Trump Threatens to Challenge Broadcast Licenses Over 'Fake News'

[nebraska]

Trump Threatens to Challenge Broadcast Licenses Over 'Fake News'

http://fortune.com/2017/10/11/donald-tru...k-license/

[Bob Butler 54]

Trump has made enough 'fake threats' to ignore this set. I don't doubt his motivation or the instinct for revenge.

[nebraska]

Americans are whistling down to the concentration camps.

[pbrower2a]

(01-18-2018, 10:45 PM)nebraska Wrote: Americans are whistling down to the concentration camps.

Nearly broke and too old to start over elsewhere, and knowing from history that there really are fates worse than death (such as a Gulag or a KZ-lager, and in view of a sordid part of the American heritage, a slave auction), I keep Valium and vodka ready.

Donald Trump and his flunkies scare me. At least the fascist pigs who ruled Germany, Italy, and Japan in the last Crisis Era.

I used to have the conceit that a country in which the intellectual elites know Macbeth will never put up with thug rule. If Shakespeare didn't give a fair warning, Orwell offers another.

[nebraska]

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to say nothing.

[Bob Butler 54]

Good men are speaking perfectly clearly. It is just that their conclusions are so different from one another. They might as well not be listening.

[nebraska]

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.

[Bob Butler 54]

To change, the supposedly good man has to be listening. I see no evidence of it in many cases.

[nebraska]

The answer to tyranny is surrender?

[Bob Butler 54]

No. You will have to learn how to listen.

[nebraska]

Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance.

[pbrower2a]

(01-19-2018, 09:47 PM)nebraska Wrote: Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance.

Wrong. It takes strong, effective government to impose liberty and the rule of law. If you want to know what life was like when government was weak, then just look to the Middle Ages, when centralized governments were rare. Oh, great, you say -- no taxes, no government spending, and thus freedom?

Wrong. Most people were serfs who lived at the discretion of the Lord of the Manor, toiling when he so commanded, eating only what he chose to give them, and perhaps even having his bride subjected to the jus primae noctis? Nothing could stop the exaction of the feudal lord. Of course one was free from the influence of any government-run school. People simply grew up scared and superstitious.

[nebraska]

The reason Europeans fled to North America was to escape tyranny.

[pbrower2a]

(01-20-2018, 09:18 AM)nebraska Wrote: The reason Europeans fled to North America was to escape tyranny.

Danger and poverty also had their roles. Mass migration from Scandinavian countries to the USA had nothing to do with tyranny. The mass migration of southern Italians to America around 1900 related not so much to oppressive and brutal government (Italy then had a functioning democracy) but instead to lack of opportunity. More Italians settled in Brazil than in the USA.

Jews fled Imperial Russia (which was fairly easy to leave) in part because of poverty and lack of opportunity -- but also because of pressures against them for their religion. Paradoxically many Jews fled Russia for Germany, which like America was a good place in which to be a Jew - until 1933, when Germany came under the rule of a demonic leader.

And let's not forget the Irish potato famine.  Emigrate or starve?

...If it were 'only' tyranny, then the biggest blocks of emigration to America would have included people fleeing Hitler and Stalin. I can imagine no Jew who, given a chance to emigrate from the diabolical regime of Hitler, would not have taken the opportunity. But Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union were difficult to escape at a time that Amewrica largely closed the doors to immigration.

Your thesis is terribly flawed. Refine it.

[nebraska]

If tyranny is so wonderful, why do people try to escape North Korea?

[pbrower2a]

(01-20-2018, 06:18 PM)nebraska Wrote: If tyranny is so wonderful, why do people try to escape North Korea?

Think of escaping a thoroughly-nasty, well-entrenched authoritarian or totalitarian order as if winning a jackpot.

Consider this fact: most people who win the big lottery jackpots have never had much. They suddenly get a huge windfall and have no idea of what to do with it. Someone middle class who recognizes lotteries as rip-offs know the following:

1. A 'dream house' is a waste.
2. It is wiser to let ne'er-do-well relatives to struggle than to throw money at them for which they have no accounting or buy luxuries for them. If you buy luxuries for them they will be back for more, and if you throw money at them they will soon have spend it all.
3. You do not buy status by buying expensive stuff.
4. In fact, the social status that you had as a kid is probably what you are stuck with.
5. Everybody has some idea of a business venture that looks very promising yet will fail because one is unsuited to owning and operating the business.

Getting freedom after enduring tyranny all one's life is something like winning a big lottery payout after being rich for a long time. In 1989 there were many people who, in their fifties, had some idea of what freedom was in such countries as Poland and Czechoslovakia and could deal with it -- and tell kids what it meant. At the same time, the tyrannical order known as the Soviet Union tried to democratize itself to save itself, but few people in the Soviet Union (except perhaps for some people in the Baltic countries)  had some idea of how to deal with democracy. One would have had to have been 70+ to have any knowledge of any order other than the Soviet Union, and what preceded that was an absolute monarchy.

Well, guess how old Commie rule is in North Korea -- it is over seventy years old.

Note also that people who have been imprisoned or institutionalized for a considerable time have a difficult struggle with life on the outside. For a good fictional account of how it is, think of the elderly prisoner Brooks Hatlen (James Whitmore) in The Shawshank Redemption (story by Stephen King and an excellent movie) in which he writes a letter after getting a taste of a freedom with which he can't cope:


[/url]

Quote:[url=http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0926235/?ref_=tt_ch]Brooks : [in letter]  Dear fellas, I can't believe how fast things move on the outside. I saw an automobile once when I was a kid, but now they're everywhere. The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry. The parole board got me into this halfway house called "The Brewer" and a job bagging groceries at the Foodway. It's hard work and I try to keep up, but my hands hurt most of the time. I don't think the store manager likes me very much. Sometimes after work, I go to the park and feed the birds. I keep thinking Jake might just show up and say hello, but he never does. I hope wherever he is, he's doin' okay and makin' new friends. I have trouble sleepin' at night. I have bad dreams like I'm falling. I wake up scared. Sometimes it takes me a while to remember where I am. Maybe I should get me a gun and rob the Foodway so they'd send me home. I could shoot the manager while I was at it, sort of like a bonus. I guess I'm too old for that sort of nonsense any more. I don't like it here. I'm tired of being afraid all the time. I've decided not to stay. I doubt they'll kick up any fuss. Not for an old crook like me. P.S: Tell Heywood I'm sorry I put a knife to his throat. No hard feelings. Brooks.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161/char...c_fc_cl_t8

Real freedom means having the perception that one's opinion  is relevant because others believe much the same thing, and if that opinion is contrary to the political norms that one now has, then the next election might change what sort of leaders you have. In a democracy one is not alone politically. In a tyranny one is alone politically because the government makes people unable to share their grievances.  Of course, imprisonment is more control of the body than of the mind, and tyranny allows one special privileges for selling out one's conscience and ability to think outside the box, which  are different things.

The only freedom that Donald Trump believes in is the free enterprise in the sense of enterprise being free to do nasty things to people while indulging the elites who control the economy. History shows how that worked in its most extreme manifestation:



Nobody is going to bring back slavery except for an overt fascist devoid of any moral principles... but many in our economic elite, including Donald Trump,  are borderline sociopaths.

[nebraska]

If 50% of the US is Fascist and 50% is Communist then who will speak up for freedom?

[pbrower2a]

(01-20-2018, 08:52 PM)nebraska Wrote: If 50% of the US is Fascist and 50% is Communist then who will speak up for freedom?

About 5% of Americans are fascists or Marxists. About 15% of Americans are "Marxist Lite" or "Fascist Lite". Another 15% on either side are best described as "fellow travelers". About 20% of all Americans are hyper-partisan Republicans and another 20% are hyper-partisan Democrats. On each side about 5% are decided leaners R or D. That leaves 10% in the middle. They decide most elections.

[nebraska]

The Nazis and the Commies are the ones that support wars, debt, the nanny police state, security cameras, license plate readers, checkpoints, redlight cameras, speed cameras, FBI facial and voice recognition, curfews, gun bans, NSA wiretapping, the end to the right to silence, free speech bans, searches without warrants, private prisons, mandatory minimums, 3 strikes laws, DNA databases, CISPA, SOPA, NDAA, IMBRA, private prison quotas, no knock raids, take down notices, no fly lists, terror watch lists, Constitution free zones, stop and frisk, 3 strikes laws, kill switches, National Security Letters, DNA databases, kill lists, FBAR, FATCA, Operation Chokepoint, TSA groping, civil forfeiture, CIA torture, NDAA indefinite detention, secret FISA courts, FEMA camps, laws requiring passports for domestic travel, IRS laws denying passports for tax debts, gun and ammo stockpiles, laws outlawing protesting, police militarization, Jade Helm, and banning religion.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-22-2018, 04:26 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(01-20-2018, 08:52 PM)nebraska Wrote: If 50% of the US is Fascist and 50% is Communist then who will speak up for freedom?

About 5% of Americans are fascists or Marxists. About 15% of Americans are "Marxist Lite" or "Fascist Lite". Another 15% on either side are best described as "fellow travelers". About 20% of all Americans are hyper-partisan Republicans and another 20% are hyper-partisan Democrats.  On each side about 5% are decided leaners R or D. That leaves 10% in the middle. They decide most elections.

I would go with PBower, with the following tidbits, observations or beliefs.  There are more types of hyper-partisans than two.  It isn't possible to make them shut up, or even be courteous.  Even partisans can speak up for freedom as they see it.  Often they shrilly speak for reducing freedom, for principles or values which if everyone abided by would make for something they find more pleasant.  Freedom suggests that they should not be able to use violence, force or intimidation to impose their values on others.  There are some who perceive any action by government as being violence, force or intimidation.

Is representative democracy tyranny?  Can representatives side with elites to form tyranny, to kill freedom?  Should libertarians use any means available to impose their values on others?

Do as thy will, but harm none.  There are some who harm others.  Elites do harm others, by claiming resources which are not shared equitably.  Should the government criminalize behavior that harms others?  Should the state not work for the general welfare?  Should the state assure one particular company profits?  As far back as the hunter-gatherers, the chiefs would seek the ability to command, resources and territory.  Does anyone think to stop this?  Is the ability to command freedom tyranny?  How does one draw any line between criminalizing behavior that harms others, profitability, promoting the general welfare, and promoting a specific company's welfare?

The classic check and balance answer to the thread's question says freedom of speech should mean Trump should not use the government to partisan ends.  However, you leave yourself open to suit if lies harm others.