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Even after 16 years of political action, I remain stunned by liberals’ capacity for self-delusion. Last week, I wrote “What is your state’s Freedom Index?” detailing a George Mason University study of variables of social and economic freedom in all 50 states.
Using digg.com’s “bury” button – and possibly automated bury scripts -- liberals denied it both popular status and use of the site’s search engine, effectively censoring it. Mind you, this was not a gun-related piece, but rather one on personal freedom. Its burial suggests that those of a collectivist mindset are not at all happy about your independence.
Next, I wrote “FREEDOM: What the left wing of ‘digg’ cannot ‘bury’” which, of course, they promptly buried. No matter: Via digg and elsewhere, several thousand people read it and “dugg” for freedom (364 diggs, at last count; more than enough for the politics front page), as well as complaining to digg about abusive use of the bury button. Not bad for a buried piece.
Now I am going to give them the voice they denied me: Following are some of readers’ comments from digg – not the supportive ones, mind you, but the opposition. (Or at least the rational opposition. Most were unhinged.) Trust me: It is a fascinating insight into the thought processes, such as they are, of quasi-communists.
| Image courtesy of Ayn Rand via Larry Linton |
Liberal responses fall into two broad categories:
- Denying someone a voice isn’t censorship, it is “democracy”; and
- “Hey! This is the Internet! Liberals own it! Conservatives, go away!”
Given the Obama campaign’s reliance on viral marketing via the Internet in the last election, the latter response reminds us that conservatives must seize ground in this relatively new battlefield of ideology.
DISCOURSE WITH THE LEFTIES (their comments, my replies)
deadbaby (no, I’m not making that up): “This is a great example of how the radical right has a twisted view of freedom. Anyone can sign-up for digg and digg something up or down. If the majority of people decide to digg a right leaning story down it's not suppression of free speech. It's democracy.”
FPV: Foreign though the concept may be, “Democracy” is where we have a free and open forum to test our ideas in the court of public opinion. Having heard both sides, people make up their minds. When you “bury” one side’s perspective, denying others the ability to evaluate it, the result is censorship and propaganda.
Niallgriff: “I'll digg what I want and bury what I think is stupid. What you call freedom, I may not, and vice versa. I really miss the days of digg being a tech site...”
FPV: Ignoring, for a moment, your exercise in moral relativism (freedom is the absence of restriction; it isn’t different for different people), I feel your pain. My brother-in-law feels the same way about his native state of California: Before the Birkenstock crowd descended like an occupying force, it was a little like Texas. Now it is best exemplified by the Castro district in San Francisco.
pacerx: “buried for orwellian [sic] usage of language.”
FPV: Given that George presaged a socialist autocracy when he astutely predicted the “Newspeak” we now call “political correctness,” I doubt he would approve.
rossmcd: “On Digg the users have freedom to vote up or down stories. If you want to see more conservative stories either go to a social media site with a more conservative userbase, or go read a news outlet with top-down content control by a conservative editor. You'll probably enjoy Fox news.”
FPV: Given the relative infancy of the Internet, older people more prone to conservative views have been largely locked out by lack of technical proficiency, rendering it a bastion of liberal dominance. Sadly for you, that is become less true as tech-savvy people actually grow up. Well move over, because conservatives are here and we’re here to stay. We don’t want ‘top down content control,’ we want a voice.
DasPainkiller: “It’s sad that so many of my fellow Democrats on Digg bury someone if they express a view different from theirs. That is not what being "Liberal" is about. I don't know the demographics of Digg, but in college, you're taught to examine all viewpoints with as little bias as possible. It's unfortunate that people still have such trivial, childish reactions to words like "Conservative" or "Liberal," or "Communism," not knowing what they mean, and burying them because they evoke an emotion, rather than being part of an academically false or unsound comment.”
FPV: An intellectually honest liberal. Bravo, sir! Bravo! Unfortunately, I’m not sure that is what colleges teach any more.
chialla: “So this is a campaign to end the overuse of the bury button that starts with telling people to bury articles dug by 2 specific users... I'm missing the logic here.”
FPV: Beyond the fact that I didn’t tell anybody to “bury” articles favored by apparent bury-abusers “zomgondo” and “drakoi,” telling someone under attack not to use the same weapons as his assailant is a little like the unilateral nuclear disarmament protests of the Reagan era: It is both utopian and dangerous.
swrostmore: “Huge majorities everywhere disagree with your moronic political opinions...no, that's too simple, it must be a left wing liberul conspiracy to bury your freedums.”
FPV: “Liberul?” “Freedum?” May I suggest that if you don’t know how to spell it, you probably don’t know what it is?
THE ‘VOICE OF TOLERANCE’ IS RARELY TOLERANT
One of my copilots once overheard me on the telephone as I worked a concealed handgun reciprocity bill. As we got to the cockpit, she asked: “I heard a little bit of what you said. Do you do union work?”
“No,” I replied. “I’m afraid I’m one of what Hillary Clinton once called the ‘vast right wing conspiracy.’”
“I’m a Democrat,” she snipped.
“It’s okay: I forgive you,” I smiled.
“I don’t forgive you,” she spat.
“Of course not, dear. The ‘Voice of Tolerance’ is rarely tolerant.”
| Complain to digg.com about abusive "burying," including use of automated scripts, go to: http://digg.com/contact/ |
www.fpaulvalone.com
For legislative information, go to:
www.GRNC.org
Check out other Gun Rights Examiners:
- Austin: Gun control, Eric Holder, and racism
- Charlotte: Baiting liberals for fun and profit!
- Cleveland: Banning competition firearms
- DC: Wall Street Journal lapses into newspeak when it comes to guns
- Denver: Keep them guessing
- Los Angeles: John Longenecker interviews Oklahoma Senator Randy Brogdon on State Sovereignty, Guns Rights, and more
- Minneapolis: The first thing you do is drag him inside
- National: Tyranny is counting on ignorance
- Seattle: Prison releases, police cutbacks pose a danger to citizens
- St. Louis: When the order of protection . . . provides none
Copyright © F. Paul Valone All rights reserved
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Comments
I suggest you stick to gun rights, and try to avoid alienating pro-gunners who may identify themselves as liberal. There is nothing that says "liberal"="anti-gun rights" or "conservative"="pro-gun rights". Without too much effort, you can find examples of pro-gun liberals, anti-gun conservatives and both pro- and anti-gun "others".
Like lots of people, I'm "conservative" in some ways, and "liberal" in others. Two grown men want to get married? Not my business. Someone wants to carry a gun for protection? Also not my business.
That's because I'm in favor of individuals and individual liberty - and neither major party consistently puts individuals first.
Actually, I agree with you, Cliff. The problem is that hard core liberals at digg.com are systematically burying gun rights content, helping to minimize distribution.
If conservatives believe that freedom is the absence of restriction, then why do so many of them seek to place arbitrary restrictions on personal freedom based on things they find subjectively uncomfortable? For example, gay marriage. As Cliff above me says, if two dudes want to get married, its none of my gods damned business, even if the idea were uncomfortable to me for some reason. But to get back on subject, I agree that the people burying your article are acting childish. Any group of people, Liberal or Conservative, who claim to love freedom but seek to place restrictions on others based on their own SUBJECTIVE discomfort are hypocrites.
... which is why I haven't commented on gay marriage, nor did the original piece the liberals buried. You can rail against the religious right, if you wish, but I am not the religious right. Yet the libs bury my stuff anyway ...
every couple of months, some unsuccessful conservative will write an article like this. sorry, it's not 'censorship' if your article is buried, it means it was not popular enough to be promoted. you still are free to comment and submit other articles, in no way have you been censored or your free speech been hindered.
when mccain/palin lost because not enough people would vote for her, was the republican party "censored"? no, they lost the election, so obama and the dems get to dominate the front page of the news. same as digg.
why isn't there a liberal opinion of digg article right next to this one? by your definition, the liberal view is being censored since you refuse to post an exact equal amount of views.
i especially love how you want fair and open intellectual discourse but manage to insult liberals at every turn in this piece.
quit your whining. sorry you didn't get all the publicity you want, here's a tissue......
Because Russell, those people are not politically conservative. They may be social conservatives, or fiscal conservatives, but they are not American style POLITICAL conservatives. Any political liberal can be all of the above or none of the above.
You have let the definition of conservative as used politically escape you. Not hard to do, either, since many people who describe themselves as conservatives are actually political liberals with conservative viewpoints regarding societal or fiscal issues.
However, unlike the true political conservative they do not understand that in America it simply means you believe what the constitution says, not what you wish it said, not what you can twist it to say, not what you can redefine the words in it to mean, but what it actually says in the meaning of the words at the time they were written.
If one believes in that premise, then he is a political conservative because he reads the constitution conservatively for what it actually says, known as conservative interpretation.
Political liberals believe a liberal interpretation of the constitution is appropriate, or at least the pretend to do so. For you see if they do not espouse that position then they have no basis to claim legitimacy in interfering with the lives of others.
A true political conservative understands that he hasn't the right nor constitutional imprimatur to interfere in the lives of others so long as they are not infringing his rights.
So, your question was and is based on a faulty premise. Again, understandable since I seem to be the only s.o.b. in the country who still knows the real meaning of the terms. You may thank your teachers and the Mainstream Media for the confusion apparent in your question.
The reason your articles are dugg down is because they miss the point and are rather uninteresting to most of the people that peruse digg. I read all of your articles and I can easily point out your logical fallacies and why they were buried.
1. You state in your second article that the 1st one had "nothing to do with gun rights," yet your article clearly stated that freedom is heavily weighed by gun rights. I could conversely recreate the study and say that the freedom to smoke pot is the most important measure of freedom, and that the right to carry concealed weapons in a state of religious nuts is the least important. Therefore California would shoot to the top of the list and Idaho would drop to the bottom. (And before you decry that as stupid; I live in Idaho, have a concealed weapons, went through "free" schools that are poorly taught and feel less free from the religious nuts here then I do when I'm in California).
2. Democracy and Freedom do NOT go hand in hand. The US is specifically NOT a democracy, and even if you back off and say it's a democratic republic you still miss the point that everything is NOT up for majority rule. If it were, gun rights would have already been tossed. Unlike digg, which IS a democracy, 50%+1 does not eliminate gun rights. That ability is democracy. Enough digg users do not like your articles and think few enough others will that they bury them down. This may be a form of (self) censorship; just as I'm sure you don't wake up and go to dailykos, mediamatters, crooksandliars, or even kotaku (a games blog) every morning, I don't feel that your articles are actually interesting or say anything new worth sending to friends to read.
Freedom is the ability for you to write as you please and for me to decide that your articles aren't worth reading. Digg is a democracy because more then enough users decide the same thing and that they aren't worth posting to the front page to suggest others read.
3. Before you decide others should get their terminology right, I suggest you actually look up the definitions. People digg down articles calling them "Communist" because the authors truly have no concept of what the meaning of that is and we are tired of people tossing that around with no meaning. There is nothing inherent about Communists not being allowed as many guns as they want - the Soviet's decided they wouldn't be allowed, not the fact that a Communist agenda forces that. The right-leaning argumentation you tend towards is closer to fascism, yet Hitler's Germany didn't want citizens to own guns and I don't sit back and call you fascist for being right leaning.
4. Your argument to not do the same back to someone disagreeing with you (by burying the articles) shows what you really feel: you don't care about democracy or an equal voice, you simply want to win. I see nothing necessarily wrong with that beyond that you invalidate many of your high-minded rhetoric with it.
5. I'll just go back and give you a basic lesson on the inherent contradictions in what you said here: "FPV: Foreign though the concept may be, “Democracy” is where we have a free and open forum to test our ideas in the court of public opinion. Having heard both sides, people make up their minds. When you “bury” one side’s perspective, denying others the ability to evaluate it, the result is censorship and propaganda." That is not democracy. This is why your articles are dugg down - you say others need to learn their terms when you yourself fail to. Democracy is putting everything to a vote and 50%+1 get their way. If we lived in a Democracy we could simply decide that you should be thrown in jail for advocating gun rights. Instead we don't live in an actual democracy. Digg is a democracy of content. Enough people don't like what you have to say and your articles can be buried. The founding fathers knew that that was one of the evils of democracy and decided that the only way that our country could survive was to educate the people and allow them to make informed decisions. However, just was suggested in your first article, perhaps one of the major freedoms is the ability to educate your children as you wish (or state by state ability in this). A true democracy such as digg has no constitutional requirement that everyone be given a chance, or the ability to "educate themselves" by reading every article. And just as I want to smack someone that wants to put their child in a religious school that cuts out evolution and science, you too are being educated in the fact that digg wants to cut out your perspective. Though I suppose you are the same - you want to ignore the fact that digg is a democracy, and inject your different opinion; just as many religious people want to cut out facts on evolution (evolution is a fact, origins of life, especially human is partly theory) with the opinion of a religious nature.
And for a final closing, you missed the sarcasm that was directed at you: "liberul and freedums" are a clear poke at the slow southern drawl that pronounces it such and connected with the slow thoughts of most gun owners. It's the fact that you can't pronounce it properly and fear to look up the definition that we laugh at you for.
Take my comment from the digg page off here, I did not give you permission to use it, and there is contact info easily obtainable on my profile.
J:
Wordy though your response may be, it is an excercise in what is called "straw man defense" in which you attack things you allege that I said, but which I did not.
1. I never said the U.S. is a "Democracy," nor would I. It is a Republic. As the saying goes, Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. In a Republic, the sheep are armed. "Democracy" referred to a comment by one of you own who almost certainly doesn't know the difference. In any case, I wasn't talking about the U.S. government, I was talking about digg.
2. Nor did I call you "communist." The word used was "quasi-communist" owing to your collectivist mentality. In truth, you wouldn't like communism very much if you found it. Have you actually been to a communist country? I have.
3. Your comments on digg as pure democracy are quite a stretch: First you say it is, then you say democracy is inherently evil. If A=B, and B=C, then A=C: Digg must be intherently evil. Somehow, I don't think that is the conclusion you intended to draw.
Verbose though you may be, you dance lightly around the central thesis of the piece: While disagreeing with you, I give you a voice. In return, you supress mine. Notice that I haven't even removed your comment here, something I could easily do.
By the way, to you and the other liberals who visited this page: Thanks. I get paid for that. In fact, the "profit" motive for baiting liberals is very real indeed. I generally get more money when you bury my articles than when you ignore them.
Cheers,
FPV
To straightarrow:
Your interpretation of what is actually liberal versus conservative is spot on.
Allow me to throw more fuel on the fire: **I** am a liberal -- a Jeffersonian liberal. Those we generally describe as "liberal" are often no more than closet fascists.
FPV
Absolutely Paul, I have often described myself as a radical liberal when accused of being radical. With the caveat that I am a
Jeffersonian radical liberal.
Which makes me a political conservative, American style. It all has to do with the direction of the flow of power. In every other country in world the terms liberal and conservative have opposite meanings from what they mean here. In those other countries because the flow of power is from the state any factor limiting that power is noted as a "liberal" development because it has the effect of providing more personal freedom for the citizen. Here, in America, the limiting of state power is considered a conservative application of our constitution, effecting more personal freedom for the citizen.
Alas, most everybody I know who has gone through school in the last 40 years and gets all their news and views from the idiot tube, just don't have minds capable of expanding enough to embrace such a simple concept. That is what makes them so difficult to deal with. They don't even understand the terms of the debate, but are set in what they have been trained to believe they mean.
We no longer educate people in our society, we train them. Training is what you do with your pet, your horse, a monkey or other animals. Training involves getting a consistently desirable response to certain stimuli. Requires no thought just reflex.
It can be quite disheartening for a thinking person. Debating with someone who holds opposite views while actually understanding the terms of the debate is much easier than trying to have intelligent conversation with an emotionally committed reflex responding ignoramus. Therein lies the problem with liberty, we are badly outnumbered.
Straightarrow: Again, you are spot on, both with regard to the nature of the American political system, and "education" versus training. If you aren't writing, you should be. If you are, I want to know where it is.
FPV
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