Just to add:
While I doubt it will happen; it is my feeling that immigration requires a bipartisan approach, or it will continue to drag on as a problem with no end.
Thanks for stating your position out there. What do you mean by this? Are you saying Biden’s administration has enacted such a thing?
I can appreciate all of this as I remember these episodes. But I also think there is a different quality to the cancel culture we see today. It is, as I think loppar opined months ago, all of the fervor of religion but none of the redemption. If you say something deemed wrong - no matter how long ago it was - you will be mercilessly ostracized and possibly doxxed until you admit the error of your ways and beg forgiveness of the victim classes… Which they may or may not give.
Give me attempts to ban a video game any day of the week over that. One is an attempt to organize a boycott of a product, one is hunting down personal information of an “offender” and potentially posting it for the world to see and then harrass them at every turn.
One is categorical the other is highly, highly personal and dangerous. And it’s dangerous for both the person being attacked and for discourse as a whole. The marketplace of ideas doesn’t work if you’re too fragile to engage with opposing ideas, which is one of the cornerstones of modern cancel culture.
There is absolutely nothing our esteemed Senators cannot completely ruin.
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Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll piss away trillions of dollars in the name of “comprehensive immigration reform” too.
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I understand the current status of the ID conversation in relation to the 2020 election, but this has been a topic of conversation even on these very boards since the GWB days. It’s not like people here haven’t expressed support for voter ID in the past (including me).
Very likely. But that benefits both parties in different ways so meaningful bipartisan work on it is not likely to happen.
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Something will have to happen eventually. If you remove a decision regarding immigration from the electorate for long enough, it will reach a boiling point.
The knuckleheads that comprise your (and my) legislature will likely have to be dragged to a solution, and that solution will likely not be a kind one.
There are centrally managed immigration systems in the Anglophone world, but it is unavoidably harsh.
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If I’m to blame anyone it is Republicans who didn’t do anything about section 230 when they had control of the government.
To answer your question, no, the actions of private trans-national media companies are not a direct outgrowth of a Biden administration Executive Order, Tweet, or anything like that. A more intimate partnership between modern communication moguls and the policy makers in government doesn’t require any official policy, law or statement to be all but official.
Transnational tech giants control an immense amount of modern communication. When it comes to fact-checks, bans for “hate speech” and other perceived transgressions, or even just sharing a mainstream, race-neutral conservative position it just seems like they’re only consistently applied one-way. Conservative voices have been getting shut down for quite some time in a variety of ways, whether it stems from plan-old cancel culture scare tactics or direct censorship by media platforms, it is in the open and plan to see.
This is why the casual accusations of racism must be challenged, along with other casual labels that simply don’t apply. There is no modern American Nazi Party with even a hint of political power. There is no modern American KKK with even a hint of political power. The narratives that say otherwise have a great deal of power, even after four years of blowhards sounding the dread alarm about Trump’s fascism were shown to be completely wrong.
Tech giants are not behaving like the neutral utilities that section 230 clearly had in mind. There is no good faith reading of that 1997 law that justifies the activist role these companies have undertaken.
The situation today is as if pre-internet AT&T would have unilaterally decided to deny you telephone service because of what they believed might come to pass due to the ideas you spoke about while they were actively monitoring your telephone conversations.
That’s my short answer, anyway.
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Not since 2010
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I refer you back to Yes Minister’s 4 phases of crisis response.
Understood. Good post that outlines your position. We will probably have to agree to disagree on this one. I am not blind to double standards in media, and I believe that it is troublesome. But leaving aside the fact that it is not government restricting speech, I also don’t think it rises to the level of “most draconian restrictions on free speech we’ve ever seen”. In fact I would say this era is actually MUCH more lenient than most of our past.
What a SURPISE!
18 Trumpublican members of Congress are going to the Southern Border out of “concern” over the situation there.
Get your waders out, folks…because the bullshit is about to get stacked knee-high (even higher if Ron Johnson, Cruz and Lindsay Graham are going…)
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Is it AOC crying in front of an empty parking lot for a photo op kind of bullshit or just broad bullshit that needs no specific terms?
It’s the type of bullshit that Trumpublicans have become masters at…so take your choice.
So I’m imagining a statement like…
”Sleepy Joe Biden is too busy pawing and sniffing scared little girls to have a press conference to answer questions about the southern border. Sad!!!”
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I mean, I’m a bit more focused on who is responsible for this. And, since all I heard here was that the buck stops with the President while Trump was in office…Well, color me curious about just how much that sentiment carries through here into this new Presidency. Mainstream media reporting on children sleeping on floors, going hungry, etc. Good for them. Still, I want to see just how bulldog they are on this story as it develops.
Oh, I don’t know maybe there’s some middle ground between demonizing desperate folks and attracting them in droves wearing your t-shirt.
Between painting pictures of hordes of rapist illegals, or appearing like an absolute wet noodle about the nation’s right to control its own borders, deciding the extent of immigration through them (or is that just too damn “Trumpian”) surely there’s a legitimate reason to be serious about our borders and how they are viewed.
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So now President Biden needs to decide what he does with all of these unaccompanied minors. Can you afford to keep them here, incentivizing the continuation of this mess? Parents, and even minors themselves, confident that can just point their children at the border while telling to walk.
The “mainstream media” HAS been the one reporting on the disaster at the Border, @Sloth…and they are slowly but surely ratcheting up the heat on the Biden Administration. (As they should).
What was Trump’s problem is now clearly theirs …which is the reason I said the following: 1) the only clear answer to the Border crisis HAS to be bi-partisan and 2) this could become Biden’s “Vietnam” if they are unable to get a handle on it.
My point about the 18 Trumpublican members was that the bullshit and grandstanding is about to reach epic proportions.
(P.S. I also agree with you, @Sloth…the answer to this crisis most likely is between the two extremes of “Keep them all out!/Build a Wall!” and what amounts to almost a non-existent Border in many ways).
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I know, I said so.
My apology!
Oh, both sides are propaganda driven. See the Biden T-shirts at the border.
Really, I don’t disagree though, we need some real reform that doesn’t demonize people, speaks politely, has a reasonable path for entry.and citizenship…But, that is also serious about our rights as a nation and is careful about not giving incentive to flood our borders
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The traffickers are FAR from being dumb, @Sloth
The greater the chaos and discord they can keep among our lawmakers and the American People, the easier their job becomes. It comes right from the Viet Cong and Russian Playbook…