On 3-Sep-2010, moviePig wrote:
> Well, you dilute your outrage against such "Orwellian" tactics by
> denouncing, with seemingly equal fervor, that they're carried out
> "using taxpayer money" ...a bit like complaining that the St.
> Valentine's Day massacre occurred on a Federal Holiday.
Oh, PM...the use of tax money is the reason it's a violation of the 1st
amendment. That doesnt dilute my outrage, rather it explains a significant
part of it.
> Afaics (including from the passages you cite) "cognitive infiltration"
> means publishing *rational* counter-argument in such a way as to
> dispel the public's natural -- but *irrational* -- affinity for
> melodramatic theories per se.
>
> And, if I'm reading all this right, the safeguard against the
> government's misuse of such a proposed program (as if *any* government
> program were safe from misuse) is that its active ingredient -- as
> stated here -- is to awaken the public's rationality ...always a good
> thing to do, afaik.
How is that a safeguard? That's simply a stated intention. Are you willing
to cede power to the govt every time they state an intention that you find
appealing?
You dont see the devil in the details. If the govt can define a "false
conspiracy theory" and take secretive action to combat that speech, then
what happens if anti-govt rhetoric...clearly protected speech...is deemed to
be so and these actions are taken against it? That, without question, is an
attack on, and violation of, the first amendment. You cannot have a
legitimate govt mechanism to distinguish between the "obviously false" and
otherwise that comports with the first amendment. The govt simply cannot
be entrusted to decide what political speech is sufficiently truthful to
warrent protection, because then all speech is subject to govt interference
(if not control). This is exactly what the 1st amendment is intended to
protect us against.
It shouldnt be hard to see the danger, there, and yet it seems you cant see
it.
Try imagining that power in the hands of the politician you
hate/fear/disagree with the most. Are you still cool with it?
--
"The law, which restrains a man from doing mischief to his fellow citizens,
though it diminishes the natural, increases the civil liberty of mankind."
William Blackstone |