thependulumswings

The “too big” government overreach is at it again.  It’s mad because a “too big” social media platform named Twitter is at it again.

When you attempt to censure President Trump, you’ve poked the proverbial bear.  Twitter made the mistake of “fact-checking” him one too many times coming out of this weekend.   “Fact-checking” is a nice word for censure.  Twitter’s version of what the facts are seems to be more of an opinion than grounded in fact.  It also seems like it chooses who to “fact check” and who not to.

“Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices,” Trump tweeted. “We will strongly regulate, or close them down before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that happen again.”

So with that, a spat has turned into an all-out trending Twitter war on the very platform most in question.

Twitter is a public company.  Like it or not it should be able to choose what it sells, and to whom, however it chooses. Don’t you like it?  Start your own platform after you quit tweeting.

But, alas, our world has evolved into a virtual mess.  And Twitter, Facebook, Snap, and a few others (Pinterest anyone?) are collectively the virtual mess.  “Freedom of speech,” the right yells.  So the FCC will attempt to censure Twitter who is attempting to censure people whose opinions they disagree with.  Does Twitter get to have its own freedom of speech?

We’re at the corner of Government Rd. and Individualism Ave. again.  We’ve actually been stuck in this traffic jam for a while.  We stopped driving for about two months so we temporarily forgot our whereabouts.  Our government overreached and told us to go home.  It was for our own good they said.

The Dallas city government arrested a hair salon owner.  The NOLA mayor signed an executive order banning the sale of firearms during the stay at home order.  The NY mayor said that if you go in the water last weekend “we’ll pull you out.”  The governor of Michigan said that the longer the protests continue, the longer the lockdown will be enforced.   In other words folks, the beatings will continue until the morale improves.

In Minnesota, the government went beyond beating its citizens, or at least one citizen.  The available video of the George Floyd apprehension looks like a few government employees went way too far.  One, in particular, might have(likely) committed a homicide. Social media, the same platforms under scrutiny, quickly organized the people.  Protests formed in Minnie and LA.  Meet on the corner of Government and Individualism it screamed.  And, rightfully so we add.

The problem in Minnie is that a few of the assembled (your right under the Bill of Rights) decided to loot. “Looting” is a nice word for stealing.  It’s reserved for stealing while under the influence of civil unrest we guess.   It’s like what “gaffe” is to “senility.”  It’s reserved for incoherent thought in an election year we guess.

The problem in LA is that they decided to get on the 101 Freeway.  No stores are on the freeway.   Maybe the government that overreaches that gave them their stimulus money as well as unemployment money, as well as small business payroll money kept them from wanting or needing to loot.  Still, it’s but a few blocks from the crossroads of Government and Individualism.

Times were so much simpler when all we had was social media Russian interference in our election, a little quid pro quo or no, and to impeach or not to impeach.

Maybe when Biden stops hiding and Trump stops tweeting we can have a civilized debate about all of this.  We kid.

We wonder if we’ll need to do it from a social distance.  We don’t wonder if social media will try to have a say.