general, people who are afraid of the truth are in favor of censorship or “moderation”.
Being afraid of the truth usually takes on the form of being unable to defend your agenda on any kind of logical or reasonable basis.
Fear of the truth is the source of opposition to free speech. Liberals fear the truth now because there’s so much that they can’t defend:
=Opening the border and the resulting harm to our social system.
=The sexual indoctrination of small children and destruction of their education.
=The destruction of women’s sports.
=The war on energy producers.
=Transitioning of children sometimes without parental consent.
=The war on law and order.
=The war on the economy.
=The war on civil rights, i.e., free speech, freedom of religion, and the right to bear arms.
=The war on science, COVID restrictions beyond reason.
I have Easter dinner on my mind this week and I’m not thinking clearly on other things. :-) When I can’t get two sentences in order, the best thing to do is delete. :-)
Max Boot would feel differently about open borders if cheap immigrants were taking the jobs of scribblers like himself. (And note that he prefers to say “pro-immigration” as if his opponents want to close the borders tight. If he were more honest he would say “open borders” or “unlimited immigration”.)
I believe Max Boot’s conservative credentials rest entirely on his longtime stance as a supporter of a large and strong military, and only recently has he shown himself to be very much not a conservative on other important issues. This is not an uncommon phenomenon: Someone gets labeled a conservative because of one issue that he writes about a lot, in spite of all his other opinions that do not fit that category. I recall a number of bloggers who were labeled (condemned?) as conservatives in the late 90’s and early 2000’s because of their opposition to Islamic tyranny and terrorism, although on virtually every other public policy matter they seemed to be garden variety liberals.
For example, I remember when conservatives on internet were swooning over Chris Christie when he talked tough against unions — teachers unions, IIRC.
I always interpreted “threat to democracy’ as meaning “threat to the Democratic Party”, then it all makes sense. Otherwise its childish nonsense. Actually, it is both ways.
The first problem is calling the Democrat Party the democratic party. It’s just another way the left has usurped the English language for their own devious purposes.