I’m reading about the Beats right now, and will shortly have some things to say, but for now let me point out that the obscenity trial in San Francisco (conducted while Ginsberg was most likely fucking boys in Tangiers) made him into a national, and even international celebrity. Nothing builds name recognition like getting in trouble with authorities. It works for criminals, it works for poets, and there is no reason Alex Jones and InfoWars–ponder for a moment that this salvo was launched at a site CALLED Information Wars–will not reap a HUGE uptick not just in traffic, but in respectability. Anyone worth banning is worth reading. I think most of us believe this. By and large, if there is no criminal penalty, if you want more of a thing, ban it.
I will wonder out loud if Jones is going to become a new Rosa Parks in a new cultural conflict oriented around a new Free Speech Movement.
And I will point briefly to some stupid arguments being made, that 1st Amendment issues are in play. No, of course Facebook and Google, and Apple and Spotify and all the other search engines collectively, and all the other websites on the internet generally, can eliminate all mention of Jones and not break the law, at least initially.
As a Wikipedia author pointed out, though, there are anti-Trust issues involved. But this is a legally and morally interesting and sticky issue. A monopoly, traditionally, is where you are the sole supplier of something, say railroad tracks. In this case, the commodity is information. What is the business value of information? Is it, or should it be, illegal to centralize and the control the distribution of information, when done by private companies? Personally, I say yes. I do think it is in everyone’s interest to prevent overt–there was no subtlety here–collusion by information behemoths.
[I was wondering today if there might be some merit in using tax money to pay reporters to dig into local events and find out interesting things. I can see downsides, of course, but the plus side would be that money would be flowing to people who could be made to cover all sides of all issues. This should be something coming from a Democrat, but the problem of informational consolidation, and the gradual erasure of interested journalists is quite profound. I would not support this nationally–just look at the farce of NPR pretending they do not have a robust political agenda–but there are many things I will tolerate locally and regionally I will not tolerate nationally.]
The other, to me more interesting issue, is the value of information in a good society. How should we value political and ideational diversity? Should our children not be taught to value it? Should our college students not be taught to value it? As consumers, should we not demand it?
I already see something called d.tube has been developed, as what my untrained brain sees as something like a Linux of video upload and retrieval.
It would not be hard to create something else like Facebook.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in coming weeks and months. If the goal of the Left was to diminish Jones influence, I can only say I wish they were always that stupid. But of course they are, but tactically, they are sometimes quite astute. He came out with an app perhaps a month ago, anticipating this happening. You can get updates on everything there whenever you want. He still has his main website, and he makes good products. I use his Smart Pills (whatever he calls them), his turmeric supplement, and his Lung Cleanse, which is fantastic. He comes across as crazy, but he is not infrequently very right about important things everyone else wants to either lie about, or lie to themselves about.
As I say, I think most reasonable people look at this and see the writing on the wall. Anyone, any site, any set of ideas, any story, any picture, anything they don’t like for any reason–and I will note that none of the companies involved in banning Jones provided any specific examples of the charges they leveled at him, which is pretty generic totalitarian behavior–can be made to disappear. POOF!! Gone. Flushed. Never know it was there.
They may not be coming for you and your ideas today, but the fact that they can, and may, should concern you. The pattern of the radically intolerant–and that is what we are dealing with here–is to become steadily more rigid and more intolerant with time. These things are driven by obsessives and neurotics and no few psychotics, so this is inevitable. It does not take long for such people to find ways of offending and then attacking–if they respond–nearly everyone. None of the Communist cadres in any of the nation which had Communism inflicted on them ever drew the full support of more than about 10-20% of the nation. The rest were taken in at first by the lies, then made to fear the government after they realized the horrible truth. By then, of course, it was much too late.
I’ve been busy the past few weeks, and will have more to say in coming days. I will be busy then, too, so it may take a week or two.