Author Archives: oinsketta

Protecting the right to lie is crucial for liars

Without the ability to lie those who rely on lies to prevail find themselves at a terrible disadvantage. Freedom of speech was designed to allow a full spectrum of speech, making no distinction between wise words and stupid words, truth and lies.

The only distinction made, in a unanimous Supreme Court decision, was between ordinary disgusting speech and speech that is a foreseeable and immediate incitement to violence. Where the line of is has long been a subject of furious debate on both sides. What removes certain speech from the broad protections of the First Amendment is the imminence of the physical harm it is certain to cause (or economic harm caused by defamation).

The absolute, unregulatable right to spread false information that has already led to violence is in a different category than an absolute right to call somebody else a fucking asshole.

More insightful reporting and analysis by historian Heather Cox Richardson:

Trump-appointed judge Terry A. Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana issued a preliminary injunction saying the First Amendment prevents the government from trying to stop the spread of disinformation. 

Doughty has become the judge Republican attorneys general seek out in their challenges to the Biden administration, and in this case, that judge shopping appears to have paid off. In a lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri, Doughty temporarily prevented employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Health and Human Services from talking to social media companies for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.” 

At stake is the belief among right-wing figures that government officials and social media companies have teamed up to silence them, although in fact, studies show that social media algorithms actually amplify right-wing political content and that social media companies are reluctant to remove it out of fear of backlash from extremists. Right-wing complaints stem from the removal of disinformation during the pandemic, and of accounts linked to the violence of January 6, 2021. 

For years, the government has worked with social media companies to try to address terrorism, images of child sexual abuse, and disinformation about the pandemic and elections. But disinformation has become a key political tool for the Republicans, and going into the 2024 election season, they have doubled down on the disinformation that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent and flooded the media with that lie. 

Fittingly, as Philip Bump pointed out in the Washington Post today, Doughty’s injunction accepts right-wing allegations at face value, meaning he cites as a mark against the administration something that, in fact, didn’t happen. 

Foreign accounts have amplified right-wing lies, and the injunction specifically targets the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, which leads the push to identify and stop malign foreign influence in our social media. 

But there is a new twist there: Russia’s Yevgeny Prigozhin—the man who recently led his Wagner Group soldiers toward Moscow to demand changes in Russian military leadership—was key to the 2016 Russian disinformation campaign, and Reuters reported on Sunday that he announced on Saturday that his media company, including a troll factory that sought to influence public opinion in the U.S., is shutting down. 

That the injunction claims to protect free speech by forcing people to stop communication was not lost on observers. Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe called the injunction “blatantly unconstitutional” and noted: “Censoring a broad swath of vital communications between government and social media platforms in the name of combating censorship makes a mockery of the first amendment.” Tribe joined law professor Leah Litman to eviscerate the “breathtaking scope” of the order. 

The Department of Justice appealed the order today. It will go to the right-wing Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Disinformation is also behind the attempt of far-right House members to undermine the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, both of which maintain the rule of law in the United States. The FBI was key to investigating Russia’s attempt to help former president Trump win the 2016 presidential election and the efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, while the DOJ has been central to making sure that those who have broken the law are held accountable.

Right-wing Republicans, many of whom are implicated in the events surrounding the 2020 election, insist that the FBI—overseen by Trump appointee Christopher Wray—and the DOJ are improperly targeting them. They are calling for Wray to be fired and Attorney General Merrick Garland, who heads the DOJ, to be impeached. Barring that, they want to starve the department and the bureau by slashing their budgets. 

Trump attacked the FBI and the DOJ from the beginning of his presidency, and today the House investigation into the FBI and DOJ includes the Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means Committees. It is currently centered on right-wing insistence that President Biden’s 53-year-old son, Hunter, received a lenient deal from the DOJ and that the DOJ retaliated against an IRS whistleblower about the case. Legal analysts say that, in fact, the younger Biden got a harsher deal than others and point out that David Weiss, the U.S. attorney overseeing the case, was appointed by Trump. 

On June 7, Weiss told Jordan in a letter that Garland had given Weiss full authority over the case; on June 30, Weiss wrote to deny that the DOJ had retaliated against a whistleblower, reiterating that he had “been granted ultimate authority over this matter.” Wray is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), on July 12. Jordan is a key critic of what he claims is FBI focus on Republicans.

Disinformation was a key factor in the rise of Russian president Vladimir Putin to the authoritarian power he now holds.

source

It’s not that hard to understand

Hard to swallow as a bone crosswise in the old craw, no doubt, but in the end not that hard to understand how people can believe an inflammatory lie about you if it is confided with passion and great sorrow.

picture the story that destroys your good name among a group of old mutual friends:

“You know how much we all love him, and how long we’ve been close, like family, but something happened to him, something we can’t understand. We’ve told him over and over how sorry we are that he seemed to have been hurt but nothing we say is ever enough to reassure him of our love. He seems determined to fight, to never forgive something that happened TWO YEARS AGO. He remains stuck in his abusive childhood, he’s never been able to trust anybody, or make himself vulnerable enough to accept love. We can’t tell you how many times we tried to make him understand how much we love him. but it’s like talking to a wall. It’s so painful and frustrating, nothing we say or do can get through to him. He insists we’re not listening to him and he’s already told us all this dozens of times. Not once, not twice, believe us if we say many, many times. But it’s never enough, because his father abused him and he can’t recover from that. We even offered to hire a mediator to help him realize how much we love him, but after pretending to be on board, he fought us on this, and you know how he loves to argue, and in the end told us to fuck off. It is one of the most painful things we have ever gone through, to have a friend we’ve loved so long, unfairly treat us like we are dead.”

Freedom of Thought

I watched a short clip of autocratic billionaire Elon Musk talking about freedom of speech, and, presumably, why it is important to protect lying, even inflammatory, speech as vigilantly as truthful speech. The First Amendment is sacred to Musk, he claims, in much the way the Second Amendment is probably sacred to him. Freedom of Speech, to most billionaires, is directly related to any speech necessary to protect them from taxation or regulation of their businesses, both of which are forms of inhuman tyranny.

Shouting fire in a crowded theatre, when there is no fire, is prohibited speech. Shouting “child molester!” while gesturing desperately toward a man with a child (who may be his own kid) to a crowd of drunken people with guns is similar. Shouting “Stolen Election!” after your own experts have all told you there was no widespread fraud found is the same thing. So is “Mask Mandates are Auschwitz!!!” and any number of rallying cries that excite volatile mobs of otherwise decent people who are well beyond the reach of critical thinking.

If this kind of panic/rage-inciting speech remains unregulated, freedom of thought begins to disappear. All discussion is reduced to an idiotic “true or false” test with reflexive answers from each of only two sides. There is only “right” and “wrong” in a world deliberately and systematically drained of nuance. Protecting incendiary lies is a direct road to mass idiocy, which is always beneficial to would-be tyrants.

For those who believe they are more important than everybody else, it is crucial to establish “freedom of thought” that aligns with their needs. To my great horror, I’ve experienced this in my personal life, in a grotesque mirroring of MAGA-mania. In the face of damaging lies about my character, evidence becomes as irrelevant as common sense. The question is not “did this person ever show signs of being a sadist, a brute, a bully, a liar, someone who cannot forgive, no matter how people beg him for mercy?”. Those questions are wiped away by an emotional stance, taken to remain united with others who share your love and views of right and wrong.

That the smartest and most sensitive of people will sometimes embrace these ill-intended fabrications is one of the great tragedies of our world. Every lynch mob in history has rushed forward convinced of the righteousness of their mission. That the occasional highly evolved person will sometimes see the point of the mob, or at least profess to take no side, is one of the hardest things in the world to swallow, for a sadistic, insanely vengeful asshole like me, anyway.

The woke mob goes after another beloved icon

Remember, serial drugger/rapist Bill Cosby got out of jail because a future Trump impeachment lawyer, Bruce Castor, gave him an immunity deal years earlier and some of what he said under this immunity deal was used against him at trial. MAGA gaga. Go eat some more Jello pudding, Bill.

Bill Cosby’s 2018 sexual-assault conviction was thrown out by Pennsylvania’s highest court on Wednesday, and Cosby was released from prison shortly after. The ruling was the product of a deal Cosby had made with a district attorney in 2005 in which the prosecutor promised Cosby he wouldn’t be charged in a case involving Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee who accused Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting her in 2004.

That prosecutor — Bruce Castor, then the Montgomery County district attorney — made headlines this year when he represented former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial.

Under the terms of his deal with Cosby, Castor asked the disgraced comedian to testify in a civil lawsuit filed by Constand in exchange for avoiding prosecution.

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that Castor’s deal with Cosby should have prevented Cosby from being charged in the case, which ultimately landed him behind bars

source

Critic v Hater

When someone offers criticism of something you did, or failed to do, you can have a discussion about the thing being criticized. It may be a hasty decision, it may be a mistake you made, something you did without thinking through all the consequences. We learn from astute criticism.

In contrast to legitimate criticism, there is the way of the hater. You reduce the person you now hate to the sum of their faults. No discussion is possible with a hater. Hate is the final, irreversible conclusion to any conflict with a person who hates.

Thankfully, we are not all fucking haters.

Nice discussion
2:20 to 3:50

I’ve got to talk to my shrink

Note: I originally wrote this many months ago, maybe nine months or more, while I was still wrestling with an insoluble conflict that I have since recognized was insoluble. That particular day my mind and soul were smarting from the ongoing fucking they’d endured for many, many months.

I came to see that recognizing that the people I was in the conflict with were not capable of resolving conflict was the only exit from that conflict.

I kept intending to come back and rewrite this piece, edit it a bit, but I never did. I put it on auto publish for a remote date. That day turned out to be today. Anyway, here it is.

When I’m wrestling with something that upsets me, for example a long dispute over whether it is reasonable for me to feel upset — no matter how intolerable a situation may have become or how long it is extended — I have to be judicious in what I say to the few good friends I still have.  Sekhnet can understand a good deal of what I’m upset about, but she reaches a breaking point, as we all do, trying to think about a conflict so seemingly straightforward to resolve but mindfucking in its prolonged difficulty to put right.    

There are contradictions in human behavior that can drive us mad, people cannot process such difficult things, or even sit with feelings about them for very long without getting frustrated.  Frustration is a short step from anger, and that flares easily enough when confronted with a problem without a solution, or a problem whose only possible solution lies in remaining supernaturally patient, kind and understanding, no matter what the other parties to the conflict do to make that difficult. 

If your patience is rewarded with ongoing accusations of ill-will, it is very hard to remember that everyone is truly doing the best they can within their limitations.   It is not fair, after a certain point, to expect others to be of much help with things so personally painful and so long impossible to fix.   At such times, seeing I am placing an impossible burden on someone I love, I have to remind myself to shoulder the fucking thing myself, which I am still not good at doing.      

“I’m going up to sit down with my shrink,” I said to Sekh just now.  And here I am, sitting in front of this page.

In writing, thinking, rewriting, we can often see things more clearly than when senselessly arguing with people about views they need to dispute every detail of.  Shouldn’t sitting down to write be the end of it, write in my diary and learn what I can from the exercise?  Why post these sessions for anybody to see?  Aren’t these private thoughts about interpersonal pain that are nobody else’s business but mine and whoever it is I claim acted poorly toward me?   They are private thoughts about painful feelings, but, if unexpressed, these feelings will literally choke me to death. 

The reason I post them is to be aware of every word I write, to weigh my experience against counter-arguments, to write as though the whole world is watching, so to speak, causing me to choose my words with care.  I write to clarify, and simplify, things that are impossible to make clear in the snarl of understandable defensive rebuttals.

The only antidote to forced silence during a conflict is dialogue, and if speech is forbidden, or topics placed out of bounds, and a written attempt to begin reconciliation is ignored, the only way for me, personally, to avoid choking to death on that conundrum is to post my wrestling match with those concerns here, in generic form.   If my need to make myself clear, to understand something that has become maddening, is more important to me than making sure people who are keeping their distance from me would not be hurt to read these words, it’s a trade off I have to make, to preserve what’s left of my sanity.   A calculated risk I have to take sometimes because this exercise is essential to my ability to remain at all calm in the face of prolonged demands to understand others while the simple reciprocal good will I need is dismissed and I am blamed for all the bad feelings anyone has.

Few people read these posts anyway.  Names are not mentioned.   The likelihood of anyone I am in conflict with clicking on anything here is very small.  What they read may make them feel defensive sometimes (as I’m told the title of a previous post on friendship, I hope this doesn’t sound judgmental does — in fact, without the title it drew a snide comment), but we are already in a burning emotional cul de sac, a massive shit fire with no way out except through talk, which has been delayed for many months, for a variety of sometimes perfectly good sounding reasons.

Another reason to put these issues here is to set out thoughts that can hopefully be useful to others who may find themselves in a similar predicament.  It’s a relief to read something that makes you realize you are not alone in something mind-fuckingly hard you are going through.   Nothing that happens to any of us is unique to our lives, there are variations of things that cause us our specific pain all around.  It can be helpful to read somebody else’s best ideas about dealing with something you may have gone through, are going through.  We are all damaged, in different ways, all human, we all fall prey to various weaknesses that keep us from always acting the way we hope to act. 

There is no shame in failing to remain your best self at all times, and no harm, as long as you can acknowledge it when it‘s necessary, make amends and try to do better.  Denial and counter-attack don’t help much, to state it as nonjudgementally as I can.

Many people have been raised by parents who were immature, unable to rise above childish reactions to their frustrations.  Only a lucky few have been raised by gentle, always kind and thoughtful parents who generally know what to do when their child is upset, or needs something from them they feel challenged to provide.  Such parents knew how to do this because they were lucky enough to be raised by such parents, or other family members or supportive adults or they had great therapeutic insights after a ton of hard work.   

Most children have to accommodate themselves to whatever their parents’ weaknesses are, accept being unfairly blamed, hit, snarled at, cursed, faulted for things that were only in small part their fault, expected to accept a story about them that makes little or no sense and take the adult’s shady version as the final word. 

Life itself is a sometimes shady story that seems to make little or no sense at times.   We puny earthlings are sometimes forced to do things we can’t really defend, our emotions get the best of our better impulses, our temper flares and afterwards we feel forced to somehow justify things we know we shouldn’t have done.   It is hard to admit you hurt somebody you love, hard to live with the guilt of being reminded you allowed a bad impulse to lash out, so we create scenarios in which we are actually the victim of the person who hurtfully insists we hurt them.   Many people simply hunker down behind their walls, wait for the hurt party to finally realize they are never, ever going to be fucking heard, clam up, and hope that once enough time passes in silence, everything will somehow be OK with that wounded loved one. Sounds like a reasonably insightful plan of action, no?

The only solution, sometimes, is striving to remain the calm adult in a room full of hurt children, suffering over emotional pain they have never been able to get any kind of useful handle on.  Try that one sometime, hardest fucking thing I’ve ever tried to do.

Thanks for being there for me, Doc. I can see our time is up. The check’s in the mail, and this time I’m not lying.