Mandalorian’s Gina Carano: Inside Disney/Lucasfilm’s Culture of “Bullying” of an Independent Thinking Woman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxObG659Sc0Gina Carano was fired from the Disney+ series, The Mandalorian, after she posted messages on social media that the company claimed were “denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities.” In reality, Lucasfilm according to the Daily Caller, had reportedly looking to fire Carano for some time, due to her refusal to intellectual kneel and bow in obeisance and pay homage to left-wing views. Says Carano:
“My actions towards other human beings have spoken for themselves … I am the one that, on sets, people come and cry to. I’m the one that sticks up for someone … like, ‘Hey, this is enough, this person needs out of this, like, they can’t breathe.’”“And I’ve always been like that. I’ve stuck up for, like, minorities everywhere. I’ve gotten in fistfights. I’ve been in actual fights growing up in Las Vegas because I cannot stand bullying.”“I was prepared at any point to be let go because I’ve seen this happen to so many people...I’ve seen the looks on their faces. I’ve seen the bullying that takes place, and so when this started, they point their guns at you, and you know it’s only a matter of time. I’ve seen it happen to so many people, and I just thought to myself … you’re coming for me, I know you are.’”“They’re making it very obvious through their employees who were coming for me, and so I was like, ‘I’m going to go down swinging and I’m going to stay true to myself.' "“My body still is shaking, you know? It’s still devastating.”“But the thought of this happening to anybody else, especially, like, somebody who could not handle this the way I can? No.”“They don’t get to do that. They don’t get to make people feel like that. And if I buckle, then little girls and little boys, who are not getting … a good fair shake at growing up right now, if I buckle, it’s going to make it okay for these companies who have a history of lying to be lying, and to do this to other people. And they’ve done it to other people and —”“And I’m not going down without a fight.”
Though I do not agree with all her posts and views, from the interview, Gina Carano is clearly a genuinely good and thoughtful person. Disney's portrayal of her in the press and "excommunication" of her from the Star Wars universe on the other hand is disgusting, dishonest, and immoral.
Alex Epstein: Texas Blackouts Caused By Focus on Green Energy at Expense of Maintaining Fossil Fuel Infrastructure

Alex Epstein: Texas Blackouts Caused By Focus on Green Energy at Expense of Maintaining Fossil Fuel Infrastructure

According to Alex Epstein "the root cause of the TX blackouts is a national and state policy that has prioritized the adoption of unreliable wind/solar energy over reliable energy." Writes Epstein, Texas "is having an electricity crisis during bad winter weather because it did not focus enough on building reliable power plants and infrastructure--because it was obsessed with getting as much unreliable wind/solar electricity as possible" and "the expense and distraction of accommodating "unreliables" takes away money and focus from resiliency. In CA this meant not maintaining power lines. In TX it may have meant not focusing enough on making the reliable power plants resilient enough to winter weather."Read the rest.Epstein also appeared on Glenn Beck's radio program:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gvOupMjlro

Volokh: Not Parler’s Job To Block Bad People and Police Viewpoints

Eugene Volokh on why it's not Parler's job to block bad people and police viewpoints :
"Some people complain that Parler doesn't do enough to block bad people who use their service, whether to spread falsehoods or evil ideas or plans for criminal conduct. But I'm skeptical that this should be Parler's job."The post office doesn't stop mailings by print magazine publishers because their magazines contain evil ideas or fake news. (They do investigate some mail frauds, but that's a fairly narrow category, and in any event they do this using governmental law enforcement procedures.)"Telephone companies (landline or cellular) don't cancel the KKK's phone number, or shut down phone service or text messaging service to people whom someone accuses of planning riots. And that's not just a matter of privacy: They don't do this even when the contents of the magazine are well known, or the KKK publicly announces that some phone number is its recruitment line. I think on balance we're better off when the post office and phone companies aren't policing the viewpoints or factual assertions their customers express."Now the post office is generally under a First Amendment obligation not to restrict our mailings (unless our speech has been found to be constitutionally unprotected, generally in some governmental proceeding). Telephone companies are likewise common carriers, who generally are legally barred from canceling service because they don't like what their customers are saying. Parler does have the legal right to police the content of speech that uses their services, just as Twitter has that right."But I don't think it has a moral obligation to do so (just as I don't think Google has a moral obligation to cut off Gmail accounts of people who send messages to friends that someone reports as "misleading" or "defaming," which technically violates Google Terms of Service, or Microsoft has a moral obligation to cut off Outlook accounts of people who "communicat[e] hate speech" or "advocat[e] violence against others"). I think it can reasonably choose to generally leave most content judgments to their users, and enforcement of most laws to law enforcement—just as the legal system has chosen to impose that approach on the post office and phone companies." [Why I'm Happy That We're on Parler" at Reason's The Volokh Conspiracy]
Related:
Was Facebook, Not Parler, The Capitol Rioters Favorite Platform?

Was Facebook, Not Parler, The Capitol Rioters Favorite Platform?

Writes, Thomas Brewster, the associate editor of cybersecurity at Forbes:
"Just after the Capitol Hill riots on January 6, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook chief operating officer admitted the company’s ability to enforce its own rules was “never perfect.” About the shocking events of the day, she added: “I think these events were largely organized on platforms that don't have our abilities to stop hate and don't have our standards and don't have our transparency,” said Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook chief operating officer, shortly after the Capitol Hill riots on January 6."Sandberg was later criticized for downplaying her employer’s role as a platform for the organizers of the siege. But Facebook was far and away the most cited social media site in charging documents the Justice Department filed against members of the Capitol Hill mob, providing further evidence that Sandberg was, perhaps, mistaken in her claim. Facebook, however, claims that the documents show the social media company has been especially forthcoming in assisting law enforcement in investigating users who breached the Capitol."Forbes reviewed data from the Program on Extremism at the George Washington University, which has collated a list of more than 200 charging documents filed in relation to the siege. In total, the charging documents refer to 223 individuals in the Capitol Hill riot investigation. Of those documents, 73 reference Facebook. That’s far more references than other social networks. YouTube was the second most-referenced on 24. Instagram, a Facebook-owned company, was next on 20. Parler, the app that pledged protection for free speech rights and garnered a large far-right userbase, was mentioned in just eight."[...]"Whilst the data doesn’t show definitively what app was the most popular amongst rioters, it does strongly indicate Facebook was rioters’ the preferred platform."["Sheryl Sandberg Downplayed Facebook’s Role In The Capitol Hill Siege—Justice Department Files Tell A Very Different Story", Forbes, 2020 Feb 7]
Yet, it was the #1 most downloaded app at the time, Twitter competitor Parler, that was banned from Amazon Web Services, Apple, and Google.Related Links:

Rational Optimism: Jordan Peterson Interviews Matt Ridley

Matt Ridley and Jordan Peterson discuss "economic optimism, trade through the reciprocity of nations, enlightened self-interest, virtues relation to trade, feeding nine billion people, the triumphs of cities, escape of Malthusian population trap, and more."

Rethinking “Black History” Month

An interesting discussion by Higher Ground’s advisory group on Montessori and Identity on the purpose and value of African American history and closely connected questions of identity and humanism.  Topics covered include" the original purpose of Black History Month (and why we might want to rethink it), the complexity of the learning process around the history of slavery and race, and what, exactly, we want for our kids with respect to race in education."

Andrew Bernstein Debates Harry Binswanger on “The Olympics of Evil: Does it Matter Who the Winner Is?”

https://youtu.be/59gcwHnXyDEFrom Ayn Rand Centre UK:
The recent elections in America have triggered a polarising question: in the political division of Left and Right, is one side more evil than the other? Among the many who have opined on this issue is Dr. Andrew Bernstein, in his article titled: “The Left is Vastly More Evil than Religious Conservatives.” This has been a controversial take, particularly in the Objectivist community, where it has been met with both vehement agreement and strong opposition. However, a more essential question would be: does it matter whether one side of the political aisle is more evil than the other? To what extent, if any, are such identifications useful?

What Do Steve Jobs and Frederick Douglas Have in Common?

An awesome integration from an interview with Higher Ground's Matt Bateman:
"Look at Steve Jobs, who is a great model for, “Wow, what are the 21st Century skills that allowed him to integrate art and technology and create all these things?” But, then look at Frederick Douglas. It’s the same thing, and, these are two men who were separated by 200 years. Both of them are fundamentally autodidacts. They taught themselves in a context where the traditional education wasn’t serving them for very different ways and very different reasons. But, something is common there. They both had a deep knowledge and perspective on the world in a broad sense. They both were humanistic and understood communication — things that people say are 21st Century skills, but put that through a lens where you’re understanding that more deeply in terms of human nature, and that is what we want for children."
Read the rest.

Girn and Bateman: Helping Children to Flourish as Adults

The New Liberals podcast has an interview with Higher Ground Education's Ray Girn and Matt Bateman. From the description:
"Our national conversation around childhood education usually revolves around or devolves into a sort of generic bifurcation of public vs private. But only when we really break a topic down into its constituent parts can we begin to see it more clearly. So what educational method might work best? Ray Girn and Matt Bateman of Higher Ground Education believe that the method they practice will best equip children to flourish as adults"

Thomas Sowell: Common Sense in a Senseless World

https://youtu.be/WK4M9iJrgtoThomas Sowell: Common Sense in a Senseless World traces Sowell's journey from humble beginnings to the Hoover Institution, becoming one of this era's greatest economists, political philosophers, and prolific authors.

Steve Simpson with Ben Bayer on Section 230 and Social Media “Censorship”

https://youtu.be/5Fv78ueOJkMPhilosopher Ben Bayer of the Ayn Rand Institute's New Ideal speaks with Steve Simpson, Senior Attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, on the "de-platforming" of conservative websites, Section 230, and censorship.Related Reading:
Free Speech vs. “Censorship By Proxy”: Parler’s Amy Peikoff vs. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg

Free Speech vs. “Censorship By Proxy”: Parler’s Amy Peikoff vs. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg

Parler’s chief policy officer, the thoughtful Amy Peikoff, has an enlightening interview on Spiked Online on the app’s cancellation by Big Tech. According to Ms. Peikoff, "Parler’s mission has always been to allow people to express themselves freely to the maximum extent possible consistent with the law and with our own business purposes...." and that the answer to so-called "hate speech" is " more speech."In regards to Parler differentiating itself from Twitter and Facebook, Peikoff states that Parler "want[s] to respect the privacy of users. Unlike with Twitter and Facebook, there’s no data mining, profiling, and targeting of ads based on profiles." She adds: "The people on Parler are not the commodity."Peikoff also finds it "scary" that,
"Politicians are hauling tech CEOs before Congress and urging them to remove more and more content, even when the particular category of speech in question would be protected by the First Amendment or similar laws around the world."It’s a scary prospect, because we get to a stage where we are not in a completely free country.
In regards, to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's call for what some describe as "censorship by proxy":
"Moreover, Mark Zuckerberg supports new regulations under which platforms would be required to issue so-called transparency reports. These are reports in which firms describe what they have done to deal with ‘objectionable content’, including speech that is protected by the First Amendment."He has gone further to suggest platforms should be required to prove their effectiveness at dealing with that content. If that ends up being put into law, it would represent the government trying to achieve, via regulation of social-media companies, what it could not achieve by directly censoring."
Read the full Spiked Online interview here.In an article on her personal website, Don't Let It Go (named after a brilliant article by philosopher Ayn Rand), Peikoff writes on Zuckerberg's proposals:
"Now recall that Mark Zuckerberg, in the most recent Big-Tech-CEO-Hearanguing before Congress, suggested amending Section 230 as follows:
  1. “Transparency” – each company enjoying Section 230 immunity would be required to issue periodic reports detailing how it dealt with certain types of “objectionable” content.
  2. “Accountability” –platforms enjoying immunity could also be held to some minimum level of “effectiveness” with respect to dealing with that “objectionable” content. (Recall he also bragged about how effective Facebook’s “hate speech” algorithms are.)
"Perhaps you think “transparency” at least, is good. But imagine what information ends up being collected and retained as 'ordinary business records' when complying with this sort of law, and read on.
Peikoff notes that though Parler was singled out by Amazon, Google, and others, the left-leaning Salon "blame[s] Facebook for playing a much larger role in facilitating the planning that led up to the 6th.Writes Peikoff:
"....What does Salon hope to gain by blaming Facebook and showing sympathy to Parler? I argue that placing responsibility for user-generated content on platforms plays right into the totalitarians’ hands."With all the platforms now being blamed for user-generated content containing threats or incitement, the new Congress needs only to accept Mark Zuckerberg’s engraved invitation to amend Section 230 along the above lines. But, as we’ve learned in the last week, no system of guidelines enforcement is perfect. If Facebook, with all its algorithms and other resources could not 'adequately' deal with this content, then what company could?"If it’s not actually possible to be good at this, to the standard that everyone seems to expectand Zuckerberg is calling for all of us to be regulated according to that standard, then what exactly is he calling for (whether he realizes it or not)? For government to take over, to have arbitrary control. For all online platforms to operate only by permission of government, according to whatever standards politicians (or the Twitter mobs pulling their strings) deem fit—and this will be true with respect to both free speech and privacy."
I would love to see a debate between Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Parler's CPO Amy Peikoff on this vital issue.For context, below is a video interview with Tucker Carlson on the targeting of Parler by Google, Apple, and Amazon:Top Photo: FoxNews Tucker Carlson Show Related:
Tulsi Gabbard: Advocates of a U.S. Police State are More “Dangerous Than the Mob That Stormed Our Capitol”

Tulsi Gabbard: Advocates of a U.S. Police State are More “Dangerous Than the Mob That Stormed Our Capitol”

The outspoken and independently minded, former Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, of Hawaii, roundly criticized former CIA Director John Brennan, House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), and big tech “oligarchs” seeking to censor fellow Americans after the January 6 Capitol riot.
"The mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6 to try to stop Congress from carrying out its constitutional responsibilities were behaving like domestic enemies of our country. But let’s be clear. The John Brennans, Adam Schiffs, and the oligarchs in big tech who are trying to undermine our constitutionally protected rights and turn our country into a police state with KGB-style surveillance are also domestic enemies, and much more powerful and therefore dangerous than the mob that stormed our Capitol."[...]"Now President Biden, I call upon you and all members of Congress from both parties to denounce these efforts by the likes of Brennan and others to take away our civil liberties that are endowed to us by our creator and guaranteed in our constitution. If you don’t stand up to these people now, then our country will be in great peril."
Here is the entire video:https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1354035548524957697
Abigal Shrier: Biden Rule and Boys (Who ‘Identify as Female’) On Girl’s Sports Teams

Abigal Shrier: Biden Rule and Boys (Who ‘Identify as Female’) On Girl’s Sports Teams

Writes Abigal Shrier on "Joe Biden’s First Day Began the End of Girls’ Sports" in the WSJ:
Amid Inauguration Day talk of shattered glass ceilings, on Wednesday President Biden delivered a body blow to the rights of women and girls: the Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation. On day one, Mr. Biden placed all girls’ sports and women’s safe spaces in the crosshairs of the administrative state.The order declares: “Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the rest room, the locker room, or school sports. . . . All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.” The order purports to direct administrative agencies to begin promulgating regulations that would enforce the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision Bostock v. Clayton County. In fact, it goes much further.In Bostock, the justices held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited an employer from firing an employee on the basis of homosexuality or “transgender status.” Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for a 6-3 majority, took pains to clarify that the decision was limited to employment and had no bearing on “sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and dress codes”—all regulated under Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments. “Under Title VII, too,” the majority added, “we do not purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind.”The Biden executive order is far more ambitious. Any school that receives federal funding—including nearly every public high school—must either allow biological boys who self-identify as girls onto girls’ sports teams or face administrative action from the Education Department. If this policy were to be broadly adopted in anticipation of the regulations that are no doubt on the way, what would this mean for girls’ and women’s sports?“Finished. Done,” Olympic track-and-field coach Linda Blade told me. “The leadership skills, all the benefits society gets from letting girls have their protected category so that competition can be fair, all the advances of women’s rights—that’s going to be diminished.” Ms. Blade noted that parents of teen girls are generally uninterested in watching their daughters demoralized by the blatant unfairness of a rigged competition.
Read the rest.Related: Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our DaughtersUpdate: She also made an appearance on Tucker Carlson to discuss her views:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Sz_7G_coY
The Biden Blizzard

The Biden Blizzard

Quart provides a list of the Biden administration's 17 Executive Orders executed on the first-day of taking office. From "Biden signed more executive actions on day one than Trump, Obama, and Bush combined":

An executive order requiring that people wear masks, and keep their distance from each other, on federal property.The launch of a “100 Days Masking Challenge” to encourage Americans to wear masks.The reversal of Trump’s decision to remove the US from the World Health Organization.An executive order that creates the position of Covid-19 response coordinator and restores the Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, a team in charge of pandemic response, within the National Security Council.Calls to Congress to extend Covid-19 aid, and requests to various departments to extend eviction and foreclosure moratoriums and pause payments for federal loans.An “instrument” that will allow the US to re-join the Paris Agreement on climate change within 30 days.An executive order reversing actions Trump took that Biden’s agencies judge to have been harmful to the environment, public health, or the national interest, and asking agencies to revise these standards to tackle climate change.An executive order with the aim of “embedding equity across federal policymaking and rooting out systemic racism and other barriers to opportunity from federal programs and institutions.” This order will also disband the Trump administration’s 1776 Commission.An executive order reversing a Trump administration order that excluded undocumented immigrants from the Census.A memorandum directing officials to “preserve and fortify” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.An executive action repealing two proclamations, informally known as the “Muslim ban.” that restricted entry into the US from majority-Muslim countries.An executive order revoking Trump’s “harsh and extreme immigration enforcement” and directing agencies to set immigration policies more “in line” with the Biden administration’s “values and priorities.”A proclamation that will pause the construction of the border wall with Mexico and determine how to best divert those funds elsewhere.A memorandum to extend a designation allowing Liberians who have been in the US for a long time to stay.An executive order directing the government to interpret the Civil Rights Act as prohibiting workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, not just race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.An executive order enacting new ethics rules for government officials.An executive order reversing “regulatory process executive orders” enacted by the Trump administration.

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