Bernie Sanders on Free Speech and UC Berkeley

Ben Stein on the Left

A Pence for Fran Lebowitz's Thoughts

Vanity Fair's progressive provocateur Fran Lebowitz made some revealing remarks at the "third annual" New Establishment summit in San Francisco.

When commenting on anti-abortion activists in light of the 2016 Election cycle, Fran Lebowitz advocated for retroactive abortions for pro-lifers like Republican Vice Presidential nominee Governor Mike Pence (R-IN).

How telling.  Pro choice politicians seem to consider abortion a sacrament, but it is usually placed on the euphemistic altar of protecting a "woman's right to choose" or the ironic yet pathos laden precept of  "womens' reproductive health."  Yet Lebowitz advocacy for retroactive abortions makes it clear that progressives favor eliminating enemies which get in their way.

Although it is the height of political season and clearly Lebowitz and Pence would be polar political opposites,  Lebowitz modest proposal gives lie to the loft rhetoric of "diversity".  Progressives look to identity politics, for externals like race or gender preference but are loathe to be tolerant of perspective which are not their own.

Moreover, Lebowitz's barbaric barb illustrates liberal fascism as was expounded upon by Jonah Goldberg's influential book  Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Change (2009).



Of course, Lebowitz is a literary commentator infused with New York values and an in your face attitude.  But based upon Democrat Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (D-NY)'s answer in the third debate about the Supreme Court, in which she rattled off a laundry list of liberal leitmotifs without once mentioning the Constitution, we can expect such vilest values to infect the New Establishment if it takes over the District of Calamity (sic).

Thomas Sowell on Liberalism

George Carlin on Political Correctness

Camille Paglia on Political Correctness

Flagging Facebook for Flirting with Political Fascism

Fox News Radio's Todd Starnes has never been a neutral voice regarding contentious current events issues. But an innocuous social media status update has caused a maelstrom which should prompt the media to examine how they conduct themselves.

In response to the rash of reactionary nanny state rulings, Starnes posted a pointed Facebook update on his Fan Page:

I'm about as politically incorrect as you can get.  I'm wearing an NRA ball cap, eating a Chick-fil-A sandwich, reading a Paula Deen cookbook and sipping a 20-ounce sweet tea while sitting in my Cracker Barrel rocking chair with the Gather Vocal Band singing 'Jesus Saves' on the stereo and Gideon's Bible in my pocket.  Yes sir, I'm politically incorrect and happy as a June bug.

This satirically status update managed to get the Todd Starnes Fanpage briefly suspended.

Facebook has a community standards criteria which outlines ten types of prohibited posts, which include: violence and threats; self-harm; bullying and harassment; hate speech; graphic content; nudity and pornography; identity and privacy; intellectual property; phishing and spam; and security.  Starnes reached out to Facebook to determine which standard he was alleged to have violated, which  the social media site never clarified.  So Starnes will wonder whether it was the NRA, Jesus or the plump juicy chicken breast from Chick-fil-A which made Starnes Facebook persona non grata.

After Starnes fans vociferously protested, Facebook reinstated Starnes Fan page and included this explanation: 

As our team processes hundreds of thousands of reports each week, we occasionally make a mistake.  In this case, we mistakenly removed content from the Todd Starnes Page, and worked to rectify the mistake as soon as we were notified.

This explanation seems to pass the buck to low level staffers.  Perhaps they got pointers from the Cincinnati IRS office.

Other conservatives have been chary about sharing on Facebook as they have experienced incidents of being blocked for conservative content.   Marc Zuckerberg has a private company which there is no inherent right to use.  However, if users are bound to Terms of Service, it is incumbent that the social media company follows its own rules.  Facebook was forthright in claiming that Starnes post was blocked due to that post and being a violation of the Community Standard.  If that is the case, it should clarify what shibboleth was violated.  Moreover, if Facebook wants to censor posts for political content which does not violate the aforementioned Community Standards, then it ought to change its TOS and apply the rules even handedly.

The Todd Starnes anti-PC posting is a prominent case of when the regime's  will is exercised through corporate and non-governmental entities to control the public opinion. One thinks of Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism (2008).  This incident underlines the liberal lie about supporting free speech and the best reaction to speech one disagrees with is more free speech.

h/t: Hot Air