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To: AU72

Exercise the power of the purse. Ban all advertisers and create your own platform. War is hell.


6 posted on 02/21/2018 9:27:30 AM PST by Salvavida (The Missouri citizen's militia sends its regards.)
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To: Salvavida
create your own platform.
I confess that I have never used Twitter, but it does seem like it - and YouTube - could be competed against.

Note: There is no shame in creating a site which is openly and explicitly conservative - like FR. In fact, as Twitter seems to be tacitly admitting, any “mainstream nonpolitical” site will in fact be “liberal.”

O’Sullivan’s First Law


An eternal truth.
By John O’Sullivan

EDITOR’S NOTE: This appeared in the October 27, 1989, issue of National Review.

Robert Michels — as any reader of James Burnham's finest book, The Machiavellians, knows was the author of the Iron Law of Oligarchy. This states that in any organization the permanent officials will gradually obtain such influence that its day-to-day program will increasingly reflect their interests rather than its own stated philosophy. To take a homely example, congressmen from egalitarian parties somehow end up voting for higher pay and generous expenses for congressmen. We can also catch an ironic echo of Michels's law in Stalin's title of General Secretary, as well as in the fact that powerful mandarins in the British government creep about under such deceptive pseudonyms as "Permanent Under-Secretary." All of which is by way of introducing a new law of my own. My copy of the current Mother Jones (well, it's my job to read that sort of thing — I take no pleasure in it) contains an advertisement for Amnesty International. Now, AI used to be a perfectly serviceable single-issue pressure group which drew the world's attention to the plight of political prisoners around the globe. Many people owe their lives and liberty to it. But that good work depended greatly on AI's being a single-issue organization that helped victims of both left- and right-wing regimes and was careful to remain politically neutral in other respects. Its advertisement in Mother Jones, however, abandons this tradition by calling for an end to the death penalty.

The ad itself, needless to say, is the usual liberal rhubarb. "In American courtrooms," it intones, "some have a better chance of being sentenced to death." That is true: the people in question are called murderers. But Al naturally means something different and more sinister — namely that poor, black, and retarded people are more likely to face the electric chair than other murderers.

Let us suppose this to be the case. What follows? A mentally retarded person incapable of understanding the significance of his actions cannot be guilty of murder or of any other crime. A law that punishes him (as opposed to one that confines him for his own and society's safety) is unjust and should be changed — whether or not he faces the death penalty. On the other hand, someone who is guilty of murder may be executed with perfect justice. His race or economic circumstances do not affect the matter at all. The fact that other murderers may obtain lesser sentences does not in any way detract from the justice of his own punishment. After all, some murderers have always escaped scot-free. Would Amnesty have us release the rest on the grounds of equality of treatment? Finally, Amnesty's argument from discrimination could be met just as well by executing more rich, white murderers (which would be fine with me) as by executing no murderers at all. Significantly, Amnesty's list of death-penalty victims" does not include political prisoners. America does not, have political prisoners, let alone execute them. Why, then, Amnesty's campaign on the issue?

That is explained by O'Sullivan's First Law:

All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.
I cite as supporting evidence the ACLU, the Ford Foundation, and the Episcopal Church. The reason is, of course, that people who staff such bodies tend to be the sort who don't like private profit, business, making money, the current organization of society, and, by extension, the Western world. At which point Michels's Iron Law of Oligarchy takes over — and the rest follows.
Not only is O’Sullivan’s logic sound, but attention must be paid to the incentives of journalism. Journalists are in the business of attracting attention and convincing people to agree with them, for fun and profit. And journalists know - they are taught in Journalism 101 - that bad news sells. People can’t ignore bad news. So, guess what is in the newspaper!
The people and institutions upon which society depends are venal and weak - and the government doesn’t do enough to correct the problem.
That is the message of all commercial mass-market journalism. It also happens to be socialist propaganda. Thus, journalism will always position socialism as “what is,” and any opposition to socialism as “partisan.”

So in the real world we do not have nonpartisan, objective journalism. And that includes Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. And Google. And if you are conservative, and try to create a nonpartisan, objective venue along the lines of Twitter et al and eschew explicit conservatism in your mission statement, you will be Alinsky’ed into being no better than the originals. There is nothing for it but to be openly conservative, and proud of it. And if that turns you into Donald Trump instead of George W. Bush, well - it is what it is.


186 posted on 02/21/2018 1:35:34 PM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (Presses can be 'associated,' or presses can be independent. Demand independent presses.)
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