Trump incited a riot in front of a cheering crowd of rabid supporters, so lets ban his tweeter.
"Back after 5 years. I thought you had died.
don"
Splitting my time between the montane and the mesas
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
False argument. He wasn't banned from Twitter for what he said in front of a crowd. It was for what he said on Twitter, which would have gotten anyone else banned long ago.
He will be fine, though. Anyone who can command prime time coverage by announcing an address to the nation is not going to be too inconvenienced by being banned from Twitter. About all we will lose is being privy to every stray thought that happens to occur to him throughout the day.
Well can’t we just get to the point and ban people’s right to assemble?
I don’t buy that he wasn’t banned because of the riot. He wouldn’t have been banned if it didn’t happen.
"Back after 5 years. I thought you had died.
don"
Splitting my time between the montane and the mesas
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
The right to assembly is covered under the First Amendment. The right to Twitter is covered by its Terms of Service. Big difference.
Whew.... glad we fixed that one.
"Back after 5 years. I thought you had died.
don"
Splitting my time between the montane and the mesas
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Me too! Though I will miss the professional and dignified character of the President's tweets. They added so much substance to the national discourse about the many important issues facing our nation. A loss, not only to politics but to literature from the man who once described himself as the Ernest Hemingway of 140 characters.
His ego has no bounds......the man who once described himself as the Ernest Hemingway of 140 characters.
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
"Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis
Man, I hate having to spell things out. And yes Kevin, I got high marks in my civics classes 40 years ago. But thanks for the tuneup.
If banning one obnoxious politician from twitter makes the world a better place, then why don’t just ban them all?
My comments loosely encompass all of the various vengeful and celebratory threads going on here when I say this: you and Dave still have not addressed the fact that you are celebrating/advocating silencing speech you are opposed to. It’s wrong and it’s happening and I’m not just talking about trump.
After the election I was scared of what democratic control of our government might bring. After trump and his mob engaged in one of the most boneheaded and shameful moves imaginable last week, and witnessing the response, I am far more concerned.
"Back after 5 years. I thought you had died.
don"
Splitting my time between the montane and the mesas
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
First, the comment about the difference between Twitter and the Constitution is about the argument you were making, not an attempt at condescension. You were equating the two. I pointed out that they were not equivalent. That's not condescension, that's disputation.
Second, Trump wasn't banned for being obnoxious. That's another false argument. He was banned for violating Twitter's Terms of Service. However, I don't much care if he or all politicians are banned for being obnoxious. I don't see Twitter as anything except entertainment. I'm not going to stick up for anyone's right to utilize Twitter because those rights only exist within the Terms of Service for the platform, not as a Constitutional or even human right.
Dressing being banned from Twitter as silencing speech generally is a nonstarter. There is no Constitutional issue since your speech on Twitter is governed by the Terms of Service you agree to follow when you join and one of them is that you can be banned if you violate those Terms in the opinion of the platform. There is no human rights issue since there is no human right to use someone else's property (Twitter) to promote a message.
You'll have to spell out what you mean when you say you are not just talking about Trump.
Third, I don't think it is correct to characterize my stand as being happy to silence speech I don't agree with. I'm the guy who, on this forum in previous years, agreed with the ACLU when they stuck up for the right of Nazis to march in Illinois. Here in my own area, a controversial academic was due to speak at a local college back about 20 years ago. His engagement got cancelled due to a campaign by those opposed to his message (which wasn't really all that horrible - people just got lathered up). I even wrote publicly in support of that, which in real life got me a lot of static. You are simply wrong if you think I uncritically support silencing speech I don't like. I just make finer distinctions about where the lines are in the debate, that's all.
I give up.
I think your response is saying it’s all within the rules of the game. I hate the game more than the players.
"Back after 5 years. I thought you had died.
don"
Splitting my time between the montane and the mesas
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Yes, I guess you could say it is all about the rules. That's fair.
I see the Constitution as the rules we all agree to play by in society. Twitter's Terms of Service are the rules we agree to play by on Twitter. Mike's User Agreement is the set of rules we agree to follow when on his site.
The rules change depending on where you are and what you are doing. It keeps us from just conking each other over the head when we get irked.
This a little off-topic but it has to do with Twitter and unprofessional behavior.
Many years ago, the county that employed me wanted to create an internet website policy that would apply to all county agencies. Not an easy task for the third largest county in the United States when you take into account the diversity and egos of the various elected officials who wanted to do things their way. They were elected by gosh and no one could tell them how to operate their little fiefdoms!
So, the county decided to hire an outside consulting firm to bring all of the agencies to the table and reach an agreement. I had the dubious pleasure of representing our agency with the instructions to protect our interests and the knowledge we would agree to nothing, we were elected, by gosh!
The associate they sent hooked up his laptop to a projector and proceeded to show us a Power Point presentation (oh, joy!). At the bottom of the screen was a little box with streaming text. This was my first time to see or hear of Twitter. This text stream went on throughout the presentation and the consultant stopped from time to time to "tweet". Right in the middle of his presentation on the screen for everyone to see!
I was amazed at the unprofessional behavior of the high-dollar presenter. It furthered my dislike of the consulting company and gave me such a bad impression of Twitter that I have never joined and never "tweeted". I guess Trump is a lot like our consultant way back then. So addicted to Twitter neither could control themselves and as a result ruined what they were hired to do.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible - Arthur C. Clarke