08/20/2018 / By JD Heyes
As POTUS Donald Trump and the Republican congressional majority continue to “Make America Great Again” with pro-growth policies and re-strengthening of constitutional freedoms and protections, the Left continues to double down on authoritarianism because it’s the only way they can empower themselves.
This was demonstrated once again on Friday during Bill Maher’s “Real Time” program on HBO.
For all intents and purposes, Maher is a liberal bomb-thrower who regularly shocks and offends conservatives and supporters of the president. But at least he appreciates where his own bread and butter come from: The ability for him to make a living speaking his mind and offering up his viewpoints without fear of government or private-sector censorship via social media.
It’s too bad the speech Nazis who watch him don’t have the same appreciation for the First Amendment (which they were able to enjoy while being critical of Maher during his most recent program).
The HBO host dared to commit the most heinous of politically incorrect speech: He spoke out against the social media and e-commerce deplatforming of Infowars’ Alex Jones and in support of Jones’ right to be able to speak just as freely as Maher and anyone else on the Left, The Gateway Pundit reported.
And for that, his audience howled in disapproval – after first cheering on the news that Jones had been banned from Facebook, Spotify, Google-YouTube, Apple, and other platforms.
“If you’re a liberal, you’re supposed to be for free speech. That’s free speech for the speech you hate. That’s what free speech means,” Maher said.
“We’re losing the thread of the concepts that are important to this country. If you care about the real American sh*t or you don’t. And if you do, it goes for every side. I don’t like Alex Jones, but Alex Jones gets to speak. Everybody gets to speak.” (Related: Mike Adams issues statement on Trump’s censorship warning to social media tech giants.)
Boo! Hiss!
Maher’s Leftist guests universally agreed with the deplatforming of Jones, using the tired, old excuse of ‘but his Sandy Hook conspiracy!’ – again, and again, and again. Never mind that other conspiracy theorists like former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and the goofballs who put out all of the wild stuff about UFOs (not legitimately documented material) not only get to keep their social media platforms but are hailed and feted by other members of the regular media.
Just listen to some of the things Ventura claimed during this April 2011 “Good Morning, America” episode:
Whether or not you believe him isn’t the point. He may be right about some of the things he’s asserting and he may be so far afield in his allegations as to make you question his sanity – such as, officials in the Bush administration actually knew in advance that terrorists were going to fly airliners into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center and just let 3,000 Americans be slaughtered.
But he still gets a platform. Alex Jones (and so many other conservatives) don’t. That’s the important distinction that Maher was making, and for once he’s exactly right.
Everybody should get to speak. Period. And then everyone else gets to decide, on their own, what they believe, what they don’t believe, who they want to listen to and who they want to ignore.
We all make these choices every single day. Of the millions who watch Maher weekly, there are tens of millions who don’t. Many of them hate how he frames certain issues. But they’re not calling for him to be thrown off the air or off social media.
Of the tens of millions of news consumers in America, not all of them read Infowars. But those who want to should be allowed to, and yet they’re not when Alex gets deplatformed and his site is starved for revenue.
That’s what Maher was saying Friday night. It’s too bad most of his audience and all of his guests would rather side with countries like Cuba, Russia, and China on this issue than America.
Read more about the Left’s war against conservatives at Conservatives.news.
Sources include:
Tagged Under: Alex Jones, Alt-Left, Apple, Bill Maher, Censorship, deplatform, Facebook, First Amendment, free speech, freedom of expression, Google, HBO, hypocrisy, hypocrites, right to speak, YouTube