The case for censorship in the EU & Canada. (Poll)

[kyzr]

JD Vance really pissed the EU audience off with his "anti-censorship" tirade the other day.

We Americans forget that in our isolated enclave we are the big dog and we have many more freedoms than other parts of the world.

After seeing Russia invade Ukraine, and use for their justification that they were "protecting Russians" from genocide and abuse by the Ukrainian government, I now understand that certain censorship is necessary. We would call them "outside agitators". Russia would call them "freedom fighters". I now understand why EU countries need to clamp down on agitators, arrest them, and deport them. Aside from "separatists" free political speech is a very good thing and I agree with JD. That said. Should Canada prohibit Pro-American rallies or "speech" via censorship?

JD Vance Beautifully Roasts EU Leaders in First Major Speech

townhall.com

JD Vance Beautifully Roasts EU Leaders in First Major Speech​

In addition to immigration, Vance used his first significant speech as Vice President to lambast EU leaders about censorship and its refusal to work with right-wing government parties. He criticized European leaders for censoring political parties, Christians, and the peaceful protests of pro-life prayer activists.

 

[Samofvt]

Your rationality is the same one used by heinous dictators like Maduro in Venezuela: Suppress anyone who voices opinions against the ruling party at all costs, whether their arguments make sense or not. Lie to the people to cover it up.

In fact, in a functioning society, all voices should be considered, and if some of the voices make good sense, those ideas should be adopted. That's why places with democratically elected representatives and free speech have so vastly outperformed other totalitarian type régimes.

I hope we can restore free speech in America again. Then we will be much more productive and life will be better for everyone.

 

[luiza]

US is as bad or worse .
In party political terms you have only got to look at how the Estalishment left in the last decade , minimum , has created Fake meanings to words and terms to "prove" unrelated and / or otherwise obviously Fake equivalence .

In fact I regard the US as far more obviously Fascist than the EU or Team GB in this area.

 

[kyzr]

Your rationality is the same one used by heinous dictators like Maduro in Venezuela: Suppress anyone who voices opinions against the ruling party at all costs, whether their arguments make sense or not. Lie to the people to cover it up.

In fact, in a functioning society, all voices should be considered, and if some of the voices make good sense, those ideas should be adopted. That's why places with democratically elected representatives and free speech have so vastly outperformed other totalitarian type regimes.

I hope we can restore free speech in America again. Then we will be much more productive and life will be better for everyone.

1. Musk restored free speech by buying Twitter and renaming it "X". Twitter always obeyed the FBI's censorship requests, like killing articles about Hunter's laptop. Who do you think is still censoring anyone?

2. Dictators by definition squash all opposition. There is only one way to deal with dictators like Maduro. My point is for functioning democracies, should the government allow radicals to stir up anti-government opposition, such as "Russians" in Ukraine, or even Pro-American Canadians pushing for American statehood? That could lead to violence if not stopped.

 

[jwoodie]

After seeing Russia invade Ukraine, and use for their justification that they were "protecting Russians" from genocide and abuse by the Ukrainian government, I now understand that certain censorship is necessary. We would call them "outside agitators". Russia would call them "freedom fighters". I now understand why EU countries need to clamp down on agitators, arrest them, and deport them. Aside from "separatists" free political speech is a very good thing and I agree with JD. That said. Should Canada prohibit Pro-American rallies or "speech" via censorship?

The EU is a failed attempt to create a United States of Europe without sufficient unifying factors. As such, its attempts to force consensus among disparate populations have become increasingly authoritarian. The only justifiable basis for censorship is to prevent a clear and present danger to public safety. This includes immediate threats of violence and invasion by foreign entities. It should not include public appeals for separation within a country.

Canada suffers a similar problem. It is a cobbled together collection of former British colonies whose only unifying factor is not being part of the United States. Internally, it has had to deal with the same separation issues (i.e., Quebec) that many EU countries have been dealing with (e.g., Spain and the UK). It has also resorted to increased censorship for the purpose of maintaining political power rather than public safety.

The current brouhaha about Canada becoming a 51st State of the US actually serves to raise the larger question of its being an independent country at all. With its economy and defense being entirely dependent on the US, its real status is more like a Sanctuary City or State that pretending to be independent from the larger entity it actually depends on.

 

[kyzr]

The EU is a failed attempt to create a United States of Europe without sufficient unifying factors. As such, its attempts to force consensus among disparate populations have become increasingly authoritarian. The only justifiable basis for censorship is to prevent a clear and present danger to public safety. This includes immediate threats of violence and invasion by foreign entities. It should not include public appeals for separation within a country.

Canada suffers a similar problem. It is a cobbled together collection of former British colonies whose only unifying factor is not being part of the United States. Internally, it has had to deal with the same separation issues (i.e., Quebec) that many EU countries have been dealing with (e.g., Spain and the UK). It has also resorted to increased censorship for the purpose of maintaining political power rather than public safety.

The current brouhaha about Canada becoming a 51st State of the US actually serves to raise the larger question of its being an independent country at all. With its economy and defense being entirely dependent on the US, its real status is more like a Sanctuary City or State that pretending to be independent from the larger entity it actually depends on.

So you agree that countries need to occasionally clamp down and censor certain "movements" to avoid future violence?

That was the point of this thread. Censorship isn't always bad. (IMHO)

 

[jwoodie]

So you agree that countries need to occasionally clamp down and censor certain "movements" to avoid future violence?

That was the point of this thread. Censorship isn't always bad. (IMHO)

Why did you substitute "movements" for immediate threats to public safety?

 

[kyzr]

Why did you substitute "movements" for immediate threats to public safety?

All movements are not a threat to public safety.
1. Would a Pro-American movement in Canada be a threat? I don't think so.
2. Would Muslim movements in the EU protesting deportations be a threat? Possibly.
3. Would Pro-Russian movements in countries that border Russia be a threat? hell yes. inviting invasion to protect them.

 

[Samofvt]

1. Musk restored free speech by buying Twitter and renaming it "X". Twitter always obeyed the FBI's censorship requests, like killing articles about Hunter's laptop. Who do you think is still censoring anyone?

2. Dictators by definition squash all opposition. There is only one way to deal with dictators like Maduro. My point is for functioning democracies, should the government allow radicals to stir up anti-government opposition, such as "Russians" in Ukraine, or even Pro-American Canadians pushing for American statehood? That could lead to violence if not stopped.

I see your point, and I can see how you came to the conclusion. It is worth discussing.

There seem to be three types of censorship:

1) Someone's ideas are forcibly taken down and removed from public view. This certainly does happen frequently in my state. The reason you don't hear about it unless you know the affected party personally is because...those viewpoints were removed from public view. Nationally, J6 is an example of an idea that got too big to cover up. Those J6ers were on national television when they brought their grievances to Congress when they were taken down. They could not merely "censor" the concerns brought by the people, they had to create a false narrative and spin. Most MSM was prohibited from broadcasting anything that might cast the concerns of the protestors as legitimate: they were only allowed to broadcast the story of violent protestors being rounded up "justifiably" because THEY threatened democracy.

2) Censorship by omission. Practically all of the major news outlets exercise censorship through bias. Why shouldn't a news organization publish articles from all sides of an argument? Very few do. You may notice that news outlets that perform this service of broadcasting only the ruling class's version of stories NEVER allow comments on their websites. Some that do allow comments delete comments that are not favorable to the thread of the story. YouTube is a perfect example of a place where comments are regularly deleted (confirmed many times by many people). Whereas news outlets that I tend to rely on do publish articles reflecting many sides of an argument, allow comments by the public, and rarely delete those comments (profanity, threats, and name calling are understandable reasons to remove comments for safety...technically still censorship, but people should mind their manners in public, shouldn't they?)

3) Censorship due to lack of funding. Broadcasting to a large enough audience costs money. The ruling class (big government, in this case) has methods at its disposal to ensure that the opposition never gets enough funding to get its word out.

Our current bureaucratic federal government (and many states) employs all three of these censorship methods on a regular basis. True that about Twitter/X. Although it is big, it's not exactly a "news" source...more of a "rant and rave" platform : - )

 

[kyzr]

I see your point, and I can see how you came to the conclusion. It is worth discussing.

There seem to be three types of censorship:

1) Someone's ideas are forcibly taken down and removed from public view. This certainly does happen frequently in my state. The reason you don't hear about it unless you know the affected party personally is because...those viewpoints were removed from public view. Nationally, J6 is an example of an idea that got too big to cover up. Those J6ers were on national television when they brought their grievances to Congress when they were taken down. They could not merely "censor" the concerns brought by the people, they had to create a false narrative and spin. Most MSM was prohibited from broadcasting anything that might cast the concerns of the protestors as legitimate: they were only allowed to broadcast the story of violent protestors being rounded up "justifiably" because THEY threatened democracy.

2) Censorship by omission. Practically all of the major news outlets exercise censorship through bias. Why shouldn't a news organization publish articles from all sides of an argument? Very few do. You may notice that news outlets that perform this service of broadcasting only the ruling class's version of stories NEVER allow comments on their websites. Some that do allow comments delete comments that are not favorable to the thread of the story. YouTube is a perfect example of a place where comments are regularly deleted (confirmed many times by many people). Whereas news outlets that I tend to rely on do publish articles reflecting many sides of an argument, allow comments by the public, and rarely delete those comments (profanity, threats, and name calling are understandable reasons to remove comments for safety...technically still censorship, but people should mind their manners in public, shouldn't they?)

3) Censorship due to lack of funding. Broadcasting to a large enough audience costs money. The ruling class (big government, in this case) has methods at its disposal to ensure that the opposition never gets enough funding to get its word out.

Our current bureaucratic federal government (and many states) employs all three of these censorship methods on a regular basis. True that about Twitter/X. Although it is big, it's not exactly a "news" source...more of a "rant and rave" platform : - )

Nice post!

1. An example is the FBI's (Elvis Chen) censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story by threatening Twitter and other outlets if they didn't censor it. J6ers being called "insurrectionists" ad nauseam even though it was not an insurrection; although technically not censorship it is "deep state/DNC/MSM" sponsored propaganda or possibly censorship of the real reason being protested....an obviously stolen election. (Trump got 11,000,000 more votes in 2020 and lost??). Not likely.

2. Censorship by managing what the "truth" is. Remember the singing "Truth Czar" lady? KellyAnne Conway made up the phrase "alternate facts" to combat the MSM's constant lying about Trump, like now the MSM is saying there is "no evidence" of waste, fraud or abuse, and Elon Musk is destroying democracy. So "political censorship" is alive and kicking in the US, enabled by democrats everywhere.