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Comment by lmz

5 months ago

Agreed. If I have a TV network and think these anti-government hosts on my network are bad for business, that is also freedom of speech.

Maybe. If it is independent of government coercion.

  • But Youtube did this after government coercion, so what is the difference?

    • Maybe it’s ok if it was an independent business decision but I’m not saying Youtube’s was or wasn’t.

      It’s a problem especially if there is a direct or implied threat to use the powers of the government to impact a business if the government is acting counter to the first amendment. This is essentially the government causing the outcome, not a business using its free speech after an independent business decision.

      One could argue a business might come to a decision to pull content the government doesn’t like independently without coercion if they had an antitrust case pending with the DOJ. There’s probably a line here where the government needs to act in a specific way to threaten to make it coercion. Maybe the line was crossed in YT’s case?

      On all of these cases I come to the conclusion there needs to be separation of powers on some of these executive branch actions. I’m not sure how to do it something is needed to protect individual rights from executive overreach (regardless of which party is in power).

I hope to see the anti-government hosts before they're let go. The channels I've tried so far only seem to have boring old anti-corruption, anti-abuse of power and anti-treating groups of people as less than human hosts.

You use terms (other as well) like, "own, is the CEO of, and the owner of" and this speaks to the ironically illiberal shift we've seen in contemporary politics. Historically one needed to justify, "why" some person is put into a position of authority or power-- now as a result of the Randroid Neoliberal Assault™ it's taken for granted that if, "John Galt assumed a position of power that he has a right to exercise his personal will even at the behest of who he serves or at the behest of ethics" as an extension of, "the rights of the individual."

I want to recapitulate this sentiment as often and as widely as possible-- Rand and her cronies know as much about virtue, freedom, and Aristotle as they do about fornicating; not much.

  • > Rand and her cronies know as much about virtue, freedom, and Aristotle as they do about fornicating; not much.

    Even if I disagreed with you I would upvote for this gem. I'll be chuckling at this one randomly for weeks.

    • It'd be a good zinger, except isn't it commonly known that Rand had an affair with her lead follower, and basically announced to her husband and her lover's wife that they were in open marriages from then on? It seems like fornicating was one thing she did know about.

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    • I appreciate your appreciation here. I live in place where they recently named a local private school, "Anthem School for Excellence" and usually when I'm talking Rand it's out of sheer terror. Thanks for lightening the mood!