March 24, 2021

See, Blogging at Mee.nu Has Genuine Benefits

Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor
Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor
Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor
Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor
Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor
Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor
Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor
Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor
Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor Aimee Challenor


Mr. Hambly on the other hand, is a YouTuber and is now on his 12th attempt at cover a bizarre story at Reddit without getting yeeted. His coverage is almost funny as, on this attempt he covers the story without mentioning ANY of the details by name. I say almost because it is terrifying that this is where we are. 

Short version: The above mentioned individual was expelled from both the UK Green and Liberal Democratic Parties for depravity involving minors and protecting those who do dreadful things to them. Reddit hired her. Reddit installed bots to permanently ban anyone who posted anything that referred to this individual...including links to unrelated news stories that mentioned her in passing. 
Since Reddit did not announce they had begun providing job placement services for M.A.P.s nobody had any idea why subreddit admins and posters were getting perma-banned. 

No one on Reddit can discuss Aimee Challenor or they will be permabanned and this policy seems to at least partially apply to YouTube as well. Several of the channels have gone private and/or are locking down while they try to get some guidance from Reddit as to exactly how they expect people to avoid this minefield when Reddit won't say the words that are not allowed. 

UPDATE: 
Reddit has backed down, removed Aimee Challenor and issued a statement...in which they still do not mention her name. 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 06:01 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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March 20, 2021

Perusing Comment's Sections is not a Productive Use of my Time

Over at Instapundit they are discussing the recent decision by Amazon to ban "When Harry Became Sally". 

Ed Driscoll ends the brief excerpt with this...

  "I’m so old I can remember when Jeff Bezos was believed to have been a libertarian."

...which kind have set me off more than mere words should have.

Because, while i used to consider myself a libertarian, or at least libertarian-leaning back in the '90s,. Indeed, I could have typed that sentence with a straight face a few years ago, but now? 

There is nothing un-libertarian about Bezos's decision, (at least not in practice, in THEORY this is an affront to the whole concept).

 Libertarians (at least the Reason-Mag hipster-douche libertarians) seem to be  fine with cancel culture as long as it's the 'squares' being cancelled. 

Back when it was the fringe case of a patassier asking govt. not to force him to participate in a religious ceremony forbidden by his faith, the libertarian mantra was "Bake the damn cake!" Now we hear a lot of "Muh private biddness!"...as long as the view getting defenistrated is not a view approved of by the 'clerisy'. 

They oppose the death penalty and implore us not to execute child-rapists, mass murderers or anyone. This has a very defensible argument behind it, particularly when one remembers how many people have been cleared of their charges after conviction...or if one just ponders the existence of the current Vice President.  However, to libertarians it does not apply to a complete innocent that happens to be conceived inside a woman who finds her inconvenient. 

Libertarians applaud the destruction of monuments and graves that memorialize our tragically misguided ancestors, because no time, context, nor cultural differences nor understanding can excuse the abhorrent practices of that age, but out the other corner of their mouth they lobby hard for 'frictionless' trade with China and every third world hellhole that cuts costs by substituting chains and a whip for paychecks. 

They rail against tariffs with an intensity that would make Fitzhugh proud. When the human cost of the exporting of jobs is brought up, they, after a moment of bewilderment that anyone should care for such inferiors that would not see a job loss as OPPORTUNITY, roll out their Gartmans to explain to us in small condescending words how no one should be asked to subsidize the job of an idiot who can't compete. ( compete against the aforementioned slave labor that is).  Someone's orientation should be respected (I agree!), unless one is a straight male or a lesbian then the libertarian chant of freedom is "Suck the d*** bigot!"consent be damned apparently. (I don't think Ayn Rand would approve.) 

 I used to consider myself a libertarian, considering it to be rooted in the enlightenment and not the style policing of upper-class mean girls. But I was young then and had not encountered the sneering disdain and contempt for...what exactly I'm not sure....perhaps those not high on the foetid air that collects in the mezzanines of law school libraries?  I dunno, in the last few years they've just gone full reta...oh wait we can't say that and it's OK because 'muh private biddness'.   

I think libertarians are right, or at least on solid ground on many issues, but they seem to attract autists who cary every single point to a ludicrous extreme and can't percieve (or care) about the societal costs of some of their policies. This is why I've been solidly conservative for many years, which might surprise some of you but conservatism in the U.S. is what is considered Liberalism in much of the rest of the world. (It's a conservative interpretation of the constitution placing limits on government power rather than a liberal interpretation of the commerce clause allowing the government to any old thing. ) I think that there are arguments for even the more hedonistic proposals of libertarians such as legalizing drugs and prostitution, but the societal costs and other second order effects have to be taken into account and factored in by something other than the market...which will be quite happy to to sell cigarettes to kids and the ultimate end state of legalizing prostitution might well be slavery for the sex-workers. The libertarian response seems to me to be the waving of the free-market totem and a recitation of verses from the book of Hayek. 

Free markets DO efficiently sort goods services and people, and will quickly find a correct price for anything, including your daughter's virginity and her organs. This is why I do not want to live in AnCapiStan. 

I think that Conservatism represents a good middle path between the post-Calvanistic scolds on the American left and the sort of atheistic rapaciousness and hedonism that libertarianism seems to increasingly represent.  (So much so that conservatives might one day corner the Buddhist vote.) 

I don't see Libertarianism in its current form as anything so much as a, destructive, frantic, and ill-advised overcorrection to the idiocies of neo-liberalism. It does, however have the very great advantage of being nigh-infinitely preferable to the attempts by the left to correct the same problems which are actively malign rather than merely oblivious. 

Still, I'll stick with the middle path for now. 


UPDATE: A rather less verbose comment I made at Instapundit was the origin of this post. I was surprised to see it getting upvotes, but when I refreshed the page it had been deleted. 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:19 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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March 14, 2021

Not a Reassuring Trend

This is "interesting".


So I encountered a story about how the ATF has shut down a website and arrested the owner for the crime of distributing schematics of auto-sears. (Auto-sears are devices one can install into a semi-auto firearm in order to convert it to full auto and perhaps not have it blow up.)  The ATF, for its part is boasting that they did the thing. Oh. Also, anyone who purchased these products from this company is facing 10 years in prison and 250,000 dollar fine. Now, these schematics were printed on sheets of metal  so that one could, if one had access to a machine shop, cut out a piece of metal and, if one folded it properly have an auto sear. Still. It's just schematics, plans, words, and this isn't even under the purview of the thorny problem of ITER regulations. A book on how guns work, is not that different from this, so the implications are worrisome.

But wait.

It gets worse. 

This very same morning, right before I started to write this post, I stopped by Pixy's and found this story about how the CEO of a Canadian company has been indicted first by EU ministries of justice and now by Biden's justice department for having adequate encryption. 

  Last night, the United States Department of Justice announced that they had indicted the CEO of Sky Global, Jean-Francois Eap, and one of his associates, Thomas Herdman, for allegedly violating federal racketeering laws (RICO). Herdman is said to be a former global distributor of Sky Global devices.

"According to the indictment, Sky Global’s devices are specifically designed to prevent law enforcement from actively monitoring the communications between members of transnational criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking and money laundering."
 

Of course they are designed to prevent anybody from actively monitoring one's messages, whether they be ChiCom secret police, Corporate spies, Murderous spouses, Sharia enforcers, child traffickers interested in your kids, Antifa hate mobs, white nationalist thugs, or the Westborro Church. Thwarting 4th amendment violations is really just a happy bonus. 

Note too, that the people indicted are not alleged to have trafficked in drugs or done anything untoward except honor their contract. They are likely to go to jail because someone who was allegedly bad might have used their service (but this is unproven because the messages the Justice Department wants to read to prove they are bad are encrypted.) If it is KNOWN that these are bad people, then the evidence that was obtained independently of reading their mail should be used to prosecute them. 

The 50 cent army and STASSI, are not things we should pattern our law enforcement methods after. Two different stories, on the same day, both involving law enforcement deciding that first and fourth amendment provisions do not apply to the internet, is a troubling trend indeed. 


Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:12 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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