There; I Fixed That for You

In case anyone is wondering, I can tell you why it’s wrong for Google and the other leftist-controlled tech giants are wrong to use their power to censor Second Amendment supporters and starve their businesses.

Many people are upset because the Googsters are punishing users who support the private ownership of firearms. What’s happening isn’t new, nor is it limited to Google. Paypal will not let you use its service to buy firearms. Ebay sells parts but not guns. These policies are pretty old.

By the way, Google just banned the channel for Brownell’s, an old and respected firearms-related company that appears to have nothing to do with the black rifle fad or politics. If Elmer Fudd were real, he would have a Brownell’s account. It’s not a scary company. Google banned them anyway. The account reappeared later, but it’s disturbing that the ban ever happened.

Years ago, Google had no problems with guns. I used to use Google Shopping to look for firearms deals. At the time, it was the best game in town. Google killed firearms ads, and now there are other sources that are as good or better. Google lost business, and gun sellers worked around them.

Google’s new Youtube restrictions are a lot like their Google Shopping firearms ban. Channels that disseminate useful information about guns are disappearing, but in the past they were very common. A huge amount of content is still present. Google hasn’t been able to remove everything overnight. If you see what’s still available, it shows that whatever Youtube may look like in the near future, it has been a prolific disseminator of gun-related content.

People who are angry about the censorship like to talk about freedom of speech and the First Amendment. They’re wrong. Google isn’t bound by the First Amendment. If they want, they can announce a new policy saying all videos have to be about chickens, and it won’t conflict with the First Amendment at all. The Constitution guarantees (supposedly) our freedom from GOVERNMENT censorship. It doesn’t control private companies.

Somehow, we feel that the tech snowflakes are wrong, but we can’t seem to articulate a good reason. I’ll tell you the reason. They’re wrong because they have always been against us, yet they used us for years to build their businesses and get us to rely on them, and now that they feel secure, they are abandoning us.

Gun people helped build Google, Youtube, Paypal, and a bunch of other tech companies. We all know these companies are run and staffed by sissies from America’s coasts. They never wanted to do anything for us, but they whored themselves out anyway because they needed us. They wanted income. They wanted market share. They knew excluding us would prevent them from gaining market dominance, so they choked back their rage and worked with us. Now they’re fat and cocky, so they think they’ll be okay after they stab us in the back.

Is what they’re doing illegal? No. At least I don’t think so. It’s still wrong. It’s still “evil,” to use a word Google self-righteously used in its old corporate motto.

Remember that motto? “Don’t be evil.” Google got rid of it recently. Does this mean they decided it was okay to be evil? No. It probably means they realized how fatuous and naive it sounded.

Imagine if God had told the Jews, “Don’t be evil,” and vanished. What a worthless admonition it would have been. No guidelines. No description of evil. It would have been a catastrophe.

Who decides what “evil” means? “Don’t be evil” is something a two-year-old would say. It means nothing. It’s not surprising that leftists would use it as a motto, because they love claiming moral authority without providing any substance. Conservatives know that righteousness requires thought and effort. It involves close decisions and hard choices. Leftists like to march with banners and wave rainbow flags, but they don’t like being pinned down and asked for real guidance. Their purpose isn’t to fight evil. It’s to be admired. You may sound righteous and intelligent when you say something like, “Don’t be evil,” but as soon as you have to defend your remark and define it, you start to look just as confused as everyone else.

Google’s motto was idiotic, but one would hope that it reflected a sparkle of sincerity. One would hope that the Googsters would ask themselves about the righteousness of using people and then throwing them away. One would hope that they would understand the ugliness and cruelty of deliberately choking off a huge segment of the population, based purely on political differences. It’s not like we’re being denied access to Waffle House when Cracker Barrel is right next door. We’re being denied access to important, unique services.

The posture of the tech overlords is a confirmation of the right’s perception of dismissive leftist elitism. Flyover people are not human beings to be listened to and respected. They are livestock, to be controlled and ridiculed. All the brilliant, correct people are on the coasts. In between, there are only filthy potato eaters. Truck pull watchers. Bible believers. Their beliefs and desires are infantile, and they have no right to govern themselves or participate in the marketplace of ideas.

To the tech overlords, we are like dementia patients. You don’t ask permission when you change the circumstances of a demented person’s life. You go in, wrap him in a wet sheet, shoot him full of Valium, and do what you want. Take his guns. Take his car keys. Block his favorite TV channels. Change his menu. Whatever you want. You are correct to do it, because you are RIGHT.

In the classic novel The Time Machine, the world consisted of two groups. Below ground lived the hairy, brutal morlocks. They concealed themselves in their tunnels. Above ground lived the eloi. They were feckless vegetarians who lived on fruit and vegetables that appeared mysteriously in their midst. From time to time, the morlocks snatched a few of the eloi and ate them. The eloi lived in a fool’s paradise, and the morlocks were realists who controlled the system.

It seems like we live in a funny inversion of the eloi/morlock scheme. The pampered, perfumed eloi, who live in apartments and think food comes from stores, are trying to control the morlocks, who make the country function. The eloi want to force the realists to live by rules based on a distorted perception of the world.

We’re out here growing crops, mining metal, pumping oil, and manufacturing important products. We’re in military bases and on ships around the world, protecting the eloi so they can organize riots and throw urine on the police. They’re in cities drinking $6 coffee and working at jobs with titles like “diversity counselor” and “pet aromatherapist.” They’re working at colleges, teaching real courses like “The Sociology of Miley Cyrus.”

We have effete, utterly unproductive people like Camille Paglia and Joy Behar, trying to explain the world to cattle ranchers and wheat farmers.

Economists love to tell about the impossibility of an island on which everyone makes a living doing laundry for the others. Imagine an island populated by Andy Warhols. Who would make canapes and clean up after parties?

I guess it would be Andre Leon Talley. They could ferry him in. He needs the money.

The contempt, misplaced and nonsensical though it is, is very real, and leftists have proven themselves ruthless enough to act on it. They don’t just promote their toxic ideas through talk. They gag the rest of us and even make it impossible for us to buy and sell.

It’s legal. They can do it. Is it ethical or kind? They don’t care. The left has never been kind, and leftists jeer at ethical consideration. One of leftism’s big draws is that it frees cruel people to mistreat others in the name of “higher” ideals.

If you want to throw red paint on someone or burn down a business without remorse, you need to become a leftist. It’s hard to find justification for such things in conservative or Christian organizations. You won’t see NRA members or Operation Rescue volunteers wearing masks and turning over police cars, but things like that are common among organizations like BLM, Antifa, Occupy Wall Street, and the Environmental Liberation Front.

Back when the tech lions were scared tech kittens, we fed them, with the best of intentions. Now they’re big and strong, and they can do what they’ve wanted to do all along. They don’t realize they’re creating a dystopia. You can’t embark on a policy of oppression without developing a malevolent heart that will never stop looking for new targets. Malice is habit-forming, and so is denial. If you mistreat conservatives and Christians at work every day, you will also mistreat your loved ones and friends. You won’t be able to turn it on and off.

We have laws banning monopolies. A monopoly is a single entity that controls a market niche. We don’t have laws banning ideological monopolies. If every Internet company belongs to a larger leftist cabal–pretty much true–there is nothing we can do. One wonders if there is a way to address the problem. I think that if these companies were all controlled by the Catholic Church or the Assemblies of God, legislators would be looking for a solution.

In truth, we probably need laws (I hate to say that) similar to the laws that govern hotels and transportation companies. Some services are so important, they have to be available to everyone. Holiday Inn can’t ban gun shop owners, and Delta Airlines can’t ban Republicans. Maybe the tech despots need a little bit of the regulation they want to impose on the rest of us.

The Googsters and their ilk don’t get a pass just because what they do is legal. Oppression is oppression, regardless of the source.