Censor, Indict, Execute

Tucker Carlson, in his December 18, 2023, podcast, talked with Seth Dillion, head of The Babylon Bee, a parody news site, with a subtitle, "Fake News You Can Trust." I love The Bee. They’re not only funny; they’re also, sometimes accidentally, more accurate than the mainstream news. It’s especially funny when they get fact checked, as though the story were real—because reality is so bizarre, it’s hard to exaggerate enough to satirize it.

The Babylon Bee's front-page headlines online today (January 18, 2024)

The Bee got taken down from Twitter, shortly before Elon Musk bought the company. They had responded to the real news of biological male Rachel Levine being named the Time Magazine Woman of the Year, by naming this biological male the “Man of the Year.” This was considered hate speech, and a violation of community standards by Twitter. It was, in fact, an incentive for Elon Musk to make the purchase and make an effort to restore freedom of speech.

The Babylon Bee's tweet image, found here

In their discussion, Dillon and Carlson were talking about who you’re allowed to criticize or mock, and who you’re not. Dillon was mainly talking about comedy, and then speakers on college campuses. And then Tucker got a little more serious.

SD: It has nothing to do with being offended. This whole thing, you know, the hypersensitive, the people getting up in comedians’ faces, or charging the stage to slap them in the face if they make a joke they don’t like, the, you know, “Don’t bring your speaker to our campus, because we need a safe space here, and this will offend people.” They’re not— It’s all fake outrage. Because they’ve learned that fake outrage can be used as a tool to bludgeon you into silence and submission.

TC: That’s exactly right. If they would censor you, they would kill you. Period. You don’t censor a peer, another citizen, another human being. You censor your slaves. You censor someone you consider less than human. So, if censorship doesn’t work, they’d indict you. If that doesn’t work, they would kill you. It’s just a very obvious continuum.

Tucker makes a strong point here. They think of you as lesser, not worth respecting. And if you are interfering with their agenda in some way, they think they are justified in eliminating the interference.

We’ve seen it before.

I recently reread a youth novel, Echo, by Pam Muñoz Ryan (in preparation for my private book club with my grandson). The story is divided into three distinct segments. The first takes place in pre-WWII Germany. A boy, Friedrich, lives with his father, who is taken by the Nazis to a hard labor camp, because he has the wrong ideas. He is a musician and has invited longtime musician friends to form a chamber string ensemble. One is a Jew. Another is a Nazi, it turns out. He refuses to play until the Jew is expelled. Friedrich’s father tries to point out that music is their shared interest; can’t they let their differences go? But the Nazi refuses, and turns in Friedrich’s father as a Jew lover. That is enough to get one “cancelled” in that culture.

Friedrich has an older sister, who had been away at nursing school. During that absence, she has become totally loyal to the state. It’s hard to determine if those are her deeply held beliefs, or beliefs she has adapted out of expediency and necessity to advance in her career. But it becomes impossible for the family to speak or write anything to her that might show their former disagreement. She does take some risk later to help rescue her father (with a bribe), so maybe she wasn’t totally brainwashed.

While the book is fiction, it is based on a real time and place. The threats of silencing, indicting (using the law to incarcerate), and even execution were very real.

 

Seth Dillon, of The Babylon Bee, talks with Tucker Carlson
screenshot from here

Tucker and Dillon spend some time talking about the direction of power. The silencing of someone for hate speech is presented as someone bullying the marginalized, or with less power. You’re only allowed to punch up. Punching down is not fair, or moral. So those in power use this assumption against people; it’s their way of wielding power. We’re supposed to think of someone like Rachel Levine, who went through private schooling and a privileged life, who holds one of the highest positions of power in the government as US Assistant Secretary for Health, as someone downtrodden and marginalized. That’s hard to stomach. Such a person—with all that power—does something that is supposed to make all the difference: present themselves as the gender they biologically are not. And if we object, or even laugh, that power hammers down on us.

As Tucker and Dillon point out in their conversation, someone who can have someone cancelled for making a joke about them or criticizing them in any way is the person with the power.

Here is an off-the-top-of-my-head list (likely incomplete) of the groups, people, or ideas that you’re not allowed to mock or criticize:

·        Trans people (people who present as a gender not aligned with their biology)

·        Homosexuals

·        Blacks

·        Marxists (for example, Black Lives Matter)

·        Elites (by education, money, fame, or government authority)

·        Muslims

·        Palestinians

·        Obamas

·        Bidens

·        Clintons

·        Feminists

·        Pro-Abortionists

·        Medical experts aligned with Big Pharma

The elites deciding on this list and cancelling people for not aligning with their agenda are not the marginalized; they are the power-mongering tyrants.

Here’s the list of people they give permission to marginalize:

·        Christians (particularly Catholics and Latter-day Saints, who believe they have divine authority)

·        Jews

·        Conservatives

·        Constitutionalists

·        Trump and Trump voters/supporters

·        Whites

·        Males

·        Asians

·        Large families (probably 3+ children)

·        Stay-at-home mothers

·        Parents who speak up at school board meetings

·        Pro-lifers

·        COVID skeptics

·        Vaccine hesitant

·        Election Integrity concerned

You get the idea.

Back in 2015 I wrote about the many ways the Obama administration had labeled people like me as domestic extremists. Apparently being a good citizen is extreme. I think the label now is not just extremist, but domestic terrorist, thus the many SWAT raids on harmless citizens. 

Seth Dillon admits that, truthfully, he would prefer Twitter prison to real prison any day. But they did make a sacrifice as a company. They could have deleted the Tweet and been reinstated. But Dillon said he didn’t think they should have to. It was an admission that they had been hateful and in violation—when a great many haters and evil people are allowed to stay on the platform. It was wrong to give in. But it was, clearly, not a good business decision. Twitter had been a source for a lot of their traffic, and that was lost.

They have soldiered on, which I appreciate. I get them in my inbox, and never spent much time on Twitter (pretty much only to find Tucker Carlson), so I actually see more of them than ever. Add to that their sister publication, Not the Bee, which shares news so ludicrous you can’t believe it’s not satire.

We need to stand up and speak truth. The hope is, if enough of us stand up to the censorious tyrants, they will not be able to silence us all. If we can defeat them at the censoring stage—before they move on more than they already have to the indicting/imprisoning stage—then maybe we can altogether prevent the execution stage.