The Outsider

If you asked me to tell you how many online "progressive" or "socialist" groups I've been kicked out of, I honestly couldn't tell you. It has been a dozen, at least, and could easily be more than twenty. Or thirty.


I haven't been kicked out of this one yet, but this is how it generally goes. The EarthStrike subreddit is supposed to be a group for a "rapidly growing movement to avoid irreversible climate change". Now that's definitely a goal that I support! There's no issue as important to humanity - in fact, there's never been an issue that's close to as important.

Which is why I responded when I saw a post asking if anyone would be interested in a leftist solidarity group, a place to organize and discuss and network. I'll paraphrase rather than quote anyone other than myself, but my own answers will be verbatim.

Me: What sort of leftism are you talking about?

The response was anti-capitalist, anti-oppression. After a bit more discussion, I said:

I was kicked out of r/socialism for saying that antifa people who want to initiate violence to silence people that they disagree with, have fascistic tendencies themselves.

I was kicked out of r/latestagecapitalism for questioning posts which promoted Hillary and the DNC.

And I pretty much quit r/occupywallstreet over a bunch of pro-DNC trolls that the moderators seem to be protecting.

That was just here on Reddit, of course. I couldn't tell you how many supposed progressive or revolutionary groups I was kicked out of on Facebook and other places. Of course, almost all of those groups were either attacked or bought out outright by David Brock and the DNC.

The answer I got from the OP was that those bans seemed unfair except for the first one.

More discussion ensued, and the responses I got from commenters got more and more hostile. The idea that the First Amendment should apply even to speech that we found abhorrent enraged almost every responder (except one, who was heaped with abuse for sharing my opinion). One guy even claimed that there was no evidence that the planet was becoming uninhabitable - in fairness, though, that response was downvoted.

My own comments began receiving a large number of downvotes. It was quite obvious that the same pattern I'd seen before was being repeated: if I wasn't about to be outright banned, I was clearly going to be persona non grata. So my last comment was:

Ah, such tolerance. I voice concern about initiating violence against others for their speech, and immediately receive many downvotes - and no doubt this post will be downvoted too.

The basic concept of the First Amendment appears to be beyond the understanding of the majority of Americans. Instead, it's "free speech for me, but not for thee" - the personal and political equivalent of American exceptionalism.

I don't support free speech for the people I disagree with because I actually agree with their opinions. I don't. I support free speech for everyone, because if it doesn't apply for everyone, it soon won't apply for anyone - except the people at the top.

People who truly cared about the Earth wouldn't be looking to fight poor and desperate people who have been suckered into right-wing ideology. They would be looking to convert them. In the end, they are in the same dead end trap as the rest of us. Advocating violence against them for their misguided and hateful opinions doesn't improve the situation. It only gladdens the hearts of the oligarchs who would rather see the underclasses fighting against each other instead of turning their sites on the real authors of our misery: the 0.01%.

And just because I know that it's going to be said: no, I'm not saying that right-wingers should be allowed to plan and carry out acts of mass violence without interference. Those are crimes, and should be treated as such. I am saying that once you give anyone the right to silence others for any reason when it comes to the expression of their opinions, you have just become an agent of fascism yourself.

If we are lucky, we have twelve years before the Earth is in a death spiral that will be beyond our power to divert. We don't have time to be fighting political battles with other people who are as much victims as we are. We should be finding ways to fight the real enemy. It's just horrifying that so many people on all sides would rather be fighting each other than fighting for a future for the world.

Okay, I'm done. Downvote away.

And that was the end of my participation in that group. The downvotes my responses received collapsed many of them out of view. That's a flaw with Reddit, I think; a few bad actors, shills, or trolls can downvote positive posts and comments and effectively hide them from the whole community. That makes it easier for DNC activists to drive real activists out of the group, and turn it into an echo chamber for DNC corporate propaganda.

It horrifies me that the majority of people don't understand that if a right doesn't apply to everyone, it's not a right - it's a privilege. They're perfectly comfortable with the idea of a First Amendment that protects them, but doesn't exist for any person or opinion that they dislike. What flaw is it in human nature that people can't get that if you have the power to silence those you dislike, it's just a short step to imprisoning or killing them?

Why don't they understand that once a government has the power to selectively silence citizens, it's inevitable that that power will be abused? And turned against the people themselves?

Sometimes the stupidity of the human race makes me shake my head.

As I responded to the commenter who claimed that there was no evidence for the ongoing global climate catastrophe:

Contra stultitia deos frustra contendere.

I wish I could think of something to do.