Darrell Hougen

Michael, You're assuming the tech companies want to be regulated. Perhaps some of them do. If that's true, that is even more reason to oppose regulating them. We don't want a situation in which it is difficult or impossible to launch competing social media platforms because of the regulatory burden involved in doing so. Darrell

"Context" shouldn't be used as an excuse for playing it "deuces wild." Context dropping is never okay. That leads to rationalism. It's nice to know that people on here are cognizant of the problem of rationalism in the application of objectivish principles to questions such as immigration. And, we don't want to be rationalists with respect to the question of property rights and free speech either. Clearly, some of the giant tech companies have been influenced by the government and have had influence on the government. In fact, part of the current problem is that the tech companies are afraid of being regulated. That's exactly why they're going after Alex Jones and other right-leaning media. They've been threatened by members of Congress. Mostly by Democrats, but also by RINOs. This movement really got started with the revelation that Cambridge Analytica had used Facebook data to help Donald Trump get elected president. That's what really set off people on the left. That's what caused people to delete their Facebook accounts. I know, because of friend of my daughter deleted her Facebook account over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. So, when we start accusing big tech companies of being biased and calling for regulation of them like utilities, we should think twice. We may just end up making the problem worse. How do we know that those regulations won't include proscriptions against posting "fake news?" How do we know that "fake news" won't be interpreted as anything that favors Trump? The fact is that we don't know what will happen, but we can be pretty sure that we won't control the process. Isn't it much better, in this case, to defend the right of property owners to determine how their properties will be used? Isn't it better to defend the right of Facebook to delete Alex Jones's content than to risk having the government involved in policing websites? If Alex Jones has a worthwhile product, he will survive unfair treatment by the tech giants. Perhaps he will end up putting a dent in their profits by attracting a sizable chunk of their users away to his platform. That's how things should work in the marketplace. In my opinion, short term pain is better than the long term pain of having the government deeply involved in determining what content we can and can't view on the internet.

The Colorado Civil Rights Commission is at it again. Unwilling to abide by the Supreme Court ruling in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, the commission has issued another ruling targeting the same baker for essentially the same "crime" again -- the crime of having his own opinion. COLORADO IS GOING AFTER JACK PHILLIPS OF MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP AGAIN Darrell

Hi All, A friend pointed out a March 17 article about the Steele dossier that goes into incredible detail about who the players were and what their roles were in creating and disseminating the dossier. I've only started reading it, but it appears to contain a treasure trove of information about the incestuous relationships between the government, the media, Fusion GPS, the Clinton campaign, the DNC, and so on. It appears quite interesting. Here is a link. Darrell

Hi William, I don't mean to be dismissive. I figured the first was a typo, but the second I couldn't let go. Of course, the alternative to Crews is not Freud. That's a false dichotomy. I've never been a big fan of Freud or of psychology in general. I can't claim to know enough about Freud's views to really critique them, but the little I've read or heard sounds like nonsense. Piaget and other early childhood developmental psychology are probably better. Adult psychology has the misfortune of being contaminated by politics. One's opinions about the proper rolls of men and women in relationships and society are often colored by one's political views. If those opinions are used as the standard by which one judges whether a person has a psychological problem or not, then the standard of normalcy is also contaminated by politics. Having said that, I think the idea that standards of truth should be "consensual" or determined by consensus is misguided. In one of your other quotes above, Crews uses the term "objective" which is the usual standard of scientific truth. Rand imported the term "objective" into the realm of morality, but objectivity is certainly not unique to Objectivism. And no, I don't plan to read Crews's book on Freud. I'm not that interested in Freud, among other things. Darrell

Yikes! Yikes again! Is that the alternative to objective standards of judgment? Darrell

You know there are four kinds of matter, solid, liquid, gas, and black lives ...

Hi Michael, A while back I became familiar with the term, "motte and bailey." (My apologies if you're already familiar with the term.) The term originates as a description of a certain kind of fortification in which there is a highly fortified keep (or motte) surrounded by a less well fortified but generally much larger courtyard (or bailey). The smaller motte is easier to defend, while the larger bailey is more difficult to defend. As an argument, a motte and bailey is, "a combination of bait-and-switch and equivocation," in which the arguer switches between an easily defended statement such as, "the climate is changing," and a harder to defend claim such as, "man-made global warming will have catastrophic effects on our environment." Whenever attacked, the person putting forth the motte and bailey position retreats to the stronger assertion that the climate is changing. Once the attacker gives up attempting to assail the stronger position, the arguer reverts to asserting the truth of the weaker bailey position that man is to blame and that the consequences will be catastrophic if "we" don't do something about it. Anyone who questions the bailey is accused of questioning the motte. In my view, the same thing is going on here. The assertion is made that, "the Russians interfered in the election." The motte is that they interfered in the election campaign and attempted to hack voting machines. The bailey is that they actually changed a sufficient number of votes to change the results of the election by either hacking voting machines or by swaying the decisions of weak minded voters. There is little doubt that the Russians bought ads on Facebook. They may have also hacked the DNC, Clinton campaign servers, and interfered in other ways. The question is whether they actually swayed the opinions of a sufficient number of voters to change the election. There is very little evidence to support the latter assertion. Somehow, we are supposed to believe that sweet, innocent, Hillary Clinton's visionary campaign was derailed by insidious Russian influence and that Trump is a secret Bolshevik (read "Manchurian") candidate. Yet, the evidence only supports a much weaker assertion of feeble attempts to interfere in the campaign. Moreover, there is no evidence that Trump was involved in any way. In my opinion, a fair number of leftist arguments fit the motte and bailey mold. Darrell

DNC chair Tom Perez seen carrying $1840 Louis Vuitton bag after calling "socialism" future of party. http://dailycaller.com/2018/07/30/tom-perez-louis-vuitton-travel-bag/ Nice imagery. Darrell

Looks like the Daily Caller got to ask a question at Trump's press conference. That was almost more than the lefty media could take. http://dailycaller.com/2018/07/30/media-attacks-daily-caller-trump-question/ Darrell

Hi Michael, I hear you on Alex Jones. I guess I don't have enough hours in the day to listen to or watch InfoWars, so I'll let you do that for me. I also agree that the so called "MSM" is often less than accurate --- that's for you Jonathan. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/02/05/brian-williams-lied-about-his-copter-being-shot-down-in-iraq.html http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-en-dan-rather-truth-20151229-story.html Triggered I think the term "triggered" came out of academia --- from leftists in academia to be more precise. As I understand it, the term was originally used in a serious manner to characterize the response of people who have been traumatized in the past by an awful experience such as rape to a stimulus that might cause them to relive their memory. It's the way a person with PTSD responds to certain stimuli. It causes psychological distress in some people when exposed to certain stimuli. The problem started when leftists started claiming that people on the right were triggering psychological distress by putting forth their theories on politics or society. They then started suggesting that right-wingers be banned from speaking or that they at least be required to give a "trigger-warning" before being allowed to say anything. In short, it became an attack on freedom of speech. Never discussed was the idea that people with PTSD might want to stay away from speakers or events that might cause them distress. Of course, the backlash has been to mock the idea of being triggered --- I think that most of the people using that as an excuse to shut down speech with which they disagree deserve to be mocked --- and I think that's when the term "snowflake" came into usage. Fusion GPS I did read an article on Fox News from last November that the Washington Free Beacon had originally hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Trump. However, according to the Beacon, "The Free Beacon had no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele. Nor did we have any knowledge of the relationship between Fusion GPS and the Democratic National Committee, Perkins Coie, and the Clinton campaign." https://freebeacon.com/uncategorized/fusion-gps-washington-free-beacon/ Cheers, Darrell

Hi Michael, I guess I've gotten burned by InfoWars inaccuracies before, so I generally steer clear of them. Of course, if your goal is to see what other people are looking at, then you should go where everyone else goes. My goal is to try to find accurate information. I like Chuck Ross at the Daily Caller. The Daily Caller probably has some other good reporters too. Breitbart has been hot and cold. So has PJMedia. I like it when they have original material and not just opinion pieces or regurgitated material from the left-stream media. The Daily Caller broke the story about Stefan Halper trying to spearfish George Papadopolous and Carter Page for example. They were the first outlet to release Halper's name and did original reporting based on a source familiar with the situation. I also trust their veracity. InfoWars, not so much. http://dailycaller.com/2018/03/25/george-papadopoulos-london-emails/ Darrell

InfoWars? Really?

Hi Michael, I was looking at an article in the Daily Caller and that article says that Bush denied any connection to the Steele Dossier. More significantly, it says that the articles in the Spectator and BBC that said Bush was behind the dossier subsequently retracted their claims. The linked Reuters article seems to back up that assertion. I also seem to remember reading elsewhere that no Republicans had anything to do with dossier. That it was purely a creation of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Not sure what you think about that. http://dailycaller.com/2017/01/12/jeb-bush-allies-hit-back-at-reports-ex-governor-is-behind-the-trump-dossier/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-steele-idUSKBN14W0HN Darrell

Hi Michael, Long time no see. Thanks for fixing my display name --- I'll be checking in a second to see if it is actually fixed --- and thanks for doing some background research on FISA warrant. I wasn't aware of the entire backstory. The right leaning news sites tend to only focus on the Clinton/DNC connection to Fusion GPS and Steele. I'll have to dig up what they said again. Oh, BTW, I ended up voting for Trump. I couldn't bear the idea of the criminal Hillary being president. So never say "never" I guess. I've actually been pleasantly surprised by his policies. I've also found myself defending him from the relentless assaults of the left-leaning press. Have a good evening. Darrell

I looked and don't see any recent articles about Ed Cline on this forum, so I'm assuming that his plight has not been discussed. I'm assuming most people know who he is. He has contributed to this forum in the past. At any rate, I'm very concerned about his current situation. The short version of the back story is this: Ed has written articles on his Rule of Reason blog that are critical of ISIS. ISIS put him on a hit list. Consequently, the FBI visited him to warn him about the hit list. He made the mistake of telling his landlord why the FBI visited him and his landlord has told him that he must leave. A friend of Ed's set up a GoFundMe page to help Ed raise the money that he needs to move. You can visit it to learn more about his situation and to donate if you feel like it. Recently, Front Page Magazine wrote an article about Ed's plight. Based on that article, I decided to write a letter (in the form of an email message) to Ed's landlord expressing my displeasure over their actions. Here is a copy of my letter and I encourage others to also contact his landlord. Perhaps if they realize that their move is generating negative publicity, they will relent. To office@lawsonenterprisesinc.com Hi, I don't know you and you don't know me, however I am very disturbed by some of the reports I have heard about your company. In particular, I have heard that you plan to evict one of your tenants as a result of a threat that he received from a foreign terrorist organization. I find that offensive. I know that man that you intend to evict. I don't know him personally, but I have long followed his career and I know him to be a man of courage and principle. I also know that he is getting old and is not a man of means. He has continued his entire life to fight the good fight, to support himself, to defend American values, and to conduct himself with virtue and integrity. And for that, you have decided to kick him to the street. I don't know what kinds of values you have or pretend to have, but there can be little excuse for treating an honest hard working American in the manner that you apparently intend. ISIS may have threatened him, but to pretend that you are evicting him for the safety of your other tenants is tantamount to hiding behind the skirts of women. ISIS is not an immediate threat to anyone on American soil and to pretend that it is begs the question of your actual motives. Though I don't know you, I can only imagine what values you must secretly support when you so easily turn your back on a virtuous and patriotic American. I simply ask that you reconsider your proposed action. Perhaps some soul searching is in order. What do you truly believe and why? Do you consider yourself a patriotic American? Or are you secretly an enemy of the values that made this country great? I intend to publish this note as an open letter and to encourage others to contact you. If you have no character, at least consider your reputation. Sincerely, Darrell Hougen

I'll get back to answering responses to my earlier post, but I want to discuss something else that has been bothering me about Trump. Donald Trump has a particular way of carrying on a political discourse. Whenever a reporter asks him a question like, "So and so criticized you in such and such fashion. What is your response?" His response is typically to attack the source. Everyone knows that attacking the source of the question is a form of logical fallacy called an ad hominem attack. Democrats use such tactics all the time and that in itself is telling, but I want to focus on the nature of Trump's attacks for a moment. His general response to being questioned is to say that his interlocutor is small or unimportant or, if it is a publication, that it doesn't have many readers or that it is losing readership. That should set off alarm bells right there because Trump obviously thinks little people aren't deserving of respect and that their questions can safely be ignored. But, there is something more troubling about the nature of his attacks. To say that it is safe to ignore little people is essentially to say that little people are wrong and that, conversely, big people are right. In other words, since Trump engages in such tactics all the time, one can only conclude that he deeply believes in the logical fallacy that might makes right. The conclusion that Trump actually does believe that might makes right is born out by his open and apparent admiration for tyrants. For example, here is an Wall Street Journal blog about Trump praising and defending Putin. In this respect, Trump hasn't changed in the last quarter century. Here is an excerpt from a 1990 Playboy interview: Of course, strength in defense of virtue is itself a virtue, but the admiration of strength for the sake of strength is a dangerous character flaw. Darrell

Michael, You said: But earlier, you said: So which is it? Is he negotiating over the right to make propaganda or not? If Trump wishes to negotiate over the "level of propaganda" then he wishes to negotiate over the "right to make propaganda." Continuing with your argument: The right to do something means the right to be immune from any legal consequences for doing that thing. The right to create propaganda means the right to be immune from criminal prosecution or civil suits if one creates propaganda. I would go further. Because many pronouncements made by pundits and others are made with incomplete information or involve vaguely worded statements or predictions of future events, it is often difficult to tell whether a person honestly believes a statement to be true or not. Therefore, a wide degree of latitude should be given in the realm of political speech involving public individuals to make untrue statements. The standard was set in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. So later, when General William Westmoreland sued CBS News for libel, he was eventually forced to withdraw the case before it went to a jury and with no damages awarded. The 1982 suit involved a general, not a president. I shudder to think what kind of contortions our current justices might subject the law to in order to uphold a verdict in favor of a sitting president. That doesn't mean that a person can't fight back, but the proper way to fight back is to create counter-propaganda, to call out the other person if you think he is lying, to attempt to win in the court of public opinion, not in the judicial courts. There is already evidence that Trump doesn't particularly care for free speech. In the battle between Michael Mann (of global warming hockey stick fame) and Mark Steyn, Trump has evidently decided to side with Mann. If you don't know anything about the case, it involves a libel lawsuit that Mann filed against Steyn when Steyn had the temerity to call him a fraud. It probably should have been summarily dismissed, but it has been dragging on through pre-trial motions for 4 years. The problem is that the process is the punishment for ordinary people that don't have deep pockets. So, the idea of a president or his minions filing defamation suits is truly troubling. So is the idea of weakening the legal protections against such suits. There is also the libel suit that Trump himself filed against Bill Maher. Now, while I detest Maher, he is an entertainer and his right to make fun of public figures must be protected. Here is the background. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc0JJi71MEc Sorry, I don't know how to make the video show up in the post. Eventually, Trump withdrew the lawsuit. He probably figured that the case was unwinnable but reserved the possibility of refiling the suit in the future. Perhaps that is why he wants to get the law changed. Maybe he is still pissed at Maher. Trump seems to have a long memory for slights or supposed injuries. He still can't get over the fact that Cruz won Iowa. Darrell

Michael, You said, "Who said Trump is negotiating freedom of speech? He would never do that ...", followed closely by, "He's negotiating the level of propaganda the attack dogs are using against him." But "propaganda" is speech, so the right to free speech implies the right to free propaganda or, more precisely, the right the freely engage in propagandizing without any interference from government or anyone else. So, to say that Trump is "negotiating the level of propaganda" is to admit that he is negotiating freedom of speech. There is no essential difference. When George W. Bush was president, he was compared to Hitler. During Obama's presidency, he has also been compared to Hitler. If Trump becomes president, it is likely that he will also be compared to Hitler. If he is, what will he do? Will he threaten to sue those who compare him to Hitler? If they continue the comparisons, will he actually sue? Will the courts have the guts to stand up to the bombastic president? I wouldn't count on it. Bush was exceptionally mild. As far as I know, he never did anything to try to silence his critics. Obama, of course, has been different. People who have criticized him have been subjected to IRS audits and investigations by the FBI and BATF. Some of us don't like that. Obama has turned this country into a banana republic. This election should be about reclaiming Constitutional government in America, not continuing down the road of lawless rule. This isn't about ideological purity. Of course I have my favorite candidate, but I'd be willing to support one of the other candidates as well, within certain bounds. For example, I would never support Jeb! because he also fails the free speech test, believe it or not. At one time, I also considered supporting Trump, but as things have congealed, certain problems with his behavior and demeanor have really started to bother me. It didn't bother me when he threatened to run a third party campaign, because a person's support for a particular political party is negotiable. Trump can't treat everything like a business deal. Government and business are fundamentally different. That's something a lot of business people and their supporters don't seem to get. Maybe it's not surprising then that a lot of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are left wing Utopians. They understand how to run a business, but not a country. Darrell

Absolutely, but the goal should be to return to Constitutional government, not stray further from it. If we are living in a post Constitutional time, then politics may soon be irrelevant. Our leaders will be chosen by force, rather than by vote. Darrell

Selene, When I say Trump may be a joker, I mean a fundamentally unserious person. Sure, Reagan told jokes, but it was always clear when he was joking. Actually, I don't think Trump is a joker. That's why I take his threat seriously. He may just be using it as a negotiating tactic, but that doesn't matter. Presidents don't negotiate with news media by threatening our fundamental rights or their businesses. It's uncivilized. Trump has certainly accomplished a lot. So has Mark Zuckerberg, but that doesn't mean I'd want him to be president. Darrell

Michael, The problem is that freedom of speech is not negotiable. Freedom of speech means the right to attack people that you disagree with politically. Has the WSJ been telling lies? Or do they simply disagree with Trump? There is a very high standard of proof required to prove libel against a political candidate or other public person for a reason, so that public people can't do exactly what Trump is doing, engaging in intimidation tactics. Would Trump actually change the libel laws? Doesn't matter. A threat to change the libel laws is a form of intimidation. Would Trump actually sue? Doesn't matter. A threat to sue is an intimidation tactic. I understand that threats and intimidation are important tactics in raw, naked, power politics. That's the way it has been done since the beginning of time and that is the kind of tactics tin horn dictators around the world still engage in. The purpose of civilized society is to put an end to that. We expect our politicians to act more like a person applying for a job. We expect them to act in earnest and attempt to gain our trust by explaining what they intend to do, not engage in threats and intimidation. Threats and intimidation may be part of the business world. I wouldn't be surprised if one company threatened to sue another just to gain some business advantage. It's a bit of law-of-the-jungle type mentality. However, it is fundamentally illegitimate. Businesses should no more have to worry about being sued for frivolous reasons than anyone else. That they do, doesn't make it right. Threats and intimidation are illegitimate in business and especially in politics. It is not just a negotiating tactic. It is uncivilized behavior and it's potentially damaging to our form of government. Darrell

Adam, I don't know if Trump is serious, but I have nothing to go on but his word. He wasn't even really drawing applause for his approach, but perhaps it was a trial balloon for a talking point. At any rate, running for president is a serious business, so if he wasn't serious, then he is joker that shouldn't be president. Whether Trump has a path to get new libel laws passed is sort of irrelevant. The Republic might survive Trump, but he has staked out a position in opposition to free speech. The current administration has made rumblings about threatening free speech as well. I never voted for Obama and never would, but that doesn't mean I support a Republican version of Obama. The Republicans have much better candidates and should choose someone who will at least protect this one basic right. Darrell

Donald Trump is an enemy of free speech. That, in an of itself, regardless of anything else, disqualifies him from being president. Freedom of speech is, in some sense, our most fundamental right. If we can't freely express political opinions, right or wrong, then this country is finished. And don't think the courts will stand up to him. Some might, initially, but courts are easy to intimidate. Even if Trump can't get the laws changed, I would expect him to sue whomever he dislikes. If the Republicans pass his new libel laws, look for a wave election to put the Democrats back in power. Even if the Republicans oppose him, I wouldn't be surprised to see a wave election in reaction to Trump's policies. The party of an unpopular president always gets slaughtered, even if it's not their fault. Trump could set the cause of liberty back decades. All that effort spent supporting libertarians or the Tea Party or constitutional conservatives will have been wasted because they'll all be swept from office and we'll have to start over again (if we even can). Watch the video Darrell

Thanks. I had heard that story second hand, but it was one of the reasons I was confident I wasn't generalizing on the basis of a single story. Darrell