Tea at Trianon: Big Tech’s War on Speech

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, July 3, 2020

Big Tech’s War on Speech

From The National Pulse:

The regime that Facebook and the other tech giants have assembled over the past four years is not based on any discernible principle of acceptable online behavior; it is a concerted effort to draw a line on the right side of the political spectrum beyond which no speech is permissible. If the far-left is allowed to use violent imagery and provocative language with no repercussion while silencing anyone who merely questions leftist dogma, the entire political left, including the Democrat Party, benefits.

The “chilling effect” of censorship on free and open discourse is very real. If one side — liberals, Democrats, and Trump-haters — knows that it can freely push the boundaries and the other side — conservative, libertarians, Republicans, and Trump supporters — knows that it will be silenced, then the former is going to be at a distinct advantage. (Read more.)