Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Patti Petersen's avatar

It isn't just controlling or limiting free speech that bothers me... it's that a selected few are pounced on while the rest are free to run wild and uncensored.

I'm not crazy about Jones, either, but that isn't the point. While he was spewing I was allowed to listen, form my own opinion, and move on from there. Freedom of speech allows me to reason. I imagine if this keeps going on that, it will be the sheeple effect with a choice few megalomania running the world. And yeah, it will come to it at the rate we are allowing social media giants to control and censor. Scary stuff.

Expand full comment
Laramie's avatar

Good article. Sad that we live in a time when you would have to write something like that in defense of free speech. Actually, it's worse than that. That would have been even-handed defenses of Alex Jones 5-10 years ago. But, as a society, we've moved well past that to the point where government and big tech take turns tag teaming anyone who doesn't parrot the mainstream narrative. This is where the deplatforming of Alex Jones has led us.

One personal anecdote: In a previous life, I worked at a high paying professional firm where one of my bosses was a member of the Bohemian Grove, which he just called "The Grove." This was 35 years ago. I was new to the Bay Area, having moved there from the midwest. This particular boss asked me to apply for membership several times and offered to sponsor me. He described it as a bunch of interesting guys getting together once a year to hang out in the woods, have interesting conversations, put on plays and discuss politics and the arts. (There was a similar club in San Francisco called the Olympic Club, which was more for blueblood Bay Area families, and he warned me away from that.) I never applied, never even really considered it. The notion of joining a club with a membership of rich people, dignitaries and celebrities . . . seemed repulsive. I moved out of the area a few years after that. Later, seeing Alex Jones' reporting on it was wild.

I can't attack anyone for supporting Alex Jones. Other than The Grove stuff, I had never listened to him until 3 months ago. Since then, I've listened to several of his shows. Perhaps he's changed, but he's almost universally polite to guests, self-deprecating, and he's usually (though not always) over the target when it comes to scandal. That said, he's a bit like Andrew Tate -- there's some pro wrestler in him, which frequently counts as showmanship these days. If you can get past that, and if you don't mind 5 minutes of ads every three minutes, he's entertaining. He shouldn't be anyone's source for absolute truth, but he's entertaining.

Thanks for your thoughts, as always.

Expand full comment
7 more comments...

No posts