Still Free

Yeah, Mr. Smiley. Made it through the entire Trump presidency without being enslaved. Imagine that.

Monday, August 28, 2017

Equal Protection or Second Class Citizenship?

The continuing fallout from the election of Donald Trump has revealed a lot about the left. I've already discussed that the left is essentially a communist organization that has coopted an entire mainstream political party (Democrats) as well as gotten a second to act as it's convenient idiot, but it has also gotten its tentacles into academia with un-fireable professors, studies departments that lack basic rigors of science as well as operatives ensconced in HR departments countrywide. There these people create complete unconstitutional "codes of conduct" and the like where Left PC doctrine is enforced with those found at "fault" taking their very livelihoods into their hands. But it gets worse.

Back when Russia decided it was in it's best interest to take Crimea back from Ukraine major financial transaction companies decided to block financial transaction with certain Russian financial entities. This was the first time I knew of where a private financial company acted as an agent of governments, without a court order of any kind, to impose "sanctions" on a third party. At the time I didn't see this for the huge red flag that it was. I did say that both Russia and China would be best served by making sure they had financial systems in place that could bypass Western systems. I had no idea that US citizens would be put under the same screw.

After Charlottesville we saw a number of companies that previously were all about "net neutrality" decide that certain people could not only not use YouTube Facebook or Twitter even though they had not violated any laws OR the terms of service, but these companies went even further. They stole domain names, colluded to deny internet service to those who they disagreed with AND denied the ability to do basic financial transactions via common public platforms.

Currently this nefarious activity is being directed at Stormfront. Whether one likes, agrees with or otherwise has some affinity to Stormfront is irrelevant. The fact that a domain name, which is the property of the person who first registers it, can be stolen without a peep from the relevant regulatory and justice bodies should disturb anyone who understands the value of equal protection under the law.

Stormfront is an easy target but don't be mistaken. This is a test of power that must be met with a strong show of justice from the government. As one "far right" organization is taken out, the organization or person that was next to them on the spectrum becomes the next target. Soon, the one who thought he was "too mainstream" to become a victim of this mob finds himself the next victim. Understand: The dominoes are falling.

This is especially alarming because the US (and elsewhere) is fast becoming a cashless society. Whether it be paying a toll on a road, accessing subways and other mass transit. Whether it be paying for clothes and food. Whether it be carrying on everyday business. If companies that provide these transactions can unilaterally decide to cut a citizen off from these essential services we have a serious problem. It is arguable whether we can say that Facebook or YouTube "has to" let you use their services in order to make a living. It is an entirely different argument whether PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, etc can deny your legal financial transaction because it doesn't like your politics.

Imagine for a minute that you said something that some lefty doesn't like (and it's a lefty, because I've yet to see anyone on the right, including so called White Supremacists call for anyone to not be able to make a living or to have their internet access blocked, IP stolen or ability to do legal financial transactions blocked). Imagine they decide to "contact" whomever to mark you as a "white supremacist" or a "[black][yellow][Brown] White Supremacist" and various institutions decide to no longer extended financial services. You are, oh, buying gas and now your Apple Pay or Google Pay is no longer accepting payments. Perhaps you're trying to pay your mortgage. Sorry. You're trying to pay your EZ-pass. No go. This is a very very real possibility right now.

Now say you're self employed, perhaps you employ other people at your business. Now you can no longer take payments from your customers. You can't pay your vendors. You can't pay your employees. This is entirely possible. This is not funny.

This is not America.

Why is all this happening? It would be easy to blame Democrats or "The Left" but Holder is not in the Justice Dept and Obama is not president. The blame lies squarely on Trump and Sessions. I'm going to focus on Sessions here. Since the campaign we have seen unprecedented levels of political violence mostly by leftist groups. We have seen a level of lawlessness, where governors and mayors have openly violated immigration law or stated their intent (which is what is needed for criminal prosecution) to violate immigration law. Various govt. officials have brazenly told police under their watch to allow persons designated "nazis" to be beaten and to have their constitutional rights violated. All of this has happened with mice level peeps from Sessions. This is unacceptable. Where there is a lack of law, lawlessness escalates. Paypal etc. have done what they have done because the persons responsible for setting the tone have failed to do so. Even a failed attempt at prosecution is better than no prosecution at all.

Furthermore; as others have noted, if these large internet companies, particularly those that deal with peoples financial transactions and intellectual property are going to discriminate against people based on their political opinions (real or imagined) then they should be brought under regulation. Either all citizens have equal protect and equal access to services, which was the entire point of the civil rights movement, or we have a state where there are second class citizens.