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NT! There is currently a lot of outrage on Twitter over what President Trump is doing on Twitter right now, in that he's RT'ing several people who were recently banned by Face Book, and of course, that's absolutely terrible!
Most of the outraged are saying, "How can you RT this person, who is a known this or that?!?!", but they are all missing the point, I think, of *why* Trump (and others) is doing this. It's called exercising his First Amendment rights.
You know, that pesky section in that pesky document that guarantee's the following: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to assemble, and the right to petition the government.
The part that is of the most relevance today is the guarantee regarding free speech. Censorship in any form is anathema to the ideals of our free society, and the solution to speech that you don't like isn't to ban it.
No, the solution to speech that you don't like is to counter it with *more* speech, speech that shows *why* you think the other persons speech is wrong, by presenting the counter argument to their speech.
Censorship, or outright banning, makes zero effort at *countering* the speech that is deemed "wrong", or "hateful", or "violent" (whatever *that* means - words are words, not baseball bats).
Censorship, or outright banning, of speech is supposedly a method of "protecting" people from hearing stuff that they may not like or agree with. This is a very slippery slope to start down, as what's going to be the next type of speech that they ban?
Will it be discussions on the climate? Will they ban dissenting views - from *either* side? How about banning speech on clothing styles? Pizza toppings? Book reviews in the NY Times? Where will it end?
While some of the people that Face Book banned may not be "right for polite society", and *should* be marginalized, banning them has only raised their profile, causing many to come to their defense.
I served in the US Navy, taking an oath to protect the rights of *everyone*, whether I agreed with what they had to say or not, and that oath has not expired, not has anyone relieved me of that oath.
I don't support the likes of anyone who is an anti-Semite, a white nationalist, or anyone who spins conspiracy theories, but I still support their right to think and say their stupid stuff regardless of the fact that I disagree with them on every point.
We are facing a choice here. To either support the censorship through banning, or to speak up against it in order to get that decision reversed, even though many of the people who have been banned are vile in their speech.
You also have another choice. You can either ignore this slippery slope we've started on, or you can ignore the speech of those who have been banned. I have made my choice. Free speech is a right everyone has, even if that speech is vile.
