Imagine this scenario: You get a notice from the phone company that your service is being terminated or suspended. They explain they do not approve of the topics you have discussed with your friends and family on the telephone. Because the subject matter of your conversations violates the company's terms of service, you may no longer use their telephone network.
Or you receive notice from the electric company telling you that your power has been disconnected because they determined your political opinions and those of your friends violate the company's social policies, so you will no longer be provided electricity.
Marxists in the United States have long struggled against the constitutional protections of freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. They have tried several creative ways to secure their power by banning criticism or resistance.
Before analyzing the latest efforts of Marxist-fascist activists to silence anyone resisting them, it is important to set the table as to who holds all the real power in the U.S. Liberals have been wildly successful in imposing political correctness into every nook and cranny of American life. The foundations of our nation have been corrupted and are firmly in the control of leftists. Academia at every level, business, entertainment and news media, government bureaucracies, sports, civil service – all are infested with a politically correct dogma that largely or entirely excludes any viewpoint other than what is deemed acceptable to leftist political ideologues.
Far from being a bug in the system, a feature of this cultural Marxist arrangement is the twisted use of language to vilify dissenters and control the narrative. For instance, leftists controlling Google can claim to protect diversity within the company by firing an engineer for expressing an opinion that deviated from the narrow, liberal-approved opinion. James Damore learned the lesson of liberal-speak. "Diversity" was not used in the ordinary understanding of that word. Diversity at Google means "liberal." If the screenshots widely circulated on social media are to be believed, Google employees are emboldened by Damore's firing to openly discuss rooting out, isolating and eliminating anyone else in the company suspected of an unapproved thought or expressing an opinion blaspheming a canon of liberal political ideology.
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Google's firing of Damore reverberated so profoundly with Americans for two reasons. First, it confirmed the experience felt by so many at companies across the country that political correctness has run amok and crossed the line from enforcing civil discourse in the workplace to an offensive weapon to be used by leftists against political opponents. Second, it verified the internal culture of the company that many suspected had lent itself as a surreptitious tool to liberal Democrats to help win elections. Just as major news outlets spend vast amounts of programming minutes or column inches attacking conservative candidates while ignoring unflattering stories about liberals, Google's pro-leftist search results have been the subject of much discussion in certain quarters.
The fact that the left has such dominance over the foundational institutions of America explains how their political opponents, despite controlling the presidency and both houses of Congress, are virtually unable to accomplish any of their agenda. While not holding the official reins of power, liberals wield power through sabotaging leaks from bureaucrats, tight control by the media enforcing a liberal narrative, messaging by educators to students at every level and forcefully maintaining a crisis-of-the-day outrage among their Antifa shock troops in the streets who are willing and able to beat people, smash and burn cars and businesses and shut down the expression of opposing viewpoints.
Bloomberg Technology reports this week that the large tech companies are working hard to deny access to their services to people and organizations they deem offensive. Facebook, Google, AirBnB, Uber, PayPal, Apple and others, including traditional financial services, are shutting down accounts and refusing service based purely on political opinion. According to the report, AirBnB goes so far as to comb through social media and cross-reference users in a search for ideas not approved by the company and the expression of forbidden thoughts or associations. A user with a prohibited point of view will have his reservations canceled.
Conservative users and organizations and those supporting President Trump have had their Facebook and Twitter accounts shut down. YouTube has demonetized conservative videos. According to the Bloomberg article, Uber instructs drivers they can refuse to pick up users who are racist. But what does that mean? It is subjective. Does it mean actually wearing a Klan robe at the time of pickup? Or is simply expressing a position at some point on social media disagreeing with some Black Lives Matter position enough to get service denied? The only way to ensure service is to be sufficiently liberal.
There is no question this is a chilling effect.
Which brings us back to the size and success of Google, Facebook, et al. Regulation is something rarely suggested among conservatives. But, absent a Supreme Court ruling that political affiliation or speech creates a protected class of persons, the Googles and Facebooks of the world are using their massive size and total domination of the market to stamp out political opposition. As Google, Facebook and others have no real competitors, and considering their sheer size and domination of the service they provide, it may be time to begin the discussion of public regulation of certain mega-businesses in the tech industry.
Inasmuch as an electric, water or gas utility company is not permitted to pick and choose to whom they provide service, or cut off service to an individual or organization based on political affiliation or speaking or writing unpopular opinions, some are suggesting state or federal regulators may need to step in to assure businesses with a stranglehold on the marketplace are not used as a cudgel to enforce the political opinions of corporate leadership on the population.