Author: Crowhill Report

John Adams famously said about the U.S. government:

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

He said the government envisioned in the constitution wasn’t powerful enough to contend with unbridled immorality, avarice, ambition, etc. It only worked under certain preconditions.

A lot of people are concerned today about fake news, misinformation, “news” sites that are more focused on clicks and eyeballs and ad revenue than truth. But that doesn’t even tell the whole tale. If we were limited to “news” sites that had a profit motive, that might still be manageable.

Unfortunatley, on top of that we have wacky conspiracy sites, flat Earthers, people who spout ridiculous nonsense to get their five minutes of fame … or whatever. Maybe they only do it for the jollies.

Does free speech — like the U.S. system of government — have its own set of cultural assumptions? Does it only work with people who have certain characteristics?

I’m beginning to think so, and I’m trying to formulate a list.

Critical thinking is obviously an important thing. People need to be trained to ask “how do you know this?” and “what facts might go against what you’re saying?”

Some sort of regard for the witness of the majority is important, but I’m not sure how far to take that.

When it comes to social media, a commitment not to give or take offense seems like a good idea.

It’s also necessary to be fair in how you represent other views, and to hear people out.

You can’t jump to conclusions. You can’t put people in boxes. You can’t say “if you believe A then you believe B,” or “if you’re in this demographic, you believe C.”

The more I think about it, the more fragile free speech seems to be. It requires a commitment to quite a few public virtues that we’re not pressing on people these days.

What do you think?

ABC News says Minority women most affected if abortion is banned, limited

Their bias is showing. Why not say “More minority children will be born if abortion is banned”?

Joe Rogan’s response to his critics makes his critics look like the intolerant, petty tyrants they are. You should listen to the whole thing, but here’s an important extract.

The problem I have with the term ‘misinformation’– especially today — is that many of the things that we thought of as misinformation just a short while ago are now accepted as fact.

Like for instance, eight months ago if you said that if you get vaccinated you can still catch Covid and you can still spread Covid, you would be removed from social media. They would ban you from certain platforms. Now, that’s accepted as fact.

If you said, ‘I don’t think cloth masks work,’ you would be banned from social media. Now, that’s openly and repeatedly stated on CNN.

If you said, ‘I think it’s possible that Covid-19 came from a lab,’ you would be banned from many social media platforms. Now that’s on the cover of Newsweek.

All of those theories — that at one point in time were banned — were openly discussed by those two men that I had on my podcast — that have been accused of dangerous misinformation.

We need more, not less, open and honest discussion in this country, and the success of Joe Rogan’s podcast shows that there’s a hunger for it.

This is not North Korea, where only one point of view is allowed to be spoken.

If you can believe this article, anyway: Poll: 1 in 4 Americans say violence against the government is sometimes OK

I’m disappointed that only 1 in 4 think violence is “sometimes OK.” It should be 4 in 4. Of course it’s sometimes okay.

One in 10 Americans say violence is justified right now. And among Republican men, it’s nearly 1 in 5.

I’m disappointed that 1 in 5 Republican men believe things are so bad that violence against the government is justified now. I strongly disagree with that.

What do you do about a statistic like that? 1 in 10 Americans believe the government is so bad that we’d be justified in fighting against it. Real fighting, not protests and such.

A sensible response would be to try to find out why people believe that, and try to fix the problem.

Rational people only choose violence when they believe non-violent remedies won’t work. Why do 1 in 10 Americans think non-violent remedies won’t work? Do they feel as if they’re not being heard? Do they feel as if they’ve been asking for the same thing for decades (e.g., fixing the immigration problem) and the government pays no attention? Do they distrust the election system?

Some will want to blame fake news, crazy websites, radical politicians, YouTube channels, etc., but I think that’s backwards. Those sources are popular because their message resonates, and their message resonates because people are frustrated. The solution is not to shut down the channels, but to find out why the message resonates — and fix it.

Maybe look at things like this: 20 years of data reveals that Congress doesn’t care what you think.

I have little hope of this happening.

What’s more likely to happen is that the people in power will deny the problem, wag their fingers at the 1 in 10, demonize them, call them deplorables, etc. As that doesn’t work, they’ll take increasingly tyrannical steps to silence the 1 in 10, which will backfire and make those numbers even worse. Eventually we’ll get to the tipping point where too many people believe the only solution is violence.

One way to influence the way people think is to always express things with certain categories. For example, the simple fact of having white and colored water fountains trains your brain to divide people that way. It’s not tall or short, fat or thin, hungry or well fed. It’s white and colored. That’s how they want you to divide humanity.

I just saw an article that talks about people “of every age, ethnicity, gender, and orientation.”

Why pick those? Why not religion, political party, sex, language, extroversion, IQ, eye color, ….

There are plenty of ways to divide people. Different sorts of divisions probably make sense in different situations. At a swim meet, age, sex, team affiliation and seed time are the most important. At football tryouts, body shape, speed and strength are very important.

Over-reliance on one set of divisions creates discrimination according to those dividing lines.

That’s part of why I will never list “my” pronouns. It’s an effort to retrain people’s brains to believe that gender expression should be a top of mind category.