25 July 2020 #BetweenTheLines
Protesting Censorship
This past week, I posted a 5-question poll here at Twitter, and was looking forward to analyzing its results. There is some important information that was gleaned, until...
2) Until Twitter decided to delete the first question of the poll. The remaining four questions are still, for now, up, and I'll give you that link below. Here, guess what! I was able to find and save an image of the deleted poll question. This is it.
3) I imagine that posting the image above, I raise the odds that Twitter will suspend my account, and I am going to discuss that here. I have screen shots of all 5 questions now, so I no longer fear losing them. Here's the live link to the rest of them:
4) I have decided to run the same 5 questions tomorrow, maybe just a bit spruced up to included some suggestions that came in. Then, we'll see what Twitter does, assuming I still have this account by then. I will analyze both polls, then, Monday with same assumption of course.
5) Over the years here at Twitter, there's been much debate about it being a private company and allowed, thereby, to make its own policies and that we users may freely leave and are under no obligation to employ this service. Free company, it's got its own rules, we're told.
6) I have always disagreed about this. What we've learned is that by editing and selecting what we're allowed to say here, or who is allowed to be here, Twitter places itself into the polisition of being a publisher, not a service provider, and that has huge ramifications.
7) The model I prefer, and which you've likely heard of, is the utilities company approach. No electric company can refuse service for any reason other than non-payment. Utilities are not allowed to select their users. They provide a public service, publicly.
8) Closer to the mark is a telephone company, or even Apple or Samsung in the cell phone market. What if they stopped serving you because of what you said when speaking over the phone? The difference, we're told, is that phone calls are one-on-one, but this is laughable.
9) A speaker may broadcast your conversation, so the one-on-one argument holds no water. Perhaps a better argument is that phones go cross-platform. An iPhone can call any phone number, and if you're going visual, Zoom is a completely different platform.
10) But let's let go of the technical mumbo jumbo, and cut to the heart of the matter. Since February 2018, Twitter has been the main medium of voice I invest into. And, what's more, if this account is suspended, I will move to a different account. I already have it.
11) For other reasons, I won't be able to make that move for another couple of weeks, so I hope I have that long here. If I'm able to accelerate that timeline, I'll let you know. Now we need to go deeper.
12) These great United States of America were founded upon a set of perfectly delineated principles, the first of which was freedom of speech. This means so much more than merely that you get to say what you want. It means that you exists as a personal, sovereign entity.
13) If you face a king, he may say to you, "One more word and I'll have your head for it." A king may stopper your voice. He may destroy your very person whenever he does not like what you have to say. If you look back in history, many prophets died for just this cause.
14) It may well be that the court jester was the very first person to enjoy free speech. He was allowed to poke fun at the king, when no one else could. A fact that most don't know is that jesters were almost always the greatest swordsmen in the land. They had to be.
15) Not only did jesters teach the king's guard their fighting tactics, they often sparred with and taught the king himself his sword fighting skills. Why? Because when poking fun at the king, he often got very angry. All the king's guards needed to fear the jester.
16) That is precisely why the 2nd Amendment follows the 1st. If someone comes to stop up your voice, you must be able to defend yourself. Thus, the right to own and bear arms. Your voice is your person. An attack against it, is an attack against you.
17) What I suffered here at Twitter last week, the very first time in over 2 years of continuous activity here, was simply the destruction of a polling question. Just one. That one is more than just one too many. It symbolizes their destruction of my voice, and thereby, of me.
18) Go big picture now. Let's first defund - to whatever degree we do - the police, and then, let's abolish them. What does this mean? You are no longer safe in your home, or in your neighborhood. Thugs can come and kill you, steal from you, execute your children at will.
19) What this means is that you become indentured to the strongest bad guy who shows up. If you wish to live, or to hold onto your possessions, you'll have to pay him protection money. You will no longer have rights. You will be demoted from sovereignty over yourself.
20) This is very personal for me. I received my name Pasquale from my grandfather. He left Calabria because he enjoyed no sovereignty there, over his own life and work. He always said, "I came to America to work." Work was his right to life itself.
21) My grandfather hated, with a white hot, furious, passionate hatred, the great three powers of Italy. The Church. The Aristocracy. The Mafia. From 1920 when he arrived, to 1982 when he died, he never set foot in a Catholic Church for that reason.
22) He knew that the work of his hands was his actual voice as a man, sovereign over himself, beholden to none. He is my inspiration every day. I work to live up to his values, courage, capability, and genius. And knowing him as I did, do, he'd never let Twitter have this power.
23) In the image above, you see the love, joy, and pure goodness of his soul. What you don't see is his rage, force, and personal power. He faced down gangs of 20 or more union men when they threatened him over working too hard on the railroad. He never flinched.
24) For 41 years, without ever missing a day, or ever taking a vacation, he rose to the highest position a non-university educated man could. He was an engine washer. Never heard of that? He ran the roundhouse, and took the engines to his station, and cleaned them.
25) Cleaned? He took every single part out, cleaned it, put the entire engine back together, and it ran perfectly for months or years after. When he died, it took six men to replace him. He was the last of his kind. He was the ultimate craftsman. His hands spoke.
26) My grandfather would scoff at Twitter. Not because of social media. He'd understand the power of voice. No. That it would delete a single posting. He would know he was facing the Mafia, the Aristocracy, and the corrupted Church all over again. He would know, instantly.
27) I can hear him now, speaking. He would say to me, Pasquale, you must speak. Never allow anyone the right to silence you. You are a man. Be a man. Speak. It is your calling to speak. It is your art, your craft, your work. Speak. Allow no one to silence you, not a single word.
28) Here at Twitter, I have a teacher. Her name is @TamaraLeigh_llc. It took Tamara years to build an account of 75,000 followers. I don't know how she got through Twitter wiping that account out, but she did. She refused to leave, to allow her silencing.
29) Let's talk economics. With every tweet that Tamara creates - I call them magic tweets - she raises the value of Twitter, itself. It is her work that makes Twitter so valuable. Yet, they scorn her. They silence her. As my grandfather would, I too rage over this.
30) Rage, rage against the night, against the dying of the light. The light of America is dimming, friends. For me, a single poll question. For Tamara, 75,000 followers. Her voice is shut. The light of free speech is lost. Our sovereignty over our own persons is cut down.
31) Yes, friends, I rage. I burn within my soul. I was at first sad, believe it or not. I was. That didn't last long. I then got mad, and mad I remain. I see more. Someone made a decision. They decided to silence Tamara. Someone decided to delete my poll questions. Why?
32) We face evil in high places. We face their dark purposes, right here at Twitter. They reveal themselves by their choices and actions. And that is why I choose to stay right here and fight.
33) We must plunge deeper still. Personally - and not yet having data upon which to base it - my call is that Trump wins his second term. Even then, it will only be 4 years. What happens in 2024 and beyond? Or, I'm wrong, and he loses. What then?
34) I can tell you one thing. We must dust off our old copies of the Federalist Papers. We must return to the Constitution itself and write its words upon our hearts, teach its principles to our children and grandchildren. We must keep the Dream of America alive.
35) In closing, allow me this simple poll.
Do you know the meaning of the 1st 10 Amendments of the Constitution?
Thread ends at #35.