Category: Bigotry

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Freedom of Speech – Is It Still a Thing?

I started this blog because I am tired of social media and the mainstream media suppressing those they disagree with and bombarding us with their false narratives.

Everybody has the right to their own opinions.

Everybody should be able to express those opinions in a respectful way without fear.

The government is charged with protecting our constitutional right of free speech.

It’s very clear that corporations such as Google, Twitter, Facebook, and others have engaged in suppression of free speech. Deplorable.

On March 25, 2019, I posted this on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/RemainSilentNO/status/1110241401197846528

The link went to a video of this statement by President Trump.

I received a few likes.

Someone commented and asked me if I really believe that Donald Trump speaks the truth. He, you see, was an Adam Schiff supporter and his opinion was that Adam Schiff is really an honest guy who stands up for America. He was a big fan.

I happen to think Adam Schiff is one of the most dishonest people in Congress. But, I didn’t argue with this guy. I answered his questions and I asked him a few and we politely agreed to disagree.

On Twitter. Two strangers. Agreed to disagree. Doesn’t sound real, does it? It happened.

Today, I went back that post to see who that guy was. I wanted to write him a message and get his opinion about Robert Mueller testifying next month after he was subpoenaed.

I clicked on the link I posted and got this.

Then, I noticed the Likes were gone.

The comments were gone.

I don’t care about how many likes or how many comments. What I liked was that I could have a conversation with somebody I don’t agree with and Twitter made that possible.

The entire conversation with that Adam Schiff guy is gone along with comments from a few others that followed the conversation and jumped in here and there.

So, I’m not sure why @jack is afraid of a guy with 18 followers and a picture a bald eagle standing in front of an American flag looking pissed, but there you go.

So, I retweeted me with a mundane response. Freedom of speech matters. Twitter, a company that has made billions of dollars allowing free speech for some stomps their fascist boot on the throats of those who don’t believe what they are supposed to believe.

I doubt if 18 people even see this and that’s not the point.

The news now is that social media companies have declared war on “hate speech”, which sounds pretty good. The only problem is that there is no definition of hate speech other than the fact that they block or shut down or de-monitize accounts due to hate speech and the only common denominator is that they don’t support Democrat, liberal, progressive, communist, socialist, fascist, etc. opinions.

So, the definition of hate speech is anybody who I don’t agree with is guilty of hate speech. No opportunity to be innocent until proven guilty because it’s not a court of law. It’s a website owned by a corporation that can do what they want.

Doesn’t hurt me financially. I am not making any money for this blog and I shouldn’t. I only post when I have the time.

I’m disgusted by this activity, but I am also not surprised. This is the whole reason my eagle is pissed off in the first place.

So, up this goes on my blog.

And on Twitter with a link to my blog.

I’m interested to see what happens. More to come?

RS

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Welcome Back, Fascism. Have Some Pie.

The First Amendment. Some may call it a run-on sentence. I view it as very good glimpse into what this country stands for and an indicator of what the framers of our Constitution experienced elsewhere in the world that led to what is now The United States of America.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It’s concise and gets right to the point, but leaves much to interpretation. Lawsuits have been filed and courts have ruled on first amendment issues. I’m no legal expert or constitutional scholar, but I have a few things I’d like to say on some first amendment issues that have come up in recent years. Everybody gets all upset and there’s wall-to-wall news coverage about whether somebody should have to bake a cake for somebody, who can go int which restrooms, whether NFL players should kneel during the national anthem, etc.

Then there are other issues that the mainstream media loves to either ignore almost entirely or cover for weeks on end – riots. In recent years, there has been extended coverage of riots in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014 and Charlotte, NC in September 2016 after a citizen was killed by police and the situations were charged with allegations of racism. Watching these events reminded me of things I vaguely remember from growing up in the 1960’s and 1970’s and many events from the Civil Rights movement that I’m too young to remember.

I could write about whether or not the news coverage was slanted in this direction or that direction, but I think that’s a mute point. These days, all news coverage is slanted on one direction or another. You are watching narratives designed to lead you to form opinions as part of your belief system. It’s up to you resist this brainwashing, for the lack of a more correct term for it.

Slanted or not, extensive news coverage of these events was warranted and many important discussions were had as a result. These discussions led people with all different opinions to exercise their right to free speech. Most of it was constructive, some of it was destructive and revealed the ugly face of racism, hatred, and bigotry.

These things have returned to our daily lives over the past decade or two. They were never gone, I believe they were suppressed because they have not been dealt with and maybe can’t truly be dealt with in a way that will remove them from the planet. There are still people full of hate and ideologies designed to divide us into groups and get those groups to fight with each other. Sadly, this may never end.

None of that is why I am writing this post. I want to talk about the entire reason this website exists, the suppression of free speech. There is a reason the website is called RemainSilent.Online and the associated Twitter account is @RemainSilentNO.

I have seen other riots in recent year that were covered very differently and this is the problem I want to address. If you rely on the mainstream media, you will remember these events as protests or peaceful protests, but if you look objectively at the facts, you will arrive at the conclusion that these were riots designed to infringe on free speech. The best example is the UC Berkeley riots in February 2017.

To their credit, the mainstream media reported the UC Berkeley riots as riots and as protests that broke out into violence at the time they were occurring. To their discredit, they didn’t spend much time on that coverage. Not nearly as much time as the race riots mentioned earlier. These riots weren’t about race. They were about free speech. The riots themselves actively suppressed free speech.

We could argue about whether race or the suppression of free speech deserves more coverage until the end of time. I submit to you that they are simply both important enough that if one deserves wall-to-wall coverage, so does the other. In both cases, the story comes and goes and racism and fascism continue their assault on our republic and it’s not being discussed nearly enough.

The mainstream media contributed to the suppression of free speech by suppressing these news stories. They covered the events in short bursts and they didn’t show the most violent videos or burning buildings and people being bloodied in attacks of bigotry by Antifa. Seriously, if you believe in the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press, what better time to exercise that right?

People being attacked with bike locks. Burning buildings. Because of words you don’t like? No. It’s even worse than that. Violence was used to prevent the words from being spoken. They decided ahead of time that someone who they disagree with shouldn’t be allowed to express his beliefs, that his right to free speech mean nothing, and that preemptive violence was the answer. In America. At a university known historically and celebrated as the haven of free speech.

Police officers stood by and watched because they were ordered to stand down. Don’t believe me. Look it up yourself. You won’t find it on the mainstream media. If you want the truth, you have to go get it. Nobody is going to shove it in your face. That’s the world you live in now. You’ve been told. Now you know. You’re welcome.

The media, whose freedom if the press is protected in the very same First Amendment that supposedly protects the free speech of the ideas Milo Yiannopoulos was going to express. By providing small amounts of coverage (when compared to coverage of other less newsworthy items), the media suppressed the coverage of the suppression of free speech. So, along with the police, the media stood down. Interesting? I wonder why.

I hope this makes you wonder how honest the media is and why they spend more time on news that fits an ideological narrative instead of news that is based on unbiased fact.

RS

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Nancy Pelosi Explains It All

President Trump said this:

 

Nancy Pelosi said this:

I felt myself getting dumber as I watched that video. I need to be more careful!

Yes, Nancy, every person has the chance at greatness if they make the right choices in life.

No, Nancy, MS-13 isn’t worth defending. Have fun defending a group of people that engage in drug tracking, child prostitution, tear hearts out of their victims while the victim is still alive, and OMG do I need to make the list any longer than that?

I have an idea, Nancy. Do some research on Edwin Ramos and what he did in San Francisco in 2008. Isn’t that your part of the country? Aren’t you in the House of Representatives so you can defend the citizens of San Francisco? Maybe you could explain to them about the spark of divinity that resides in Edwin Ramos that caused him to kill Anthony Bologna and his sons, Michael and Matthew because he was making a left turn and their car got in his way for a few seconds.

Compared to him, Donald Trump sure is a terrible person, right, Nancy? Please share more of your wisdom with us, Nancy. I can’t wait to hear what you say next.

RS

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Why Liberals Win Arguments

Simple. They want it more.

When I use the word “Win” in the headline, I am talking about how they win debates/discussion/arguments between individuals. This video is one example of how someone who is not a journalist, doesn’t care about the truth, and only seeks to win the conversation at all costs defeats a real journalist interested in facts.

Geraldo Rivera vs. Bill Maher: Fighting About Fox News, Trump

I think Geraldo Rivera lost this discussion with Bill Maher because he missed a great opportunity to take Bill Maher’s argument that we all have to wait until the report comes out before you can call it an illusion and turn that statement around in the other direction.

All Geraldo Rivera had to say at that point is, “I agree with you. So, why don’t you wait until the report comes out before you make up your mind? Why won’t CNN and MSNBC wait until the report comes out? They’ve been talking about it nonstop and presenting it as a fact for almost a year and a half. Why aren’t they waiting for the report to come out? If you all will stop talking about it like it’s a done deal, I’ll stop calling it an illusion and we’ll wait together for the report to come out.”

To his credit, Bill Maher did say once that he is not saying it’s definitely collusion. But, for the rest of the interview, I got the distinct impression that he has made up his mind. He simply wanted to get his point across more than Geraldo Rivera and I think he succeeded. He wanted it more. He stooped to mocking Geraldo Rivera when he called Geraldo “the spin” and on at least two other occasions when he began to make fun of Geraldo for not seeing collusion.

Bill Maher is right. When Geraldo calls it an illusion, that is spin. What Bill Maher is leaving out is that the nonstop discussion of collusion since late in 2016 is also spin. It’s an incredible amount of spin that we are bombarded with daily. So, if you think Bill Maher was justified in calling that spin, you may be interested to know that Bill Maher’s entire show is predicated on spin, so he is an expert in that field.

What does this say about Bill Maher? In my opinion, it means that Bill Maher is convinced he knows what happened and doesn’t care about the report or objectivity. He came into this interview with the intention of winning the interview. Just like an activist judge who gets overturned by a higher court, he won this battle, but he won’t win the war if the end result is no collusion found. I think Bill Maher already know he’s right and won’t stop even if the report comes out and says no collusion. If he wants to be taken seriously by more than just the people who already agree with him, he owes it to himself and his listeners to wait until the report comes out and the facts are known.

What does this say about Geraldo Rivera? Geraldo is an actual journalist. He came into the interview to participate in an interview and have a meaningful discussion. You can’t do that with someone who already knows he’s right, so he lost the battle. He didn’t want to win the interview the way Bill Maher did. He’s interested in facts. If the end result is no collusion found, at least he’ll make $1,000 off of Bill Maher and give it to a great charity.

Before I sign off, please understand something. Bill Maher has a right to believe what he wants and say what he wants, just like every one of us. This is what a constitutional republic looks like. We all have opinions. We all need to respect others opinions. When we don’t do that, ugliness ensues.

RS

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Where do you get your news?

Prior to 2006, I was asleep and believed that the news was the news. I was in my 40’s and only vaguely aware that the news media wasn’t completely honest and the news itself wasn’t completely true.

I naively chalked it up to the fact that human beings are not robots. Everybody has their own life experience. They have opinions and those opinions bleed into their job as journalists.

I certainly had my life’s experience. I had served in the military from just after high school until retirement and had some opinions. But, I wasn’t completely plugged into the world. I didn’t have the time. Work, family, and life was my focus. One day at a time. Let’s get through this one and try to get some sleep so I can function tomorrow and not lose my job. That was me.

I was finally starting to pay attention more to news and talk radio and noticed (finally) that it seemed more than just personal opinions sneaking into the reporting. I finally noticed that they were pushing ideas at us incessantly. Almost everybody you could read or watch or listen to was pushing an agenda.

I was working night shift. A mundane tech job in the basement of a hospital. I worked alone and listened to radio or podcasts, which were just starting to become a thing. At that time, I believed that there were two sides – the right and the left, conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats. I need to start by saying that at that point, I leaned to the right and I still do. But, I’ve been on a journey and it started like this. Late in 2005, I decided to do an experiment on myself. I had two goals.

The first goal: I was pretty rooted on the right, but I couldn’t tell you why. I sometimes could kind of see where people on the left were coming from, but I often felt that just when they almost had me convinced that I should rethink my beliefs, they would take it a step too far and lose me.  I wanted to see how much a person like me could be swayed to change my beliefs and change to another side.

The second goal: I felt that I believed the things that were right and that people on the other side were wrong and they just didn’t know it. Look around today and you’ll know what I mean because it seems like that is how far too many people are right now.

I didn’t think they were stupid. I didn’t think that they didn’t have the right to believe it. But, I didn’t have enough empathy to understand why they believed what they believed. I didn’t have the same facts they had because my sources of information were only telling me what they wanted me to hear. I was stuck in my own mind. I wanted to find out for myself how I could better see issues from more angles and at least understand why those on the “other side” believed what they believed even if I didn’t ultimately change my own beliefs.

From January 1, 2006 to July 1, 2006, I listened only to liberal podcasts when I was at my night shift job. I deliberately didn’t listen to Rush Limbaugh during the day, which had been my go-to talk radio show for more than a decade. I don’t remember all the names, but Randi Rhodes was one. I think Young Turks was around then. And, I remember Democracy Now!. I listened to nothing but liberal liberal liberal. It changed me. It changed how I thought. It changed how I talked to people. I was surprised and a little upset that other people had that much control over my thoughts. I committed to learning more about what I believed and why I believed it instead of believing it just because I do. I wanted to know why and be able to explain it to anybody that asked.

I was somebody that had some beliefs that I couldn’t back up with facts or proof that I had really thought much about the issue before I arrived at my conclusion. Don’t be that person. Know what you believe and know why you believe it and you’ll make the world a better place. Especially if the why is based on actual facts. 😉

On July 1, 2006, I switched to conservative podcasts. I allowed myself to listen to Rush Limbaugh during the day. It was definitely more of a comfort zone and I obviously was more in tune with what they were saying and pretty quickly reverted back to my original beliefs that were based on a much longer life experience than just a six month experiment.

The Liberal Pros
The liberals challenged me. I did get a glimpse into what they thought and why they thought it. They made good points that I had never heard before while primarily paying attention to conservative views. I had more facts from more angles than I had previously and I had a different view of the world. Listening to them made me a better person.

The Liberal Cons
The liberals were “snarky” for the lack of a better term. They seemed more condescending and pretty rigid in their beliefs and they had their heels dug in. They weren’t going to change. They think what they think and that’s it. Very committed. And, if you didn’t agree, then you were dumb and they would mock and laugh at you.

The Conservative Pros
All I can really say is that it aligned with my preexisting opinions and was easier to listen to for me. I think that’s to be expected. I can say definitively that I was used to the snark I had been listening to and the absence of it was delightful.

The Conservative Cons
How do you pick on the side you most identify with? I will say that they exhibited some of the same flaws that I observed on the liberal side. They only presented cherry-picked facts that matched the conservative narrative or aligned with conservative goals. They would also sometimes be condescending and mock those on the other side, but not nearly as much as I observed with the liberal shows.

The Take Away
To be able to be informed completely, you must expose yourself all sides of every issue! I can’t stress this enough and I can tell you with 100% certainty that there are very few people who do this successfully.

Go ahead and watch CNN, Fox, etc. Just do it knowing that what you are hearing is not the truth. You are hearing part of the story. The part of the story they want you to hear. The rest is suppressed and if you want to hear that part, you need to go somewhere else and fill in that blank. If you just watch and read what we call the mainstream media, you will here quick and dirty version of the issues of the day. Not very detailed. Only as much truth as they want to share. Agenda-driven and designed to keep you coming back for more so they can make money.

If you disagree with what I just said, this blog is going to annoy you until the end of your days. I just stated my assessment of today’s news media to establish a fact that I believe 100%. We can certainly discuss it and I’d love to hear from people who disagree as long as civility rules the day. If you just want to mock me or call me names, you have the right to do that and you also have the right to be the recipient of the same kind of behavior from me. But, I’d rather not go there with anybody and that’s not why this blog exists. Free speech comes with responsibility. My definition of that begins with civility and respect.

I concluded that people tend to already have their own beliefs and seek to listen and talk with people who confirm their beliefs. Not a surprise at all, right? We knew that without my little experiment.

Both sides exhibited some behavior that borders on a big word to use – bigotry. Both sides dug in their heels and stick to the narrative. They sounded like they were right and the other side was wrong and that was the end of it. I believe doing that stifles meaningful conversation and gets in the way of working through an issue to find the best solution available.

We all need to understand this very important point. Most people do not get up in the morning with the goal of going out and believing the wrong thing and doing their best to make the world a terrible place. They believe what they believe and they are convinced that the world be better if it was the way they want it to be. All sides have valid points that we have never thought of and we must know and remember that at all times.

Listening to the “other side” made me a better person. It gave me a more well-rounded set of facts. It gave me new angles from which I could approach an issue. Since 2006, I have taught myself to learn all sides of an issue before I begin to believe anything at all. I said all sides. I did not say both sides.

I recommend this to every single person reading this. It may take time. Commit to it. It will change your life. Open your mind. Keep your mind open, but not so open that your brain falls out. Listen. Truly listen. Think before you respond. Ask good questions and listen more. When you are asked a question, be able to answer it and explain why.

I learned that there are more than two sides to every issue. It’s not just liberal vs conservative and all of that. People are people. Every single one of them is the only one that has walked their life in their shoes. Every single person has something meaningful to add and our freedom of speech is crucial to a thriving society.

On RemainSilent.Online, I will rail against those who are shutting down freedom of speech around the world. I will also rail against those who abuse that freedom at the expense of others. I will also point out the hypocrites. I could write about this daily from now until the day I die. There is a lot more to come on freedom of speech.

We elect representatives that go to Washington D.C. to represent us. They pick a side and they stay there. They play politics. Winning and power are the goals and it doesn’t matter how you get there. Big problem! Huge! There is no issue that they can’t resolve and come to a solution that all sides can live with if they truly want what’s best for the people of this country.

Why do they do it and why does it continue? Because we let them continue. We forget that we are their employers. They are the employees. They are there to represent us and when they don’t do that, we reelect them anyway. It’s on us. It’s our fault. A topic for another day.

RS