On the surface of it, it surely seems strange that the left are so triggered by the idea of a tech billionaire buying Twitter. I mean, it’s not like Twitter’s founding owner is a billionaire. Or that Facebook is also owned by a billionaires. Or that mainstream media outlets are owned by billionaires. Or that mega-corporation Disney doesn’t own, well, nearly everything.
It’s also not as if the legacy outlet that’s openly gone to war with Musk, the Washington Post, is owned by another billionaire.
As far as Big Tech and the legacy media go, it’s billionaires, billionaires, as far as the eye can see. So, what’s the big deal about yet another billionaire muscling in?
Prominent public figures on the left are in full meltdown mode over Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, because they know lies die when exposed by the truth.
And there’s the rub: Musk is (truthfully or not) cutting a figure straight out of an Ayn Rand novel, as opposed to the roster of billionaire Bond villains on the left side of the aisle.
More importantly, the legacy media and Big Tech have more and more openly committed themselves to censoring indisputable facts. They can call it “harmful misinformation” all they like, but that doesn’t change the facts. The fact that a man is not a woman. The fact that a crackhead son of a US president was cutting dodgy deals with Eastern European oligarchies by flexing his dad’s name. Or that dear ol’ dad was in for a multi-million-dollar cut of the loot.
You can’t have a free society without the ability to speak freely. The suppression of ideas that run afoul of leftist dogma is only one leg on the three-legged stool of deceit. Another is the unwillingness to use clear terms and logic to defend one’s positions […]
Shining the light of truth on these issues typically leads to a loss of public support and a quick pivot away from approved talking points. In the case of the “defund the police” movement, the activists in the Democratic Party were completely refuted when President Biden boldly declared that we must “fund the police” three times during his most recent State of the Union address.
The final leg that props up approved lies is the unwillingness to debate controversial issues publicly.
And that’s the leg that Musk is threatening to kick out from the left most spectacularly. Whether or not he’s willing or able to follow through on his promises to restore free speech to “the de facto public square”, the very suggestion that he might do so is triggering meltdowns across the Twittersphere.
Because the last thing the left want is to have to defend their ideas in open debate. Because their ruling ideas — from “systemic racism”, to gender theory, to climate change alarmism — are demonstrable nonsense on stilts. In the scrum of open, free debate, the stilts wouldn’t hold up for a second.
But, has the left’s censoriousness been a gift in disguise?
Conservatives may not realize it, but this uneven playing field is a long-term strategic advantage. The average people on the right have had to examine their underlying worldview assumptions, define their terms, and work out their arguments in an environment that is often very hostile.
Liberals don’t have to think very deeply about their ideas because they tend to stay in ideological bubbles where probing questions are not allowed […] The people who are afraid of having their ideas challenged feel that way for a reason.
The Blaze
Not only have the left forced the right (or at least, the smart folk on the right) to hone their debating skills, it’s also forced them to flex their entrepreneurial muscles. The legacy media, on the other hand, have got so flabby and lazy that they need government money just to keep gasping and wheezing along.
In the 80s, I was heavily involved in what was then called the “independent music scene”. The Indies were all but completely locked out by the mainstream industry. It was a tough schooling, but for the really smart ones, it paid off. As Nick Cave has said, the major labels did them a backhanded favour, “because they didn’t get to fuck us up”. Instead, in a school of the hardest knocks, the best of the indie scene learned their chops, made their mistakes out of sight, and learned how to do business, from the ground up. Locked out of the established industry, they made their own.
Now, independent media are learning the same lessons. Whatever you may think of Gab, they have done an incredible job of building, not just a social media app, but hosting, payment services, and much more. They are untouchable by the Cancel Mob. Sites like Rumble, Bitchute, even The BFD, are on the same learning curve.
So, thanks, left. If Elon Musk doesn’t restore free speech to Twitter, well, we’ll make our own public square.