Gme

[Michchamp]

It is debatable.

...

Not in any court of law in this country.

This language is pretty open and shut too:

"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."
​

I don't see how "a constitutional case could be made for freedom of speech on those platforms" - your words - anywhere in this paragraph.

Either they need to break up FB, amazon, etc., (hey, then at least there would be a Free-er or Free-ish market for hosting services and social networking).

...or force them to accept some sort of Fairness Doctrine in exchange for allowing them to operate as de facto public spaces.

... Or the government could establish it's own server farm to compete with AWS and social network to compete with FB. They couldn't discriminate against you for your political viewpoints there.

Or just nationalize amazon and facebook. Give every American a share in the company (non-transferable), and pay them a dividend every year.

 

[Spartanmack]

In the US, corporations are legally recognized as "people" with rights. If we agree that they are people and possess certain rights beyond their stated business purposes (you may be familiar with the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United), then they should also be bound by our laws and Constitution to respect the rights their fellow free citizens. the founding fathers recognized that absolute freedom would lead to anarchy as individuals and private entities are concerned with their own interests, not the unalienable rights of their fellow citizens. The federal government was formed and the Constitution was written to provide a limited government that would protect those rights for all citizens from all other entities, not just the government. Whenever those rights are taken from us, it becomes the priority of the government to protect them and it's within their power to do it.

Some on this board may think the purpose of the government is to tax the wealthy to provide housing, education and healthcare to everyone but it's not, it's to protect our unalienable rights as well as certain rights established by government from anyone who tries to take them from us.

 

[byco42]

I have the freedom to withdraw from FB or Twitter, and I have. There is only one Internet. If certain entities that disseminate or refer information restricts apps and websites that promote selected points of view that people are searching for with intent (while especially permitting the scourge of pornography) and Congress does not intervene to stop this, then that is a 1st amendment violation. If Google, FB and Twitter actively suppress the growth of other like platforms, then that is De facto censorship, IMO.

It’s especially important since Google contributes to political campaigns. Link

 

[Gulo Blue]

Amazon used to try to say "we're just a platform for selling, we don't regulate content" then someone published a book that explained how pedophiles could groom children and we realized we wanted these big tech platforms to regulate. Figuring out the gray area since then has been very challenging. We don't want foreign interference, we let companies participate in political speech, we let foreign companies support our companies. Where do we put the firewall?

 

[sggatecl]

I'll take them over the socialists any day.

Meh, fantasies are fantasies.

Neither group will have significant power in the near future. They can both repeatedly shit on everyone's ideas being bad, knowing comfortably that theirs will never be put to the test in America.

 

[Spartanmack]

Meh, fantasies are fantasies.

Neither group will have significant power in the near future. They can both repeatedly shit on everyone's ideas being bad, knowing comfortably that theirs will never be put to the test in America.

the left is being mainstreamed and people have become desensitized to the nation's leftward shift. But even if you disagree, I'd still prefer the libertarians to the far left.

 

[Michchamp]

In the US, corporations are legally recognized as "people" with rights. If we agree that they are people and possess certain rights beyond their stated business purposes (you may be familiar with the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United), then they should also be bound by our laws and Constitution to respect the rights their fellow free citizens. the founding fathers recognized that absolute freedom would lead to anarchy as individuals and private entities are concerned with their own interests, not the unalienable rights of their fellow citizens. The federal government was formed and the Constitution was written to provide a limited government that would protect those rights for all citizens from all other entities, not just the government. Whenever those rights are taken from us, it becomes the priority of the government to protect them and it's within their power to do it.

corporations are people, & people can discriminate against speech they don't like. the First Amendment restricts the actions of the US Government, not people, or corporations that think they're people... I even posted the text of the Amendment for you.

At least you acknowledge corporations should have to follow the law. I didn't think you believed that.

Some on this board may think the purpose of the government is to tax the wealthy to provide housing, education and healthcare to everyone but it's not, it's to protect our unalienable rights as well as certain rights established by government from anyone who tries to take them from us.

most of this isn't relevant to the point at hand, but where do you think are our "unalienable rights" to post on facebook and twitter are established?

 

[sggatecl]

the left is being mainstreamed and people have become desensitized to the nation's leftward shift. But even if you disagree, I'd still prefer the libertarians to the far left.

I don't consider Libertatians 'far right' so in that token, sure. I'll take Liberatarians over the 'far left' too.

I don't think people are desensitized to a leftward shift so much as they are embracing it. GOP needs to figure things out over the next decade or so. Waiting for the left to implode is not a good strategy. The electoral college will not save them forever.

 

[Michchamp]

Meh, fantasies are fantasies.

Neither group will have significant power in the near future. They can both repeatedly shit on everyone's ideas being bad, knowing comfortably that theirs will never be put to the test in America.

I guess these things depend on how you define "socialism" and "libertarianism" and how nuanced of a look you want to give them.

Socialism, or socializing certain goods and services, has delivered very real and tangible benefits to Americans that weren't otherwise going to be there. Aside from the obvious ones (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security), there were a lot of New Deal programs that dramatically improved the country, like electrifying a lot of rural America.

It's amusing to drive through parts of Texas, and see all the militant Right-wing flags, banners and slogans about taxes and religion, while driving on the network of rural roads built solely because of socialism safely illuminated by socialist electrical grids and collectivized power generation... (makes one wonder how many other such benefits of socialism have been downplayed, if not erased from history, by the Right-wing backlash against it & New Deal & government programs over the last several decades)

I don't see similar achievements of libertarianism in the last century. You could argue libertarians brought us the freedom of speech, freedom to practice religion (or not), etc. and put those achievements up there, but I don't think most of the current libertarians I know would've found themselves at the forefront of those types of battles in the 18th and 19th century when they were being fought.

the left is being mainstreamed and people have become desensitized to the nation's leftward shift. But even if you disagree, I'd still prefer the libertarians to the far left.

"...is being mainstreamed" ... by who? Who in positions of power in this country wants to see us move to the Left, i.e. higher taxes on the wealthy, stronger unions, less income and wealth disparity, universal health care, more public transit, and so forth? THe CIA? The FBI? The billionaires, and their multi-millionaire servants in Congress? President Joe Biden, a life-long taker of credit card industry money, serial sexual harasser, and one of the primary anti-school busing, anti-desegration Senators?

 

[Gulo Blue]

I don't consider Libertatians 'far right' so in that token, sure. I'll take Liberatarians over the 'far left' too.

I don't think people are desensitized to a leftward shift so much as they are embracing it. GOP needs to figure things out over the next decade or so. Waiting for the left to implode is not a good strategy. The electoral college will not save them forever.

GOP would have more appeal if the deficit went down when you elected them, but it never does.

 

[Spartanmack]

corporations are people, & people can discriminate against speech they don't like. the First Amendment restricts the actions of the US Government, not people, or corporations that think they're people... I even posted the text of the Amendment for you.

At least you acknowledge corporations should have to follow the law. I didn't think you believed that.



most of this isn't relevant to the point at hand, but where do you think are our "unalienable rights" to post on facebook and twitter are established?

sorry for the delay in getting back to you, I was busy shoveling 16" of global warming off my driveway. So now you're a textualist I see. you clearly have no idea what I believe - which is why you're constantly making up arguments I've never made so you can pretend you won the internets.

Like I said, it's in the constitution, as I've explained above. you can reread it again in post 62, maybe you can have a lawyer explain it to you if you're still struggling - are there an lawyers at the law firm where you work? I mean good ones that didn't go to a retread, third tier law school?

 

[Spartanmack]

I don't consider Libertatians 'far right' so in that token, sure. I'll take Liberatarians over the 'far left' too.

I don't think people are desensitized to a leftward shift so much as they are embracing it. GOP needs to figure things out over the next decade or so. Waiting for the left to implode is not a good strategy. The electoral college will not save them forever.

I'm not so sure they're embracing it. I don't think most Americans are for transgenders competing with women in sports, having free access to their bathrooms and locker rooms, I don't think they favor an open border or unfettered immigration, and I know for a fact they wouldn't his caving to the teachers union, keeping kids out of school so teachers can get paid to work half days from home. Most people are naive to his actions and instead are satisfied by the sycophanitc, entirely misleading narrative of sleepy Joe as a "normal, boring, ordinary guy" - they're completely oblivious to the harm he's doing to women and working class Americans. People are dumb.

 

[Michchamp]

GOP would have more appeal if the deficit went down when you elected them, but it never does.

2001-2008 created a lot of Libertarians, at least among the ones I know. They grew up in solid GOP households, and were like "I voted for small government, and I have to admit THIS is anything BUT..."

*gestures at 2 foreign war quagmires, giant bloated new Federal bureaucracy in the DHS, normalizing domestic spying, torture, massive subsidies to the oil industry, etc*

Almost all of them are gradually moving Left, especially the more online ones. Libertarianism was just a stop on an intellectual journey for them.

The other kind of libertarian that there seems to be more of these days are the creepy, techno-geek ones. Elon Musk fanboys. They lose their minds when you post links to all the government subsidies $$$ Tesla receives.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Several coronavirus relief bills have been considered by the federal government of the United States:

Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020, enacted March 6, 2020; $8.8 billion
Families First Coronavirus Response Act, enacted March 18, 2020; $104 billion
CARES Act, enacted March 27, 2020; $2.2 trillion
HEROES Act, passed by the House of Representatives on May 15, 2020 but never enacted into law; $3 trillion
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, enacted December 27, 2020; included $900 billion in COVID-19 relief

I think there are around 150 million taxpayers. $2.2T divided by 150 M is over $14k per taxpayer. So the stimulus checks were a small part of it even though they were a big part of the arguing. Oversight and transparency on the rest of it would be nice, and you'd think it would be a conservative talking point.

 

[Gulo Blue]

They lose their minds when you post links to all the government subsidies $$$ Tesla receives.

Electrification of fossil fuel tech seems like fair game when you're up against $650 B in fossil fuel subsidies.

 

[Michchamp]

Electrification of fossil fuel tech seems like fair game when you're up against $650 B in fossil fuel subsidies.

true, but in the context of libertarianism, and worshipping Musk as this self-made genius, single handedly taking on big oil, it's, something else

 

[Gulo Blue]

true, but in the context of libertarianism, and worshipping Musk as this self-made genius, single handedly taking on big oil, it's, something else

True, I'm not sure what to make of him so I'm kind of neutral. Both the fan boys and the haters seem to have motives I don't follow.

 

[Gulo Blue]

GME keeps on dropping little by little. Not tons of volume. Be real interesting to see if there's another squeeze on the way or if the redditors are being slowly bled dry.

 

[Michchamp]

True, I'm not sure what to make of him so I'm kind of neutral. Both the fan boys and the haters seem to have motives I don't follow.

I was kind of ambivalent about him, until I started getting more active on twitter and saw how he acts like a huge prick, and reading other media more critical how Tesla operates, and how shoddy their construction is.



Like you I wanted to give him more credit, b/c he's making electric cars, but a lot of writers & pundits I read were like "He's a charlatan, it's obvious, and his cars aren't going to do jack to actually fix our climate problems. NEXT."

 

[Gulo Blue]

Like you I wanted to give him more credit, b/c he's making electric cars, but a lot of writers & pundits I read were like "He's a charlatan, it's obvious, and his cars aren't going to do jack to actually fix our climate problems. NEXT."

Those people should try doing something instead of just writing about doing thing. He's not Tony Stark. But calling him a charlatan given what's been built between Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, the Gigafactory, and NeuraLink...those pundits are morons.