On Fearing Freedom—Plus Thanking Substack for Standing up to the Censorship Bullies

On Fearing Freedom—Plus Thanking Substack for Standing up to the Censorship Bullies Add Your Signature in the Comments to Join Me in Thanking the Founders MARGARET ANNA ALICE JAN 22 “It was the fear of freedom, with all its dangers, that got the Germans into trouble in the first place.… Free inquiry on a free platform is the only practice that distinguishes a free from a slave society.” —Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45 (Kindle, paperback, audiobook) “The greatest attack on language is censorship and this must be resisted at every level. You cannot have a free society without free speech, period. Any attempt to argue that others must be protected from offense and hurt feelings should be utterly repudiated. No government, no company, no fact-checkers can ever be the arbiters of truth.” —Michelle Stiles, One Idea To Rule Them All: Reverse Engineering American Propaganda (Kindle, paperback, audiobook) Nudging Us to Fear Freedom If I had been told a decade ago I would be frittering my time arguing with people about why censorship is bad and why free speech must be treasured, I wouldn’t have believed it. I mean, who objects to freedom? Okay, dictators and their psychophants, yes, but I’m talking about real people, not the uncanny-valley villains trying to rule the world. And who would be so arrogant as to claim they have the right to silence others? And how could anyone be naïve enough to think that—once empowered to mute citizens—governments, agencies, nonprofits, and corporations would not abuse that power? Have these people never opened a history book? The Quicker I Give All My Rights Away Meme Those Who Don't Study History Cartoon Howard Zinn: History Can Come in Handy Quote This Is the Only Graph Meme It was around 2016 when I first noticed the propagandists’ subtle efforts to nudge the public toward acceptance of the idea that some speech should be censored, some information should be bowdlerized, some people should be silenced. Google: Censorship Results Uncensored Speech Is a Threat to Democracy MSM NPCs How Can You Tell the Truth Meme This sociological conditioning is what Jacques Ellul calls “pre-propaganda” in his seminal Propaganda: “Direct propaganda, aimed at modifying opinions and attitudes, must be preceded by propaganda that is sociological in character, slow, general, seeking to create a climate, an atmosphere of favorable preliminary attitudes. No direct propaganda can be effective without pre-propaganda, which, without direct or noticeable aggression, is limited to creating ambiguities, reducing prejudices, and spreading images, apparently without purpose.… The ground must be sociologically prepared before one can proceed to direct prompting. Sociological propaganda can be compared to plowing, direct propaganda to sowing; you cannot do the one without doing the other first.” First They Came for the “Nazis” But don’t worry, Facebook told us, only naughty, nasty little Nazis will be censored—not good, sweet little people like us. Then 2020 hit, and the totalitarians threw the Disinformation Playbook at doctors, scientists, journalists, and other critically-thinking folks for questioning their Big Lies, followed up by Italian-mother–sized helpings of gaslighting, coercion, and pressures to self-censor. Union of Concerned Scientists Disinformation Playbook When all that failed to shut up the bravest voices, they established the Ministry of Truth, installed the Thought Police, hired a mercenary army of fact-chokers, enlisted the COVID kapos, and tried (and in some cases, succeeded) to strip inconveniently credible doctors of their licenses for possessing a functioning brain, conscience, and spine. And thus censorship became normalized, and people claiming to be fighting Nazis started pouting, throwing tantrums, and threatening to run away if Substack—one of the few remaining havens of free speech untainted by the Censorship Industrial Complex—didn’t violate its writers’ freedom of expression in the name of “safety.” I'm Leaving Substack Unless They Censor Meme The Dossier New York Times journalist rage quits Substack over inability to censor everything he deems 'hate speech' and 'extremism' A cancel culture activist behind a far-left, pro-censorship movement of Substack writers is rage quitting from the platform, after he failed to push the company in the direction of full-blown “content moderation” (censorship).The Dossier is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscri… Read more 10 days ago · 1223 likes · 380 comments · Jordan Schachtel Wholistic Censorship Advocate Jonathan Katz Leaves Substack Jonathan Katz, a man who fancies himself the arbiter of free speech online, has announced defeat in his quest to dominate the rules of Substack…and…HE’S GONE. He’s taken his blacklists and moved over to Beehiiv. After initially declaring victory over the “Nazis,” alarming many of us in favor of free speech here, Katz realized Substack wasn’t actually doi… Read more 6 days ago · 33 likes · 5 comments · Stephanie After the launch of Substack Notes in April 2023, the beggings for muzzlings grew full-throated as the authoritarians used their free speech to shriek for the silencing of others. Sir Sir You Can't Say That Meme Then in November 2023, The Atlantic published a hatchet job titled Substack Has a Nazi Problem, provoking a new wave of wailings from the censorship bullies that has spilled over into 2024. In that article, Jonathan Katz identifies sixteen (Heavens! Just a few more dominos till world dominion is unlocked!) Substack newsletters that had “overt Nazi symbols, including the swastika and the sonnenrad, in their logos or in prominent graphics”—without substantiating those claims. I have to wonder how many of them are using that symbol satirically—like the mask artwork on the cover of CJ Hopkins’s The Rise of the New Normal Reich that earned him a no-expenses paid trip to Berlin’s criminal court on January 23 courtesy of Germany’s humor-deficient Thought Gestapo. CJ Hopkins: Rise of the New Normal Reich Book Cover CJ Hopkins Meet the Thought Police So, my trial for thoughtcrimes in New Normal Germany takes place next Tuesday, January 23rd. It will likely be a one-day affair. It’s open to the public, so, if you’re in Berlin, you can come and watch at the Berlin District Court, Turmstraße 91, Room 371. The proceedings are scheduled to begin at 12:00 noon… Read more 6 days ago · 460 likes · 219 comments · CJ Hopkins I interrupt this broadcast to extend an invitation from CJ Hopkins to attend his trial in person and maybe grab a cuppa joe afterward: “So, my trial for thoughtcrimes in New Normal Germany takes place next Tuesday, January 23rd. It will likely be a one-day affair. It’s open to the public, so, if you’re in Berlin, you can come and watch at the Berlin District Court, Turmstraße 91, Room 371. The proceedings are scheduled to begin at 12:00 noon.… Seriously, though, if you are in Berlin and have nothing better to do next Tuesday, come on down to the Berlin District Court and meet some of the German Thought Police in person. If things go smoothly, perhaps we can all go out and get a coffee afterwards.” To those of you in the vicinity of Berlin who are up for a visit, CJ says: “Thanks, Margaret, please do let your German readers know. I want to be welcoming. Of course, I wouldn’t want my trial to turn into a circus or anything. That would just be terrible, wouldn’t it?” So just make sure to leave your clown paraphernalia at home and practice decorum in the courtroom 🤡😉 But let’s just give Jonathan the benefit of the doubt and say they’re all legitimate Nazi publications. And then imagine if his pearl-clutching article had been titled “Substack Has a Communist Problem” (and boy, are there a heck of a lot more communist newsletters than sixteen, not to mention those sporting its softer, rebranded sibling that goes by socialist). Why does that ideology get a pass when it was responsible for roughly 140,911,000 more deaths than fascism? ...