I had the pleasure of being on PIJN News to discuss how Facebook censors those that do not fit its mold.
During the first two segments I discussed with Dr. Chaps how Facebook uses its algorithms to censor. The last segment is a comparison of two films “Paul – Apostle of Christ” and “Chappaquiddick.”
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/gun-rights.jpg360640Bill Finlayhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngBill Finlay2018-04-14 20:04:472018-04-14 20:04:47VIDEO: The World vs American Freedom
In the world today we hear about divisions among humanity. There are those who want to promote these divisions. These include, but are not limited to, the following categories of divisions:
Social divisions
Political divisions
Economic divisions
Cultural divisions
Religious divisions
Sexual divisions
Each of these are imposed divisions. These divisions are promoted to create inequity and inequality. Divisions are used to gain power over others. Many create a division when there is none. Division is used to start wars, oppress one group, pit one group against another group. Division is the most powerful tool ever created.
The way one begins to create divisiveness is to use a wedge.
We read about wedge issues every day via the media, in newspapers, on television, in our neighborhood and within families. Wedge issues are used in politics, business, by organizations and even between religions.
The first use of the name Satan is found in 1 Chronicles 21:1; chronologically, Job, which was written much earlier, surpasses this. Satan is found throughout Job 1 and 2. Satan literally means “adversary” in Hebrew.
Another name appears in the Old Testament in the King James Version:
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! (Isaiah 14:12; KJV).
The first time Satan used his wedge was in the Garden of Eden when he separated man from his Creator. Satan, in the form of a serpent, caused “The Fall” of Adam and Eve. From that time on mankind had knowledge of good and evil.
What did mankind forfeit when Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree of wisdom? Life everlasting.
22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
What did mankind gain from eating the fruit from the tree of wisdom? Pain and suffering.
What lies between Good and Evil?
Answer: The Truth
Knowing the truth is tantamount in the fight against Satan’s wedge. It is important to use mankind’s wisdom to know the truth when Satan uses his wedge to divide us socially, politically, economically, culturally, religiously and sexually.
Satan’s wedges are the absurdities one reads, hears and learns.
Uncontested Wedges
Ayn Rand wrote:
“The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.”
Uncontested absurdities have become today’s slogans. Below is list a top 20 uncontested absurdities of today:
You are a racist.
You are homophobic.
You are Islamophobic.
You are a misogynist.
A male can choose to be a female and visa versa or both.
The nuclear family is bad, divorce/single parenthood is good.
God is dead.
Islam is the religion of peace.
Believing there is no religion (Atheism) is a religion.
Hate speech is any speech I disagree with or that causes me to be uncomfortable.
Facts no longer matter.
Truth is relative.
Me, Myself and I feeling good is the only thing that counts.
People don’t kill people, only guns kill people.
Welfare is better than work.
Self defense is bad.
Killing the unborn is necessary to save the planet.
Communism is better than Capitalism.
I need to be protected from free speech.
In order to “save humanity” we must give government more power.
Voltaire said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
Satan lives so long as he can drive a wedge between you and me.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/when-the-devil-drives-his-wedge.png364640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2018-04-13 06:52:222018-04-13 06:56:52A Wedge: An Adversary’s Most Powerful Tool
The Southern California News Group and other Digital First newspapers have compiled a database tracking citizens’ acceptance of the marijuana industry voted into existence by Proposition 64 in 2016 and implemented as of January 1, 2018. Prop 64 made it legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana and to grow it at home, but the law also gives California cities and counties the right to restrict or ban pot businesses within their boundaries.
So far, fewer than one-third of the state’s 482 cities and only 18 of its counties allow any kind of marijuana business to operate within their borders.
The database scores each jurisdiction according to how lenient they are in allowing pot commerce. To get above 96 points, jurisdictions must allow licenses for medical and recreational marijuana sales, cultivation, manufacturing, distribution, and testing. To get 100 points they must also allow marijuana lounges or festivals, meaning use in public, which nearly all recreational states ban.
More than five dozen cities score zero on the scale, banning all pot businesses, not allowing residents to grow outdoors for personal use, and requiring residents to obtain a permit to grow indoors for personal use.
The database can be accessed from this article. Read “Database of Marijuana Rules from Every City and County in California Shows Slow Acceptance of Prop. 64” here.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/California-State-Flag-Marijuana-e1523525756269.jpg385640National Families in Actionhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngNational Families in Action2018-04-12 05:36:032018-04-12 05:40:29Californians Not So Keen on Marijuana Industry
It’s a Zuckerberg zoo on Capitol Hill again today, where the Facebook CEO sat down for his second day of questioning before dozens of House and Senate members. By far the most anticipated hearings of the year, the 33-year-old billionaire was grilled on everything from the company’s privacy policy to its position on free speech. After all, if Facebook is unfriending anyone lately, it’s conservatives!
Just this year, the company announced a change to its algorithm that seems to have radically affected conservative news feeds. The Western Journal’s analysis points to a huge rise in liberal site promotion, while conservative publishers are losing an average of roughly 14 percent of their Facebook traffic. Coincidence? Not hardly. While the company insists it’s all part of their “news curation” strategy, Hill members agree: it’s more like code for political censorship. As George Upper explains:
This algorithm change, intentional or not, has in effect censored conservative viewpoints on the largest social media platform in the world. This change has ramifications that, in the short-term, are causing conservative publishers to downsize or fold up completely, and in the long-term could swing elections in the United States and around the world toward liberal politicians and policies.
Facebook has argued that the company is “taking a step to try to define what ‘quality news’ looks like and give that a boost.” But who defines what “quality news” is? Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) made that exact point in his questioning of the tech mogul yesterday.
Mr. Zuckerberg, I will say there are a great many Americans who I think are deeply concerned that that Facebook and other tech companies are engaged in a pervasive pattern of bias and political censorship. There have been numerous instances with Facebook in May of 2016, Gizmodo reported that Facebook had purposely and routinely suppressed conservative stories from trending news, including stories about CPAC, including stories about Mitt Romney, including stories about the Lois Lerner IRS scandal, including stories about Glenn Beck.
In addition to that, Facebook has initially shut down the Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day page, has blocked a post of a Fox News reporter, has blocked over two dozen Catholic pages, and most recently blocked Trump supporters Diamond and Silk’s page, with 1.2 million Facebook followers, after determining their content and brand were, quote, ‘unsafe to the community. To a great many Americans that appears to be a pervasive pattern of political bias. Do you agree with that assessment?
Zuckerberg replied that he understood where the concern is coming from since “Facebook in the tech industry are located in Silicon Valley, which is an extremely left-leaning place.” He told the group that he’s tried to make sure “that we do not have any bias in the work that we do.” Unfortunately, not very effectively. After insisting that no Republicans had not been marginalized by his new algorithms, the House’s Fred Upton (R-Mich.) read a campaign announcement from a conservative candidate for state senate in his home state that mentioned being pro-life and pro-Second Amendment. Facebook said it violated its standards. Zuckerberg faltered, suggesting that it might be an error, and they would follow up.
Senator Ben Sasse (R-Nebr.) continued the theme, zeroing in on life. “There are some really passionately-held views about the abortion issue on this panel today. Can you imagine a world where you might decide that pro-lifers are prohibited from speaking about their abortion views on your content — on your platform?” Zuckerberg replied that he “would not want that to be the case,” only to go on to explain how artificial intelligence (A.I.) is proactively looking at content, which, as even he admits, will “create massive questions.” No one, Sasse continued, would want the Facebook CEO to leave and think “there’s sort of a unified view in the Congress that you should be moving toward policing more and more and more speech.” On the contrary, he continued, “Sex traffickers and human traffickers have no place on your platform. But vigorous debates? Adults need to engage in vigorous debates.” But, he shook his head:
I think you guys have a hard challenge. I think regulation over time will have a hard challenge. And you’re a private company so you can make policies that may be less than First Amendment full spirit embracing in my view. But I worry about that. I worry about a world where when you go from violent groups to hate speech in a hurry — and one of your responses to the opening questions, you may decide, or Facebook may decide, it needs to police a whole bunch of speech, that I think America might be better off not having policed by one company that has a really big and powerful platform. Can you define hate speech?
“I think that this is a really hard question,” Zuckerberg replied. “And I think it’s one of the reasons why we struggle with it. There are certain definitions that — that we — that we have around, you know, calling for violence or…” He didn’t finish. Unfortunately, he didn’t need to. As conservatives know, Facebook — just like Google, YouTube, Twitter, and others — have increasingly filtered out or shut down conversations on anything from pro-life movie trailers to its employees’ pro-Trump chatroom.
At the end of the day, what most Americans want is transparency. If Facebook holds itself out as a public service, a virtual public square, then they can’t have an algorithmic bouncer kicking people out just because they disagree with their political or moral views. As Senator Sasse pointed out, Facebook may be a private entity, but it’s virtually monopolizing the public square. And with that responsibility comes a higher expectation that civil conversations will be allowed. Just because Zuckerberg – or his leadership team — disagrees with someone doesn’t meant he should shut them down. This growing understanding that Big Tech is picking and choosing who can speak in the virtual public square may help explain why there’s been a jump in the number of Americans who want to see more government regulation. And in the end, that isn’t the answer. Responsible ownership is.
Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/041118_zuckerberg_770x400_1-e1523521855877.jpg376640Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2018-04-12 04:29:272018-04-12 04:31:16A Faceoff over Facebook
When Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress Tuesday and Wednesday he will have plenty of explaining to do to answer a torrent of criticism that has been leveled at his company in recent weeks.
We’ve compiled a list of 10 of the most important questions we think lawmakers should ask Zuckerberg when he is scheduled to testify at a joint meeting of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees on Tuesday and then before the House Commerce and Energy Committee on Wednesday. We list these below—but first, here’s some background.
Facebook’s handling of its users’ personal data has sparked privacy concerns as well as questions about how others—including political campaigns—have used that data.
Zuckerberg was invited to testify before Congress after multiple sources reported that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica gained access to as many as 87 million Facebook profiles. Cambridge Analytica allegedly used that information improperly after it was hired by the Donald Trump presidential campaign. This raises two questions.
First, what information did Cambridge Analytica acquire and how did it come by that information? Zuckerberg has indicated publicly that he knows the answers to these questions, so Congress should have no trouble sorting that out.
Cambridge Analytica used the information to craft sophisticated, targeted political ads. And that raises the second—and far more interesting—question: Did Cambridge Analytica’s actions constitute a novel use of Facebook user information, or is this precisely how the social media company intends the data to be used by its paying customers?
What members of Congress and the general public need to keep in mind is that nothing is free. While individuals who use Facebook don’t have to pay for it, Facebook makes money—and lots of it—using their information.
Facebook’s net income was nearly $16 billion last year. The company sells advertising to commercial clients seeking to target Facebook users based on profiles derived from those users’ online activities.
That very same ability—to identify and reach users most likely to be receptive to a client’s product or service—was valuable not just to the Trump campaign, but also to President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election effort. Indeed, it was the Obama campaign that pioneered the use of such data to win elections.
In light of this, here are 10 of the most important questions that we suggest lawmakers ask Zuckerberg when he appears before Congress:
1. Mr. Zuckerberg, you recently said: “At Facebook, we are squarely in the camp of the companies that work hard to charge you less and provide a free service that everyone can use.” If users of your platform are not the source of your income, who is?
2. Specifically, what services do you provide to your paying customers and how much access do you give them to the data of Facebook users?
3. How do political campaigns leverage your services, and what are your rules governing campaign-sponsored advertisements and access to individual Facebook user data? What will be the impact of new rules you announced Friday to require people to reveal their identities and verify their location before they are allowed to buy political or “issue” ads?
4. Carol Davidsen, the director of data integration and media analytics for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, said: “Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn’t stop us once they realized what we were doing.” She noted that “they [Facebook] were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side.” Did Facebook, in fact, let the Obama campaign use Facebook data in ways that were outside of the company’s normal and acceptable use standards? If so, why? Who at Facebook made this decision?
5. Did the Mitt Romney presidential campaign receive access to the same information and company expertise provided to the Obama campaign? If not, why not? Who at Facebook made this decision?
6. You and other Facebook executives tell users that “we do not sell your data.” Are you asserting that all marketing and targeting data that is sold to commercial customers is anonymized and generalized so that no individual Facebook user can be specifically targeted or marketed to?
8. Did the way that the Obama campaign used Facebook’s data influence your decision to change your data use policies in 2014? If so, how?
9. Does Facebook now, or has it ever, deliberately collected the content of users’ phone calls and/or messages via any of your company’s applications or services? If so, what have you done with that data?
10. Why have you suggested that the government may need to regulate you and other tech companies? Why don’t you simply adopt the practices you believe are necessary to protect the privacy of your users without requiring government coercion?
Modern technology is changing how we communicate. Those changes bring major advantages, but they also raise serious questions. One of those questions is: How much privacy do users of a social media platform like Facebook have a right to expect when they post personal information to share with their families, their friends, and the world at large?
Internet companies owe their customers straightforward answers to those questions. But government regulation should be a last resort. For now, calls for more such regulation are premature. We must first examine the extent and nature of the problem, and then assess the pros and cons of all possible solutions.
Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative. Read his research. Twitter: @HvonSpakovsky.
Klon Kitchen is senior fellow for technology, national security and science policy at The Heritage Foundation. Twitter: @klonkitchen.
Dear Readers:
With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.
However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.
If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.
This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.
We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is by Brian Snyder/Reuters/Newscom.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/180409_ZuckQuestions_Spakovsky-1250x650-e1523355070158.jpg366640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-04-10 06:15:112018-04-10 06:15:1110 Questions Mark Zuckerberg Should Answer When He Testifies Before Congress
Of course, the awards are handed out by the Kennedy family, and they are all about not courage, but political correctness. But no one can dispute the fact that Damore put himself and his career on the line to write this book, and that one way or another, he paid the ultimate price—as a suicide, in 1995, at the age of 65.
I met Damore in 1994, on the 25th anniversary of Chappaquiddick. I was doing my radio show from the cottage on Chappaquiddick, and I booked some of the surviving principals.
Only Damore asked for money—$100. Every time I spoke to him, he seemed nervous, agitated. The day after the show he telephoned again, begging me to send him the money ASAP, which I did.
Fifteen months later, Damore was depressed and broke, about to be evicted from his rented house in Essex, Connecticut. As a visiting nurse and a constable (who was there to serve the eviction notice) looked on in horror, Damore pulled out a gun and shot himself in the head.
Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., died of brain cancer in 2009, at the age of 77. In his later years, it was considered bad form to even mention Chappaquiddick in polite company. Teddy himself seemed oblivious to the scandal—he named his last dog Splash.
The Kennedys’ official fanzine has always been The Boston Globe. Every sixth year, when he was running for re-election, the Globe would run stories about how Teddy was “turning his life around,” and how in an amazing feat of self-discipline, he had totally sworn off alcohol until his birthday—Feb. 22. On the day after Chappaquiddick, the Globe ran a front-page headline saying, “Senator Wandered in Daze for Hours.”
In 2003, the Globe perfectly summed up the mainstream media’s revisionist take on Chappaquiddick: “If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age.”
In 2015, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate opened in Dorchester. One of its exhibits is titled the “Senate Immersion Module.” Immersion—you can’t make this stuff up.
Near the end of his life, in 2009, Teddy wrote a sorrowful letter to Pope Benedict XVI:
I have always tried to be a faithful Catholic, Your Holiness, though I have fallen short through human failings … I know that I have been an imperfect human being but with the help of my faith, I have tried to right my path.
Then he added, in a somewhat incongruous attempt at penance, “I have worked to welcome the immigrant.”
Somehow I don’t think Teddy was referring to Damore.
Few of the principals ever talked about what happened. The prosecutor, Walter Steele, was quickly appointed to a state judgeship—another nationwide search, as we say in Massachusetts.
As a judge, his most famous case involved allowing a convicted child predator to leave the state without restrictions, after which the offender moved to Montana and then murdered and cannibalized a 7-year-old boy.
When Steele reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 in 1996, the local New Bedford paper ran a story about him without a single mention of Chappaquiddick. But Steele did obliquely mention the difficulty of explaining to victims and their survivors how sometimes an obviously guilty party gets off scot-free: “It’s awful hard to explain to them that you think you’re doing justice.”
Do you think the Kopechnes would have understood what Steele was getting at?
The boiler-room girls you will soon be reading about have maintained omerta—silence—for almost half a century. But as Damore notes in Chapter 54, on the fifth anniversary of Mary Jo’s death in 1974, Rosemary “Cricket” Keough did issue the following terse statement: “My friend Mary Jo just happened to be in the wrong car at the wrong time with the wrong people.”
In a strange way, Damore’s life turned out like Mary Jo’s—“Senatorial Privilege,” now retitled as “Chappaquiddick: Power, Privilege, and the Ted Kennedy Cover-Up” is an unforgettable book, muckraking in the best sense of the word. But for Damore personally, it was the wrong book at the wrong time about the wrong people, and it cost him his life.
But at least we still have his book—and the truth.
Howie Carr is a New York Times bestselling author, a Boston Herald columnist, and a syndicated talk radio host. He has chronicled Ted Kennedy’s career for 30 years in the Herald and in his own book, “Kennedy Babylon.” Twitter: @HowieCarrShow.
With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.
However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.
If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.
This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.
We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/TedKennedy-1250x650-e1523268820811.jpg379640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-04-09 06:14:462018-04-25 05:48:57How an Obscure Author Made Chappaquiddick a National Story
There is a new film titled “Chappaquiddick” in theatres. It is about the events surrounding the tragic death of 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne. The film reveals how Ted Kennedy was responsible for Mary Jo’s death.
Here is a commentary on the movie “Chappaquiddick” by Grant Stinchfield:
Sarah Pruitt from History.com says this about Edward “Ted” Kennedy:
Late on the night of July 18, 1969, a black Oldsmobile driven by U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy plunged off the Dike Bridge on the tiny island of Chappaquiddick, off Martha’s Vineyard, landing upside down in the tidal Poucha Pond. The 37-year-old Kennedy survived the crash, but the young woman riding with him in the car didn’t. Though newspaper headlines at the time identified her simply as a “blonde,” she was 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, a respected political operative who had worked on the presidential campaign of Senator Kennedy’s brother, Robert Kennedy.
Kennedy later claimed he dove repeatedly “into the strong and murky current” to try and find Kopechne before making his way back to the cottage. He then drove back to the scene with his cousin, Joseph Gargan, and aide Paul Markham, who both tried in vain to reach Kopechne. But rather than report the accident to the police at that time, Kennedy returned to his hotel in Edgartown. As a result, Mary Jo Kopechne remained underwater for some nine hours until her body was recovered the next morning.
Pruitt notes and then asks four key questions:
The incident at Chappaquiddick ended Kopechne’s young life and derailed Ted Kennedy’s presidential ambitions for good, but nearly half a century later, the details of what happened that fateful night remain murky. Conspiracy theories and questions endure. How did Kennedy end up driving off the bridge? Was he drunk? What were he and Kopechne doing together that night? Was there a third person in the car? Why did he wait so long to report the accident?
imkane2012 posted the following in the comments section of the official trailer [below] for “Chappaquiddick”:
Moses had a temper, but he never left a girl at the bottom of the Red Sea. And “The Lion of the Senate” won reelection in 1970 with 62.2% of the vote. It’s good to be a consequence-free Democrat, especially when you live in Massachusetts.
Stinchfield asks:
“Tell me, Dianne Feinstein: What human right did Mary Jo Kopechne have when Ted Kennedy left her to drown while he sobered up to hide his crime. How is Ted Kennedy deserving of your praise while law-abiding Americans get your scorn and your relentless desire to limit their Second Amendment freedoms. I don’t remember you trying to ban cars when your friend Teddy Kennedy drunkenly drove that car off a bridge.”
Here is the official trailer for “Chappaquiddick”:
We will be going to see this movie and will publish a review soon. Stay tuned!
Ted Kennedy wore a neck brace to the funeral of Mary Jo Kopechne. It was a lie.
UPDATE: I went to see “Chappaquiddick.” The film is a no holds barred truth telling tale of how a powerful family can distort, manipulate and eventually destroy the legal system to protect its dynasty and personal agenda. It is how the killer becomes the victim. It is about a travesty of justice. Chappaquiddick is a must see.
As New York Times bestselling author Howie Carr puts it:
Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., died of brain cancer in 2009, at the age of 77. In his later years, it was considered bad form to even mention Chappaquiddick in polite company. Teddy himself seemed oblivious to the scandal—he named his last dog Splash.
The film shows it always was about protecting Ted Kennedy and the Kennedy dynasty. Like with the Clintons, Obama, the Democrat Party is always about protecting it’s “legacy.”
A vast right-wing conspiracy is taking over America’s newsrooms.
That’s the narrative that has taken off with the release of a video by the popular news site Deadspin, which shows news anchors on multiple local stations reciting the exact same lines.
Those local stations are all owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, a media group that is generally considered conservative or right-leaning. According to the Washington Examiner, Sinclair owns “193 TV stations spanning over 614 channels in 89 U.S. markets.”
A number of media pundits and politicians wildly overreacted to the recitation of fairly innocuous lines—that have been used in CNN ads—by calling Sinclair’s editorial practices a threat to democracy and an omen of coming authoritarianism.
On Wednesday, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., sent Sinclair a letter, according to Talking Points Memo, asking it to explain why it is telling local affiliates what to say and demanding that it reveal its editorial practices.
Amy McGrath, who is running for office in Kentucky, decided to pull ads from a local Sinclair affiliate, saying the multiple video broadcasts posed “an extreme danger to our democracy” and that they mimic “the propaganda efforts that authoritarian regimes often use to control the media in their own country.”
Is it not ironic that in response to Sinclair’s alleged signs of “authoritarianism,” government officials are now prying into the editorial decisions of a private company?
As one might expect, media figures pounced on the video and lashed out at Sinclair.
John Oliver, the comedian and host of “Last Week Tonight,” said the montage made the journalists look like “a brainwashed cult.”
Liberal late night host Jimmy Kimmel said on Twitter that Sinclair’s editorial practices were “dangerous to our democracy.” This nearly exact phrase, ironically, was used in the Sinclair promo that he found so dangerous.
MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski said, “This looks like something we would mock the Russians for doing during the days of Pravda.”
Perhaps the most absurd criticism of Sinclair—and that’s a high bar—came from disgraced CBS anchor Dan Rather.
Rather, who lost his job in 2004 when he ran a false story about President George W. Bush on the eve of an election, chimed to castigate news hosts for reading scripts and peddling fake news.
“News anchors looking into the camera and reading a script handed down by a corporate overlord—a script meant to obscure the truth, not elucidate it—is not journalism,” he said. “It is propaganda. It is Orwellian. It is on a slippery slope toward some of history’s most destructive forces.”
But Sinclair’s senior vice president of news, Scott Livingston, begs to differ. He said these reactions wildly exaggerate what news anchors actually said in their repeated scripts.
“If you read the script, it’s not propaganda, it’s a statement of our commitment,” Livingston told The Daily Signal. “To say that this is comparable to state-controlled television. That’s crazy.”
While playing all of the identical broadcasts together in a synchronized fashion certainly makes them sound creepy, what they actually said is fairly innocuous.
“[W]e’re concerned about the troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing our country,” the news anchor script reads. “The sharing of biased and false news has become all too common on social media. … More alarming, some media outlets publish these same fake stories … stories that just aren’t true, without checking facts first.”
You can read the rest of the script here. It is hardly a call to authoritarianism, and at most it is marginally political.
President Donald Trump even jumped into the controversy, praising Sinclair on Twitter.
Sinclair’s politics certainly lean to the right. But that doesn’t mean it is intentionally misleading its audiences.
Would the repeated script be so controversial if it had been spoken by left-leaning journalists at CNN?
That’s not too hard to imagine—“fake news” has been a favorite target of left-leaning media outlets since the 2016 election. It was The New York Times, after all, that first sounded the alarm about the spread of “fake news” on social media.
The Washington Post soon joined the chorus:
“Fake news is dangerous mischief and takes advantage of the fact that social media generally rely on rapid-fire algorithms and not deliberate human editing,” The Washington Post editorial board wrote in 2016. “The internet has become a vital forum for democratic debate; it is essential that that interchange not be warped by propaganda and lies.”
These concerns over authoritarianism and journalistic integrity sound awfully similar to the concerns voiced by Sinclair-owned outlets.
Like most other media groups, Sinclair wants to be known as an honest and trusted source of information.
Saying that this is what differentiates it from its media competition is hardly unique—other news outlets often say similar things.
This is hardly a new and novel practice.
Of course, media outlets may not exactly have disinterested reasons for suddenly chastising Sinclair.
Sinclair is currently attempting a merger with Tribune Media—another large local media provider—and will have to get approval from the Federal Communications Commission to do so.
Some have called for blocking the merger, including some conservatives. It makes sense that in a contentious media market, news outlets would try to gain the upper hand on one another.
“We’re all competing for eyeballs. And we’re competitors,” Livingston said.
“They see we are doing great things across the country,” he continued. “ … You see that and you can see why we are a threat.”
As ridiculous as the video looked, with all the anchors delivering the same lines verbatim, using identical lines on multiple shows isn’t exactly an uncommon media practice.
Late night host Conan O’Brien has actually been making fun of this practice for years, as conservative commentator Stephen Miller pointed out.
All this is to say that, regardless of potential bias or skewing of the news, the cries of “authoritarianism” levied against Sinclair are completely unfounded. Government is not forcing anyone to watch any particular news station. America offers media companies on both the right and left a mostly free marketplace to thrive.
The legacy media’s missteps and perceived bias have opened up opportunities for other outlets to capture their audiences.
That’s a good thing.
But some voices are, of course, unhappy with the outcome of the free market.
If tyranny is in fact lurking around the corner, it will most likely come from government following the advice of this New York Times editorial:
We must rediscover the term ‘public good,’ holding entities like Sinclair and Fox News to account for disseminating outlandish propaganda. Yes, we treasure our First Amendment, but we also treasure our democracy.
Maybe it’s time to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. Certainly it is time to force the FCC to follow the law and fulfill its mandate under our laws to promote diversity of access to the public airwaves. In the end, we must all rededicate ourselves to democracy. Allowing our media to become the province of a few ideological extremists bent on ownership of our airwaves is not just bad for the republic. It could be its end.
Yes, we like the First Amendment, but we’d rather gut it to save our vision of “democracy.”
As David Harsanyi wrote in The Federalist, “As long as we have a media market and inhibit government meddling in speech … the idea that we are powerless to turn away from ‘propaganda’ is nothing but alarmism.”
If viewers don’t like the programming of Sinclair, or The Washington Post, or CNN, it’s very easy to tune out and find something else.
Moreover, recent deregulation by the FCC—such as allowing newspapers to go into the broadcasting business—makes it even easier for companies to enter that market than was possible in the mid-20th century.
James Gattuso, a regulatory and telecommunications expert at The Heritage Foundation, wrote, “The power over information that the FCC’s rules were meant to control simply is no more. In today’s marketplace, the old media is threatened rather than threatening.”
The legacy media’s missteps and perceived bias have opened up opportunities for other outlets to capture their audiences. That’s a good thing. But some voices are, of course, unhappy with the outcome of the free market.
It is that desire to shut down alternative media, not the editorial slant of private media companies, that would put our institutions and liberty at risk.
Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.
Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.
Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.
Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.
The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.
Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.
Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.
You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by John Greim John Greim Photography /Newscom.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/180405_SInclairedit-1250x650-e1523011348481.jpg361640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-04-06 06:56:412018-07-22 06:46:30VIDEO: The Sinclair Controversy Is About the Legacy Media’s Fear of Losing Control
Diplomacy is often considered the most Genteel and cultured of governmental pursuits. And that can work many times, when done right. But it can also fail miserably, as Winston Churchill clearly understood watching the ever-so-Genteel Neville Chamberlain botch what could have preempted World War II. And it has been failing America over multiple presidential administrations.
Donald Trump is no Winston Churchill in eloquence or knowledge of history or philosophies or alcohol intake, but he has Churchill’s fiery love of country and willingness to speak bluntly outside the nicety circles while carrying a big stick to defend that beloved country. Refreshing and effective.
At the time of his inauguration, Trump inherited at least half a dozen perennial crises that had been allowed to fester through ignorance, incompetence or indifference. He did not have Henry Kissinger skills, but he also was not a John Kerry bungler. He wasn’t a new world order Bushian and he wasn’t an America-meh-whatever Obamaian. In fact, he was a wholly different kind of modern American president, a throwback to Reagan but perhaps much further. And let’s be frank, his developer-TV reality star skill set was unknown in the history of the White House.
But it appears that his blunt pro-Americanism is just what was needed by January 2017. Here are five international crises where it appears that after 14 months with Trump in office, are either promising or measurably better — from America’s point of view.
In January 2017, the deranged North Korean regime had apparently developed not only newer and more powerful nuclear weapons, but the ability to install those on the tips of missiles that could reach the U.S. West Coast. They were belligerent towards South Korea, Japan and the United States and multiple administrations had failed to move China to reign in their crazy step-child. Genteel diplomacy was an utter failure. No more appeasement. Trump sent aircraft carriers to the seas surrounding the Korean Peninsula, tightened down sanctions and ridiculed Kim Jong Un. He gave the appearance and talk of being willing to use force, something North Korea’s leaders knew previous presidents would not do. And now, North Korea is talking to South Korea in a more conciliatory tone with Kim Jong Un actually crossing into the South for talks while asking to meet with President Trump. Plus, China seems to be actually applying pressure on the North Korean dictatorship. The jury is definitely out still on this nutso regime, but these may be the most promising steps in decades as the leadership recognize they are dealing with a President willing to do more than talk.
In January 2017, Russia had invaded and occupied the Crimea, invaded and occupied through proxies eastern Ukraine, threatened its tiny Baltic neighbors and re-established itself in Syria and so the Middle East. Genteel diplomacy was not working. (Perhaps actual Obama-Russian collusion was?) The breadth of Russian expansionism during the Obama years was breathtaking. Trump stated a willingness to work with Russia and stroked Putin’s ego. But he also immediately fired on a Syrian government air base that had launched a chemical attack — the Syrian government being allied with Russia — destroying the base. He is strengthening ties with the Ukraine and just met with the Baltic leaders to do the same. He has slapped economic sanctions on Russia and expelled diplomats over poisonings in England, our ally. (Worst Russian puppet ever.) Putin, for the first time perhaps as president, seems a little on his heels and his expansionism has been blunted, at least for the moment.
In January 2017, speaking of Russian expansionism, NATO countries in Europe had continued to flaunt their promised military defense expenditures. Remember, NATO was formed for the defense of our European allies against Russian aggression in the form of the Soviet Union. For decades, however, they had not been keeping to the agreements on military levels, but instead giving empty lip service to spending more while intending to continue being shielded largely by the American military. Genteel diplomacy was not working. Trump said time was up, pay up or we will rethink the American role in NATO. Given Putin’s ambitions and Trump’s tendency to follow through with threats, Germany, France and others are now actually budgeting more spending on their military.
In January 2017, China had been feasting on violating trade agreements and stealing American technology. They were forcing American companies to share technology for entry into their market and they were using endless protectionist mechanisms to benefit their manufacturers at the expense of American companies. Previous presidents either did not see this anti Americanism as an issue or just ignored it. Genteel diplomacy had failed. Trump came in with Americanism promises to change it and immediately dumped Pacific Free Trade Agreement (TPP) that seemed very favorable to China and others. He’s now thrown on tariffs and China has responded. However, he knows he has the stronger hand in that China is far more reliant on our imports than we are on theirs — in part because of all their cheating. Jury’s out, because a full trade war is bad for everyone. But that seems unlikely for the pragmatic Chinese leadership.
In January 2017, Mexico was continuing its decades long policy of urging its least desirable citizens northward across the porous American border. They fought against any tightening on the border and howled about Trump’s “stupid” and “f**king” wall — to quote two former Mexicel diplomacy had failed, if it had even been tried. But Trump saw in this situation what Americans saw and the genteel diplomats did not: Anti Americanism. Despite a fairly open border, ridiculously generous benefits to all those who snuck in illegally, constraining income growth at the low end for Americans and $30 billion exiting our economy annually to head back to Mexico through remittances, both the Mexican government and many illegal aliens and those speaking for them continued to criticize the United States’ policy and people with charges of racism, xenophobia and so on. Americans had had enough. Trump had had enough. So now the military is headed to the border until the wall is built. Mexico is not happy about this, but a lot of Americans are, because a lot support pro Americanism.
In January 2017, the radical Islamist organization ISIS held large swaths of Syria and Iraq, had declared a caliphate and was spreading terrorism on multiple continents while committing ongoing atrocities against its own population in the vein of Chinese communists, Soviet communists and German Nazis, just a smaller scale. No kind of diplomacy was available with ISIS, but brute force was and the U.S. under Obama had been reluctant to use it. By the end of 2017, they had lost their capital and virtually all of the caliphate. Their holdings in both Iraq and Syria were liberated. This had been very slowly starting to happen in the final years of Obama. But Trump promised to pound ISIS out of existence and followed through by loosening the restraints on the U.S. military, which effectively helped wipe out most of the wicked nest of evil so far in the 21st century.an presidents. Gente
International relations and events are always fluid. It’s difficult to predict the future with any certainty. But it’s clear that Trump’s blunt, pro-Americanism style of diplomacy is having a positive impact on the world and certainly on American prospects. It may not be what will always be needed. But it is what has been needed at least in these six areas.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/trump-empire-globalization.jpg360640Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2018-04-05 16:22:152018-04-06 06:19:276 Crises Where Trump’s Blunt Pro-Americanism Is Working
On April 3rd, 2018 Iranian Muslim, vegan, animal rights activist Nasim Najafi Aghdam entered the headquarters of YouTube and the gun she was carrying mysteriously began shooting.
The gun’s motivation for going off remains a mystery according to the San Bruno Sheriff’s Department.
Initial FBI reports indicate that the gun was angry that YouTube blocked Nasim’s videos for failing to meet its “community standards.” Below is one of videos posted by Nasim that was taken down by YouTube:
Seventeen year-old Parkland student David Hogg during a We Call BS rally shouted, “people don’t kill people, guns kill people.” Hogg’s handlers released the following statement on Nasim Najafi Aghdam:
Once again we see a gun take the life of yet another person. Nasim Najafi Aghdam was murdered by a gun after she entered the headquarters of YouTube in San Bruno, California. It is unclear if this was an assault rifle or just a gun that went off while in the hands of a wonderful Muslim migrant from Iran who loves animals and was dedicated to the rights of all animals to live a full life.
We see that once again the NRA has the blood of another innocent, Nasim, on its hands. NRA members continue to cling tightly to their religion and guns.
As former President Obama said, “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
The gun used in this assault was clearly bitter, anti-immigrant, religious and anti-tirade [sic]. The gun was clearly frustrated.
Ingrid E. Newkirk, the English-born British-American animal rights activist and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), in a press release noted:
We have joined with those who want to see guns taken from the cold dead hands of NRA members. We mourn the death of our beloved PETA member Nasim Aghdam. Nasim was saving the animals to save the planet.
PETA will hold a memorial service for Nasim Najafi Aghdam at its national headquarters, which is a gun-free zone.
Ingrid, Nasim and PETA believe that animals deserve the most basic rights—in particular, consideration of their own best interests regardless of whether they are useful to humans. Animals have told us that they hate the NRA, especially those who hunt them down and eat them to sustain the health and well being of their families. We at PETA do not believe in the ethical treatment of any gun owner or member of the NRA.
Ignorance is strength!
Donald J. Trump, Jr. tweeted the below in response to the shooting at YouTube:
American gun rights lobbyist Wayne Robert LaPierre, Jr. and executive vice president of the National Rifle Association tweeted the following:
It appears that PETA now has more of its members who have committed a mass shooting than the NRA. Maybe if the people at YouTube were armed this wouldn’t have happened? Just saying. #ArmYouTube
President Trump retweeted Mr. LaPierre’s tweet while eating a Big Mac.
EDITORS NOTE: This political satireoriginally appeared in Not About Animals magazine. The featured image is of David Hogg, a student at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, site of a February mass shooting which left 17 people dead in Parkland, Florida, thrusting his fist in the air as he speaks during the “March for Our Lives” event demanding gun control after recent school shootings at a rally in Washington, U.S., March 24, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/david-hogg-2.jpg460789Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2018-04-04 09:52:402021-10-08 01:46:59PETA surpasses NRA in mass shootings, Hogg goes hog wild. PETA and NRA respond.
AFA urged supporters to sign a petition to reverse Obama’s hostility toward Christians in the Air Force, and the voice of AFA supporters made a difference.
Over 50,000 supporters signed the AFA petition urging Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson to restore the religious liberty of U.S. Air Force Col. Leland Bohannon.
Col. Leland Bohannon was asked in May 2017 to sign a “certificate of spouse appreciation” for a retiring master sergeant in a same-sex “marriage.”
As a devout Christian, Bohannon refused to sign the document stating it would violate his religious belief of marriage being between one man and one woman. As a result, the Air Force suspended the colonel and effectively ended his career.
As a result, “Bohannon was relieved of command. Additionally, a letter sent by a superior officer recommended against Bohannon’s promotion to brigadier general, effectively ending his career.”
But Col. Bohannon’s religious liberty was restored after an appeal to the Air Force Review Boards Agency. Secretary Wilson announced Monday that the Agency ruled in favor of the religious liberty of the colonel saying:
The director [of the Agency] concluded that Colonel Bohannon had the right to exercise his sincerely held religious beliefs and did not unlawfully discriminate when he declined to sign the certificate of appreciation for the same sex spouse of an Airman in his command. (Emphasis added.)
This is a tremendous victory for religious liberty in President Donald Trump’s administration and in the armed services. The glory for the success belongs to God alone.
Christians who work together and stand for righteousness can make a difference.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/bohanan-religious-liberty-e1522840362259.png400640American Family Associationhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngAmerican Family Association2018-04-04 07:12:592018-04-04 07:12:59Victory for Religious Liberty in the U.S. Air Force!
For those who were born or arrived in this country after the 1980s: The Walt Disney Company used to have “I’m going to Disney World!” advertising slogans in a series of commercials that began airing in 1987. They usually featured famous athletes and successful celebrities, who responded to the question “What’s next?” by saying, “I’m going to Disney World!” It is now Noor Salman’s turn.
The Disneyfication of Noor Salman by Huffington Post
Perhaps, because Noor Salman helped her husband, Omar Mateen, to scout out Disney World for potential targets before he killed 49 people inside a gay nightclub in Orlando, Huffington Post editors have experienced some associative substitution and decided to depict the alleged Jihadess as a Disney princess in an article that defended Noor Salman against scapegoating and demonization “rooted in gendered Islamophobia.”
Noor Salman is a perfect intersectional victim – a Muslim, a woman, and a wife of an ISIS supporter. To think she might be guilty of anything other than perfection would cause a catastrophic collapse of the Huffington Post belief system. There is a defense mechanism for that, helping to avoid a psychological trauma in Huffington Post editors through counter projection.
What’s the opposite of demonization? Disneyfication!
This composite portrait is similar to the facial composite made by the police, only it’s made out of several Disney characters. Sort of like Barack Obama’s imaginary composite girlfriend from his memoir, or the Obamacare composite model, or the composite Julia on Obama’s website.
This metaphoric deformation in their minds is what allows Huffington Post editors to continue to sincerely believe that “The Huffington Post has in place rigorous editorial policies and standards… to ensure that we maintain the highest level of journalistic integrity.”
In contrast with the Disneyfied intersectional victims, there has also been a Disneyficaton of police, whom the editors’ psychological defense mechanisms transform into cartoon villains. See, for example, this screenshot.
Why, of all things, Disneyfication? Take a look at the Huffington Post editorial board and make a guess how long ago any of them stopped believing in fairy tales.
Special thanks to Jon Sutz and Mrs. Red Square for their invaluable ideas and input.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/noor-salman-disney.jpg360640The Peoples Cubehttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Peoples Cube2018-04-04 06:40:322021-10-08 01:46:59Noor Salman does Disney
In the long history of the church, perhaps no partnership has been more consequential than that between St. Paul the Apostle and his disciple, St. Luke.
Between them, they account for at least 15 of the 27 books of the New Testament, and Luke accompanied Paul on some of the journeys during which the Apostle to the Gentiles sowed the seeds of faith across the Roman Empire.
The film dramatically presents three “F’s”: Faith in God, faith in the family and the faith in the church.
Paul, Luke and others’ of the faith in Jesus, the Son of God, are tested. The family of husband and wife Aquila and Priscilla. And finally the faith of the church community in Rome in A.D. 64 under Imperator Nero Cladius Divi Claudius filius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.
This film is relevant today. Why?
Faith in God, faith in the family and faith in the church are under siege!
In 2014, a Pew study found that 23 percent of Americans considered themselves “nones” (atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular”). Sunday school, once a staple of childhood for many Americans, is becoming a thing of the past.
The one area of the supernatural that now attracts the millennial generation’s interest is the occult. Spurred on by the hyper-connected world of social media, occult trends like the Charlie Charlie game are fueling a “witchcraft renaissance.”
Obsession with the fictional horror character Slender Man even led two 12-year-old girls in Wisconsin to brutally stab their classmate.
As Michelle Goldberg writes in The New York Times, “Often when traditional institutions and beliefs collapse and people are caught between cultural despair and cosmic hopes, they turn to magic.” Self-described witch Dakota Bracciale says of the collapse of traditional religions, “It left this huge vacuum, and that vacuum had to be filled with something.”
New York Magazine columnist Andrew Sullivan points to the spiritual vacuum as the source of the opioid crisis. “Even as we near peak employment and record-high median household income, a sense of permanent economic insecurity and spiritual emptiness has become widespread.”
Similarly, Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton and Princeton University economist Anne Case attribute the rising suicide rate to the declining spiritual health of white, middle-aged men. If adults are finding it harder to cling to self-control, sanity, and life itself, is it any wonder that an unprecedented number of youth are finding it harder and harder to get through their teenage years?
Professor emeritus of psychology at New York University Paul Vitz attributes teens’ skyrocketing anxiety, self-harm, suicides, and school shootings to their poor spiritual health. Despite being born into a world with more material comforts and mental health resources than ever, the next generation seems increasingly drawn toward self-destruction.
Vitz observes that without belief in objective truth, goodness, and beauty, including the belief that they are created in the image of God, the next generation clings to external sources of identity: social media, sexual experiences, and material possessions.
In a sea of ever-changing cultural and social trends, such flimsy sources of meaning can predictably leave some of them bewildered and overwhelmed. “Countless young people … feel there is nothing for them to believe in,” he writes. “Emotional numbness is one of the consequences. They … no longer find self-worth in their efforts to lead lives based on truth and love.”
Vitz proposes that Americans re-examine the value of faith and its power to help people live happier, healthier, and longer lives. [Emphasis added]
Ancient Rome is a reflection of the world today
As it was during the time of Nero we see history repeating itself. Christians are still being persecuted. Families are still being tested by the evils in the world outside. People are still being crucified and burned alive. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, children and the unborn are being slaughtered globally. Hate and revenge have replace love and compassion in the hearts of mankind.
But their is an answer. An answer that has always been there for mankind. Kao ends with this, “Sullivan writes that our country will not overcome its demons until we resolve the deeper problems that have led to the breakdown of faith, family, and community.”
The answer is FAITH in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the message given in “Paul, Apostle of Christ.”
As George Michael said in the lyrics to his hit song “Faith”:
‘Cause I’ve gotta have faith
Unh I gotta faith
Because I gotta to have faith, faith, faith
I gotta to have faith, faith, faith
Faith in God and in his son Jesus. Faith in our family and finally faith in the Church, which resides in the hearts and souls of each of us.
EDITORS NOTE: Below is a map of the four journeys of St. Paul as he spread the word of Jesus to the four corners of the earth.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/paul-apostle-of-christ.jpg366640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2018-04-03 09:25:262018-04-03 09:43:20Paul, Apostle of Christ: Ancient Rome is a grim reflection of Today’s World
You will see David Hogg, Emma González and Alex Wind wearing a button with the phrase “We call BS.” BS stands for bullshit. BS is a profane idiom which means “nonsense.” Profanity and nonsense have become the symbols of the anti-gun movement. Profanity and nonsense are the mantra of what drives those who want to disarm law abiding citizens and repeal the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in the name of saving children from violence.
There is actually a class at the University of Washington titled “Calling Bullshit.” The syllabus for the course reads:
The world is awash in bullshit. Politicians are unconstrained by facts. Science is conducted by press release. Higher education rewards bullshit over analytic thought. Startup culture elevates bullshit to high art. Advertisers wink conspiratorially and invite us to join them in seeing through all the bullshit — and take advantage of our lowered guard to bombard us with bullshit of the second order. The majority of administrative activity, whether in private business or the public sphere, seems to be little more than a sophisticated exercise in the combinatorial reassembly of bullshit.
We’re sick of it. It’s time to do something, and as educators, one constructive thing we know how to do is to teach people. So, the aim of this course is to help students navigate the bullshit-rich modern environment by identifying bullshit, seeing through it, and combating it with effective analysis and argument.
The University of Washington Calling Bullshit course defines bullshit as:
Bullshit involves language, statistical figures, data graphics, and other forms of presentation intended to persuade by impressing and overwhelming a reader or listener, with a blatant disregard for truth and logical coherence.
Calling bullshit is a performative utterance, a speech act in which one publicly repudiates something objectionable. The scope of targets is broader than bullshit alone. You can call bullshit on bullshit, but you can also call bullshit on lies, treachery, trickery, or injustice.
What David, Emma and Alex also have in common is “a blatant disregard for truth and logical coherence.” It is critical to “call bullshit on lies, treachery, trickery, or injustice.”
What is the truth is that Nikolas Cruz would never have passed a National Background check. The truth is that the Broward County School Board, Broward County Sheriff, the FBI and students at Marjory Douglass High School are all culpable and possibly responsible for what happened on February 14th, 2018.
The truth is that the one thing mass shooters have in common is that they come from a broken family.
Bullshitting the Bullshitter
David Hogg, Emma González and Alex Wind are all bullshitters, led by bullshitters trying to bullshit the people that gun control is the answer to stopping violence.
We don’t need to harden our public schools. We need to harden our families. We need to teach our children how to safely use a gun to protect themselves from violence. Gun ownership is a choice. One not choosing to own a firearm is their choice. Their choice cannot infringe on the rest of Americans right to keep and bear arms as clearly outlined in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Before being elected President, while serving in Congress, James Garfield stated at the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1876:
“Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature … If the next centennial does not find us a great nation…it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.”
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/gun-control-hogg-gonzalez-wind.jpg360640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2018-03-30 06:17:362018-04-08 05:27:04What do David Hogg, Emma González and Alex Wind have in common?
Sarah Pruitt from 
Ingrid E. Newkirk, the English-born British-American animal rights activist and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), in a press release noted:
Why, of all things, Disneyfication? Take a look at the Huffington Post editorial board and make a guess how long ago any of them stopped believing in fairy tales.
Special thanks to Jon Sutz and Mrs. Red Square for their invaluable ideas and input.
The film dramatically presents three “F’s”: Faith in God, faith in the family and the faith in the church.
You will see David Hogg, Emma González and Alex Wind wearing a button with the phrase “We call BS.” BS stands for bullshit. BS is a profane idiom which means “nonsense.” Profanity and nonsense have become the symbols of the anti-gun movement. Profanity and nonsense are the mantra of what drives those who want to disarm law abiding citizens and repeal the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in the name of saving children from violence.