Democratic Senator Chris Murphy: “Take Down” Conservative Websites

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is calling on social media companies to “do more than take down one website,” meaning take down more websites on top of InfoWars, which was de-platformed by YouTube, Facebook, and others on Monday.

“Infowars [sic] is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart,” Murphy tweeted Monday afternoon. “These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it.”

Careful what you wish for, Senator Murphy.

You and your kind fantasize you can make dissenting ideas go away merely by shutting people up. But those ideas will exist, among the millions who hold them, whether Facebook, Twitter and YouTube take them all down, or not.

Those dissenting ideas will go elsewhere, and they will thrive elsewhere, much to your chagrin. And deep down – assuming you have any depth at all – you know it.

Let’s say these companies shut down all conservative, libertarian or any form of non-left speech. Let’s say you get what you want.

What then?

Millions and millions voted for Donald Trump. Possibly even more will vote for him next time. That’s the reality you struggle not to know. You blame it on the speech permitted by social media companies. If we stopped permitting dissenting speech – you call it “hate speech” – then you assume we’ll have an endless succession of Democratic socialist kings to rule over us, unencumbered by resistance.

Do you seriously believe this?

You imply that speech is something to be permitted or forbidden. On private property, by private owners, that’s true. But it’s not true with regard to government. Speech, writing and ideas are not something that exist only when the government permits it. If that were true, Donald Trump’s administration would have the right to take you down. Nobody on the right suggests such a thing. Why do YOU – and the rest of your party – suggest that the left does?

If you, Senator Murphy, and the rest of your party get your wish, then Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will, before long, eliminate all dissenting, non-left opinion. Yet where will this leave them financially?

As much as leftists love to be SEEN as not caring about money, the people who care the most about money, in my observation, are the leftists who run mega-wealthy companies. Unfortunately, they care about money not as a way of enjoying life, or investing in enterprises they consider worthwhile, but as exercising power and control over others with often bloodthirsty smugness.

Socialists detest the means of capitalist production but, boy oh boy, do they ever love the results.

If social media giants were willing to face the financial consequences of removing political discussion from their forums, I think they would have done so by now.

This doesn’t mean they won’t do so in the future, especially if the Democratic Party returns to power and vents its rage on people who oppose them, as I fully expect them to do. Even then, the Democrats restored to power would have to sell their leftists donors on near-certain bankruptcy by losing half their customer base.

It seems like an uphill battle, at best.

Which brings us back to careful what you wish for, Senator Murphy. An enraged population of millions will not sit quietly by while you and your pretentious illiberal cohorts seek to silence them.

What you call “hate and lies” are coming from your side, not from ours. We want to be left alone. You’re the ones who seek to control and reshape individuals in your image.

Good luck with that. And if you get your way, and silence dissenters, you’ll find out what resistance really is.

 

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