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Jon Cutchins's avatar

The way that I remember the lockdowns is that no one spoke out because mostly they had no interest in speaking out. We all went home with pay and thought it was stupid but it was stupidity that somebody else was paying for, which anyone who works for a corporation has gotten very used to accepting quietly. Yes, they were stupid and destructive but it was a multi-month vacation for a lot of us. I knew that there were long term consequences but I didn't see how I could do anything from my position and I was content to sit at home and get paid for not finding a way to fix it. Of course, it was '21 and '22 when the bill started to come due and will be coming due for years, but selling the future to buy the present is a major hallmark of our society. Had some problems with the, now revealed to be insanely corrupt, Department of Labor but mostly the employment side of the lockdowns wasn't bad.

Now in Georgia, you could still do most things. We went to the beach. We did normal shopping and things just in a much less crowded and relaxed way. The part of the lockdowns that raised our hackles and made me start to care was the school closures and then the next year of sending students home if some dude on the bus had a sniffle.

I guess what I am saying is that a 'hard power' approach to censorship is not only unneeded but less effective than the soft way of just making people not want to speak out with either carrots or sticks. The Trumpian censorship of paying us not to make a fuss made the lockdowns was a success from the State point of view whereas the Bidenite mandates were an utter failure. Hard censorship is both unnecessary and ineffective. Only moronic administrations try it and they pretty much always fail. The soft censorship of decreased reach worked on conservatives for decades but the bans triggered a nearly instant groundswell of rage. Open suppression will pretty much always provoke an overwhelming reaction and it may be wondered if it is not often arranged exactly for that purpose.

So, to look more directly at Brian's thinking. We can categorize speech like this:

1)speech that is suppressed by government-only speech that is never helpful and always harmful should go into this bin and because of the blunt and headless nature of government it must be rather nonspecific and deal only with entire classes, that is broadly obvious categories of speech. is there any class of speech that is never helpful and always harmful? as long as we live in nations of 'laws and not of men' government should never regulate speech because their is no statutory way to specify speech such that only speech that is never helpful and always harmful will be regulated. In a hypothetical government where men of sense administered justice based on their own sense of right and wrong this might change. But that state does not exist.

2)speech that is disfavored by cultural gatekeepers or speech that is favored by cultural gatekeepers - this bin is administered with sufficient flexibility and specificity that it can sort out beneficial from harmful speech quite accurately. the problem that we currently have is that cultural gatekeepers have no accountability either to universal truth or to the nation as a whole. they simply favor what they are paid, in whatever form, to favor. thus, they favor the payors, private or governmental. it is highly necessary for society to be able to control speech on a gradient with a flexible and accountable mechanism. but like all tools in our hands corruption ensures that the wrong speech is favored and disfavored. hate the corruption not the gatekeeping. we don't need less gatekeeping. we need better gatekeeping. but if we can't get it we might have to settle for less gatekeeping. but as Brian says, this is a concession to our inability to do better. It is not an optimal and desirable state.

4)speech that is compelled by government- not sure that anything should ever go in this bin except testifying to a crime that you witnessed

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jacquelyn sauriol's avatar

Still laughing at the 'shortage of economically attractive men'....when we can't even define a man or a woman...

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