The Objective Observer

President Biden recently signed an executive order that, as near as we can tell, seeks to send federal employees to internment camps for “re-education” about “white privilege”. We’re paraphrasing, but that seems to be the gist of it. For all of you “deplorables” out there, white privilege refers to the idea that there exist implicit or systemic advantages that white people have relative to nonwhite people. Essentially, white privilege refers to the absence of suspicion or other negative reactions that white people experience, as in white people don’t experience suspicious or negative reactions.

Alright, so the concept of white privilege originated in the United States and can be quite the controversial topic. Detractors call the concept of white privilege racist and liken the labelling of white privilege akin to being called a racist. Conversely, proponents like Julie Segal effectively say that anyone that thinks this way is a complete and utter moron that is simply too feeble minded to understand the superior intellectual thought and nuance that is the concept of white privilege. For example, in the piece Benefitting from White privilege doesn’t mean you’re a racist, Ms. Segal states:

Just because you benefit from White privilege does not mean you’re somehow a racist. In fact, that misunderstanding itself prevents some White people from grappling with the idea, which can be a positive step toward becoming an anti-racist and better understanding of what Black people face in their lives. Being White may give people a leg up in an apartment hunt or help immunize them against negative interactions with cops, but that benefit comes from being born into and living in a system built for White people. Systemic racism bestows these benefits. They’re not the result of any individual White person’s actions. So, it’s important to acknowledge that right from the start.

So basically, you have detractors saying that white privilege is coded language for whites being racists and proponents saying that’s nonsense. The two sides are basically talking past one another so the argument just becomes overly contentious and there is no agreement on anything. Well, we here at the The Objective Observer are always here to help. Therefore, let’s see if we can look at the subject of white privilege objectively and reach a conclusion.

In looking at the matter of white privilege objectively, we first come to what we feel are two core, fundamental questions:

• Can white privilege exist without racism?
• How can we quantitatively describe white privilege?

Let’s start with whether white privilege can exist without racism. Since white privilege means that white people benefit from being white, this certainly indicates that those white people are being treated differently based solely upon the color of their skin. In addition, nonwhites are not receiving those benefits so they are also being judged based solely upon the color of their skin. Perhaps we’re no white privilege scholars, but to anyone being objective about the matter, treating someone differently based solely on the color of their skin is, well, that’s pretty much the definition of racism there folks. Thus, we must conclude that white privilege requires there to be a “positive” racism element, whites receive benefits and a “negative” racism element, nonwhites do not receive those same benefits.

OK, next up is whether or not we can quantitatively describe white privilege. For white privilege to exist, white people must receive a positive benefit from being white more often than receiving a negative or neutral benefit. If being white only resulted in receiving mostly neutral, mostly negative reactions or a combination of mostly neutral and mostly negative reactions then the perceived benefits of being white, and thus white privilege wouldn’t exist. In other words if white people didn’t benefit from or experience white privilege more often than they do benefit from or do not experience white privilege, well, then there would be no white privilege. Thus, white privilege can only exist in a world where white people experience the benefits of white privilege more often than they experience no benefit from white privilege.

OK, let’s see if we can take this out of the realm of the subjective and into the realm of the objective and quantitative. Hey! Math is objective and quantitative. Let’s use math. We start by restating the above in terms of math. If white people, more often than not, benefit from individuals they encounter not immediately viewing them with suspicion, then that means that the majority, or greater than 50%, of the individuals those white people encounter must bestow white privilege. If greater than 50% of people did not bestow white privilege, positive racism, then white people would not experience white privilege. The logic seems inescapable here.

We can go further. We can further conclude that for white privilege to exist in the circumstance cited above, then this “absence of suspicion” must be unique to the white experience. That means that those greater than 50% of people that bestow white privilege on whites must also not bestow white privilege on nonwhites. Otherwise, the absence of suspicion in favor of whites would not be unique to being white. If nonwhites also benefited from an absence of suspicion then white privilege does not exist. This means that nonwhites must simultaneously suffer from a lack of white privilege or negative racism. This seems rather obvious but is worth pointing out.

Can this 50% threshold be defended? Well, to hear the white privilege folks talk about it, we believe this number is actually quite low. Our understanding is that white privilege is systematic and omnipresent, more along the lines of upwards of 80%-90% if not 100%. Conversely, setting the threshold too low runs the risk of the white privilege “signal” just being random noise. One could quibble over the exact percentage but if white people didn’t experience white privilege more often than they do not, then can it really be described as a benefit and, perhaps more importantly, can it really be described systemic? Unlikely.

Can we go further? Can we define exactly how many people are required in order for white privilege to be a reality? Perhaps, but some demographic data is in order.

This chart shows that in 2019, the breakdown of the American population by race is as follows:

• Whites – 197,309,822
• Hispanic – 60,572,237
• Blacks – 41,147,488
• Asian – 18,905,879
• Other – 7,273,281
• Native – 2,434,908

Alright, here comes the math. The above chart gives us a total population of 327,643,615. Just over half of this population is 163,821,808. Thus, threshold for white privilege is that 163,821,808 Americans exhibit positive racism towards whites and negative racism towards nonwhites.

If we assume, for the sake of argument, that 100% of nonwhites for some inexplicable reason view whites favorably versus unfavorable and thus contribute to “white privilege” we only get to 40% of the population (130,333,793). But, to get to our threshold of greater than 50%, or 163,821,808 people contributing to white privilege, this means that at least 33,488,015 white people must also contribute to white privilege. That’s about 17%. Thus, we must conclude that a statement about white privilege existing in America has as a base assumption that, at a minimum, 17% of whites are racists.

What about a maximum? OK, let’s now assume that all nonwhites are not contributors to white privilege. Reaching the 50% threshold would require 163,821,808 whites, or 83% of white people, to be racist.

Let’s review.

White privilege cannot possibly exist without at least 50% of the population exhibiting behavior that favors whites while simultaneously treating nonwhites exactly the opposite. These white privilege contributors are therefore positively racist towards white people while also simultaneously being negatively racist towards nonwhites. Reaching the 50% threshold requires that somewhere between 17% and 83% of whites are racist.

The evidence seems pretty clear. This rather simplistic math is likely at the heart of why so many white people so strenuously object to the term “white privilege”. While perhaps not everyone does the exact math, people are generally smart enough to understand the results by intuitive. And, turns out, people don’t like to be called racist.

In conclusion, it becomes obvious then that President Biden’s executive order to “re-educate” federal employees is an official statement from the Biden administration that over 163 million Americans and up to 83% of American whites are racist assholes. While we completely understand that this was most certainly the case in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the last time President Biden likely possessed his full mental faculties; meager as they may have been, we do not believe that is the case today, nor do we believe that calling over half of Americans and up to 83% of American whites racist is a productive means to an intelligent conversation regarding race in America. Way to lead and “unite” the country there gramps.

In 2016 it was widely argued that Russia attempted to influence the Presidential Election. While the whole Russia collusion/hoax thing was eventually dismissed in the Mueller Report, the overall narrative of attempted Russian interference was largely confirmed. But what about 2020? Why isn’t anyone talking about the obvious foreign influence, or dare we say interference, in the 2020 Presidential election?

Look, let’s be clear about this term “interference”. Interference is not a statement about intent. If you run a red light and T-bone another car, whether you intended to hit that car or accidentally hit that car, you still interfered with that car’s intended trajectory. Thus, interference can either be intentional or unintentional.

OK, with that out of the way, let’s start by clearing the air. The Objective Observer in no way, shape or form subscribes to or endorses conspiracy theories ala QAnon, Antifa as the bad actor in the Capitol Hill riots, etc. Furthermore, we do not believe that China acted intentionally to disrupt, influence or interfere with the 2020 Presidential election. That being said, it is obvious that China’s actions, or lack thereof, greatly influenced and interfered with the trajectory of the 2020 Presidential election within the United States. Furthermore, this should raise serious questions and concerns regarding future elections.

Let’s back up. It perhaps goes without saying that the economy is always a major factor in Presidential elections within the United States. Incumbent Presidents with strong economies tend to get reelected, while those with weak economies tend to not get reelected. As James Carville famously put it, “It’s the economy, stupid.“. As such, there can be little doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic greatly affected the economy of America as well as the world. Without the impact of COVID-19 on the United States economy, there is an argument to be made that former President Trump wins the 2020 election handily.

Thus, one could further reason that the COVID-19 pandemic played a major role in the 2020 United States Presidential election. Both from an economic perspective in crippling the American economy as well as how former President Trump and President Biden approached the pandemic during the campaign. Now, if we reject Chinese propaganda and conspiracy theory, can any objective observer deny that the COVID-19 virus originated in China and then spread to the world and eventually to the United States?

Accepting the prima facia evidence that the COVID-19 virus started in China, it is difficult for any objective observer to come to any other conclusion than that a foreign power, intentionally or not, influenced the 2020 Presidential election. That is not a conspiracy theory. China, COVID-19, economic impact, that all actually happened.

While we would not rule out the possibility, we here at The Objective Observer see no credible evidence that China intentionally released COVID-19 on the world in order to weaken the American economy and thus hurt former President Trump’s chances of reelection. However, we do think that the Chinese are not idiots and perhaps they, and/or others, learned something, learned a new attack vector as it were. Given the impact the pandemic had on the world, China and other possible bad actors most definitely realized the potential of these kinds of biological outbreaks.

Let’s face it, China was no fan of President Trump. President Trump was the first America President in history to define China as a rival and aggressor, one even more dangerous than Russia. It would be difficult to argue then that China preferred to not have Trump reelected versus a Biden administration that appeared more favorable to the current Chinese regime. It would also be hard to imagine a circumstance where China did more to damage President Trump’s reelection prospects than releasing an economy destroying pandemic on the world. Again, we here at The Objective Observer do not believe that any of this was intentional or conspiratorial…this time. But what about next time?

Think this through. China and other potential bad actors have realized that a global pandemic can be advantageous to essentially getting what they want. For example, getting a pro-China administration installed within the United States versus an anti-China administration. What is to prevent China, or some other nation, from doing it intentionally next time?

This is where an objective observer should have concerns. The entire world has learned about the fragility of the global economy in the face of a pandemic. Sure, biological weapons are prohibited under international humanitarian law, but is that really going to stop an authoritarian regime that believes it can stealthily cover its tracks by using biological weapons indirectly versus directly on a battlefield?

Face the facts, there are plenty of regimes in the world that have demonstrated an appalling lack of regard for human life, at least by American standards. Is it such a stretch of the imagination then that in the future a bad actor in the world would potentially be willing to intentionally sacrifice millions of innocent lives in order to achieve a particular political goal? To an objective observer, the answer is obvious.

Retirement is great. In fact, there may not be anything more fantastic in the entire world other than retirement. Consider the benefits:

• Reduced stress – Think of how stressful having a job is, the need to meet deadlines and perform to a high standard day after day, the anxiety of dealing with customers and bosses. Retirement means that all of that goes away!
• Healthier – After you retire you have more time to eat healthy, sleep and exercise. Finally you will have the time to take long walks and play golf. You will live longer by retiring earlier!
• Philanthropy – Use the experience and wealth you have accumulated to volunteer, make charitable donations and serve on the boards of not for profit organizations. Truly make a difference in your community and in the lives of others!
• Family – Reconnect with your adult children and grand children. Spend more time with distant family members and even close friends. Remember, “Where there is family, there is love.”

In other words, retirement is a golden opportunity to define a new and better you by getting your priorities straight and living the life you were meant to live. You can spend more time on hobbies, travel to exotic lands and pursue those interests that you never had time for when you were a working stiff. To paraphrase Greg Gutfeld:

“Retirement is great. Retirement is great. Retirement is great. Retirement is great.”

Look, you can’t see us right now, but we here at The Objective Observer all have these huge grins plastered all over our faces. We really believe in retirement and how wonderful it is. In particular, we really think that the vast majority of Senators, Representatives, pretty much anyone and everyone in government should strongly consider retiring…now. Like, right now would be good.

Look, U.S. Census Bureau data shows that the average retirement age in the United States is 65 for men and 63 for women. Now consider that 48 of 100 Senators are over the age of 65 and 147 of 435 Representatives are over the age of 65. Consider that Democratic House leadership averages 72 years old. Face it, all of you people should be retired already. Just go enjoy life and get the hell out of the road.

Not to be “ageist”, like that’s even a thing, but ya’ll are old and out of touch with, well, everything. Watching you trying to deal with the unprecedented power Big Tech has amassed is like watching that Progressive Insurance ad where Dr. Rick states “We going to open a PDF now, who wants to try?” and everyone backs away. It’s just so cringe and embarrassing. You’re simply out of your depth and lack the wherewithal to properly address the real issues going on in the world today. Seriously, it’s like a real world study in that Alvin Toffler book, Future Shock. The leadership of today is like walking around in this dazed and confused psychological state induced by “too much change in too short a period of time”.

And why oh why are you all having so much trouble with this pandemic we might add? Didn’t you all survive the black death? And the Spanish flu? Just use the knowledge you learned then and apply it now for cryin’ out loud. But you can’t even accomplish that!

Again, we’re not calling you senile…well…not most of you anyway. It’s just that you are out-of-touch and stuck in the past. We mean, literally stuck in the past. This whole “race relations” thing? It’s a throwback to your hey days. Nobody cares about it. It certainly isn’t top of mind for most Americans so why does the Biden administration keep bringing it up? Why does Biden seem to think that race is the thing that is most important to deal with versus a freaking pandemic and the usurpation of power by Big Tech…

Oh shit, there it is. Look at what was going on when Biden was a teenager and in his early 20’s. Yeah, certainly looks like there was a major race problem then. And now he thinks its some kind of repeat of his “glory days”? Wise up people, America today is nothing like the civil rights era of yesteryear. There is no Martin Luther King Jr. leading peaceful marches and protests. Today we have Antifa and Black Lives Matter groups rioting and burning and looting. Not equivalent. Get it together grandpa.

Oh look, seems like Obama made race relations worse…

Anyway, for the sake of the country. Please, all of you, retire already. Don’t be remembered like Brett Favre’s last few, sad seasons after leaving Green Bay or Mike Tyson biting someone’s ear off. Go out gracefully. Leave at the top of your game. Seriously, it’s better for everyone. We really want you to be happy but, more importantly, we want ourselves to be happy. And you are totally and completely screwing that up right now. Boomers, it’s time to go.

We here at The Objective Observer are contrarians by nature. It’s just how we are. We can’t help it. When we see the wind blowing a certain direction, we want to blow against it. So when President Trump is getting absolutely obliterated in the media, we feel compelled to play Devil’s Advocate. Now, granted, in that particular case some people might take that literally rather than figuratively. Conversely, if the media would have fawned over President Trump, we would have been highly critical. We like to stir the pot. So, when we see the obvious fawning love affair between the media and Biden, we can’t help but take the opposite stance.

This is a continuing article of all of the bad things that happen under President Biden. Similar to how every single little thing was blamed on President Trump, we’re just going to blame every single little thing on President Biden. Oh, oh, and keep track of all of the lies told by the administration. That too.

Look, we don’t wish President Biden or the country ill will or anything. But, fair is fair after all. Leave us a comment to call out anything we have missed. Or hate mail, we just love the hate mail…

This post will always track the current month, previous months can be found here.

March 2021

March 1st, 2021

• Open borders – King Biden administration will let migrant families separated under Trump reunite inside U.S. (nbcnews.com)
• This might take the cake for the most non-news, who cares “news” story ever – Trump, former first lady quietly received Covid vaccine in January (nbcnews.com)
• You mean King Biden canceling the Keystone pipeline and shutting down energy jobs? – The price of food and gas is creeping higher — and will stay that way for a while (nbcnews.com)
• Warmongering – U.S. airstrike in Syria on Iranian-backed militia killed one fighter, wounded two, says Pentagon (nbcnews.com)
• Like the same tent you guys currently use that was also used under the Trump administration when it was “kids in cages”? – DHS chief defends Biden admin on immigration, says Trump ‘gutted’ system – ABC News (go.com)
• This is what you get when you promote open borders – Biden’s 1st 100 days live updates: Biden faces growing immigration crisis – ABC News (go.com)
• Voter identification does not discriminate based upon race or color – Major test for Voting Rights Act at Supreme Court as GOP pushes new election rules – ABC News
• How much of that $125 million goes to Hunter? – US announces $125 million defense aid package for Ukraine – ABC News (go.com)
• If this happens at all, shouldn’t it be in the South? – How the 1st US city to fund reparations for Black residents is making amends – ABC News (go.com)
• DOA – Minimum wage hike all but dead in big COVID relief bill – ABC News (go.com)
• Why exactly was this even considered? – Minneapolis scraps plans to pay social media influencers to spread information during Chauvin trial – ABC News (go.com)
• 53,147 new cases of COVID-19 (4,031,137 total)
• 1,439 new COVID-19 deaths (103,353 total)

March 2nd, 2021

• Stick a fork in her – White House pulls nomination of embattled budget chief pick Neera Tanden (nbcnews.com)
• Great, more Obamacare – Obamacare would get a big (and quiet) overhaul in the Covid relief bill (nbcnews.com)
• Great that King Biden could manage to order another 100 million doses or so on top of Trump’s original order of 200 million doses – Biden says there will be enough vaccine for American adults by end of May – ABC News (go.com)
• Major toast – Cuomo made unwanted advance toward woman during 2019 wedding, witness says – CNNPolitics
• People that don’t know etymology – Opinion: Biden is right about ‘aliens’ – CNN
• Canceled – Biden administration locks ICE Twitter account | Fox Business
• Whoops! – Joe Biden’s Deputies Set 2021 Goal of Welcoming 117,000 Migrant Youths (breitbart.com)
• 56,890 new cases of COVID-19 (4,088,027 total)
• 1,989 new COVID-19 deaths (105,342 total)

March 3rd, 2021

• Toast – Biden’s Covid stimulus bill isn’t nearly enough to save Democrats (msnbc.com)
• Denial – Greg Abbott has left Texans to fight Covid alone (msnbc.com)
• Didn’t even attend his father’s funeral – A year of Covid requires new investment in America’s health care workers (msnbc.com)
• Reaching – Not a witch hunt: What Nicolas Sarkozy’s conviction means for Donald Trump (msnbc.com)
• Here’s a thought – Biden, Senate Democrats agree to limit eligibility for $1,400 checks (nbcnews.com)
• Duh – Max Burns: Golden Trump statue at CPAC implies he’s king of the GOP. But his position isn’t secure. (nbcnews.com)
• Because he’s an asshole – ‘The knives come out’: Cuomo fights for political survival as pressure mounts (nbcnews.com)
• Holy shit, this from NBC??? – Data shows growing backlog of unaccompanied migrant children in Border Patrol custody (nbcnews.com)
• China collusion – U.S. issues warning after Microsoft says China hacked its mail server program (nbcnews.com)
• Racist – Biden calls Texas decision to reopen ‘Neanderthal thinking’ – ABC News (go.com)
• King Biden is weak and impotent – US forces: Rockets hit airbase in Iraq housing US troops – ABC News (go.com)
• Oh wait, women in sports have rights? – Mississippi passes bill banning transgender student-athletes from female sports teams – ABC News (go.com)
• Democrats will “reap the whirlwind” as it were – The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022 – CNNPolitics
• From the man that has had like 50 different opinions on masks – See Fauci’s reaction to states lifting mask mandates (cnn.com)
• Because the dude has Alzheimer’s – White House cuts virtual event feed after King Biden says he’s ‘happy to take questions’ from House Democrats | Fox News
• Alzheimer’s – King Biden won’t deliver speech to Congress until after vote on coronavirus bill, Psaki says | Fox News
• DOA – House Democrats pass extensive voting and campaign finance reform bill, H.R. 1 | Fox News
• Yep – IG finds misuse of office by Elaine Chao at Transportation | Fox News
• This dude is a POS – Maria Shriver reacts to Andrew Cuomo’s apology: ‘Will that be enough?’ | Fox News
• Touching is not the definition of sexual harassment douchebag – Apologetic Gov. Cuomo: ‘I Never Touched Anyone Inappropriately’ | Newsmax.com
• 25th Amendment – Bipartisan Group Of Senators Seek To Strip Biden Of Certain War Powers | The Daily Wire
• 67,225 new cases of COVID-19 (4,155,252 total)
• 2,341 new COVID-19 deaths (107,683 total)

March 4th, 2021

• Denial – Ted Cruz keeps comparing Black Lives Matters protests to the Capitol riot. I can’t take it anymore. (msnbc.com)
• Fear mongering police state – U.S. Capitol Police request continued National Guard help amid security threats (nbcnews.com)
• Open borders – Mayorkas gives strongest clue yet that Biden administration hopes to stop detaining migrant families (nbcnews.com)
• So come here legally? – As COVID-19 relief vote nears, undocumented immigrants struggle with no aid – ABC News (go.com)
• Still a coward – Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivers 1st opinion – ABC News (go.com)
• Open borders – Abbott rejects Biden proposal for migrant testing at border, says it will create ‘magnet’ | Fox News
• Lack of transparency – McEnany on Psaki’s performance: I didn’t have to ‘circle back’ because Trump gave me access | Fox News
• More lack of transparency – White House ‘protecting’ Biden by not scheduling press conferences: Karl Rove | Fox News
• It’s the Alzheimer’s – Biden team ‘has zero confidence’ that ‘absentee president’ can handle press conference, Concha suggests | Fox News
• OK, but they allow Little Black Sambo? – EBay to Ban Six Dr. Seuss Books for Violating ‘Offensive Material’ Policy (breitbart.com)
• Denial – Jen Psaki Refuses to Credit Donald Trump for Setting Up Vaccine Distribution (breitbart.com)
• Petty – Former Trump appointees say they’re still waiting on their vacation payouts – POLITICO
• 68,658 new cases of COVID-19 (4,223,910 total)
• 2,050 new COVID-19 deaths (109,733 total)

March 5th, 2021

• The sharks are circling – President Joe Biden’s first 100 days aren’t over yet. It’s still OK to criticize him. (msnbc.com)
• See above – New York AG sends notice to Cuomo to preserve documents in sexual harassment probe (nbcnews.com)
• Unfortunate – Senate Democrats reach deal to rework jobless benefits after Covid bill stalls (nbcnews.com)
• Orwellian black lists – Taking names: Dem Rep. Lofgren catalogs GOP colleagues’ election claims with a view toward discipline (nbcnews.com)
• Racists – Asian Americans have often needed to ‘prove’ racism. Then social media video came along. (nbcnews.com)
• Neanderthal racism – Washington’s latest political war? It’s over ‘Neanderthal thinking’ – ABC News (go.com)
• Nobody wants Alzheimer Joe declaring wars, not even King Biden – Biden signals support to replace war power authority – ABC News (go.com)
• F’ energy independence – Biden’s halt of new oil and gas permits on federal lands has lawmakers demanding answers | Fox Business
• Even this guy gets it – Bill Maher trashes Cuomo, 4 years into MeToo era: How can he ‘be this f—in’ stupid?’ | Fox News
• Open borders – Trump tears into Biden for ‘spiraling tsunami’ at the border, amid spike in migrant numbers | Fox News
• That is why you fail – WH Spokeswoman: We Don’t Take Trump Advice on Immigration | Newsmax.com
• Police state – Reports: Capitol Police Request Extension Of National Guard Presence | The Daily Wire
• 69,240 new cases of COVID-19 (4,293,150 total)
• 1,836 new COVID-19 deaths (111,569 total)

March 6th, 2021

• More violence coming – Minneapolis prepares for potential unrest ahead of trial in the killing of George Floyd (nbcnews.com)
• Racists – Asian Americans have often needed to ‘prove’ racism. Then social media video came along. (nbcnews.com)
• Pay to play – Biden’s associate attorney general pick would be wealthiest member of administration – ABC News (go.com)
• Creepy SOB – New former Cuomo aides accused Dem of sexual misconduct, reportedly inviting one to ‘dimly lit hotel room’ | Fox News
• Partisan dick – Biden administration fires Trump-appointed lawyer who refused to resign | Fox News
• Open borders – Gov. Abbott Deploys Texas National Guard, State Troopers to Counter Biden’s ‘Open Border Policies’ (breitbart.com)
• F’ citizenship and abiding by the law – Democrats Reject Republican Attempts To Prevent Stimulus Checks From Going To Prisoners, Illegal Aliens | The Daily Wire
• Duh, open borders = bad – Opinion | Biden’s Unnecessary Border Crisis – POLITICO
• 58,620 new cases of COVID-19 (4,351,770 total)
• 1,518 new COVID-19 deaths (113,081 total)

March 7th, 2021

• YAEO – ‘Let the people vote’: Biden signs executive order to expand voting access (nbcnews.com)
• Clueless – Cuomo defiant as top New York lawmakers call on him to quit – ABC News (go.com)
• Fail – US coronavirus: Don’t drop the masks yet. One variant is ‘increasing exponentially’ – CNN
• Lack of transparency – Exclusive: Biden Admin Restricts Senior DHS Officials from Sharing Border Crisis Info with Reporters (breitbart.com)
• Kids in cages – Biden Now Acknowledging Migrant Children Influx at Border | Newsmax.com
• 44,878 new cases of COVID-19 (4,396,648 total)
• 715 new COVID-19 deaths (113,796 total)

March 8th, 2021

• Kids in cages – Record number of unaccompanied migrant children held in facilities meant for adults (nbcnews.com)
• What a loser – Lily Burana : Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment charges make me feel we learned nothing from #MeToo (nbcnews.com)
• Police state – Review says Capitol Police ill-equipped to deal with threats, more security measures needed (nbcnews.com)
• So don’t verify voters are who they say they are? – Georgia Republicans are pushing dozens of ‘election integrity’ bills. Black voters are the target, rights groups say. (nbcnews.com)
• Still no solo press conference – Biden to make primetime address Thursday marking 1 year into pandemic – ABC News (go.com)
• How many executive orders now? – Biden order could change how colleges handle sex misconduct – ABC News (go.com)
• Here comes the backlash – Kim Reynolds, Iowa governor, signs controversial law shortening early and Election Day voting – CNNPolitics
• Total idiots, liars and lack of transparency – DHS chief requests volunteers to help at southern border amid ‘overwhelming’ migrant surge | Fox News
• Even King Biden‘s dogs suck out loud – Joe Biden’s Dog ‘Major’ Bites White House Security, Moved to Delaware (breitbart.com)
• 45,116 new cases of COVID-19 (4,441,764 total)
• 788 new COVID-19 deaths (114,584 total)

March 9th, 2021

• Yet another entitlement – The stimulus bill’s Child Tax Credit expansion is exactly the pandemic relief parents need (msnbc.com)
• Loser – Only one New York governor has ever been impeached. Some lawmakers hope Cuomo will be the second. (nbcnews.com)
• Open borders – Biden administration ditches Trump plan to limit immigration for those financially dependent on government (nbcnews.com)
• King Biden‘s buddies – China Xinjiang: First independent report into Uyghur genocide allegations claims evidence of Beijing’s ‘intent to destroy’ Muslim minorities – CNN
• More cancel culture – Opinion: Notorious Hollywood classics seen in a brand new way – CNN
• Racist Joy Reid – Tim Scott responds to MSNBC’s Joy Reid: ‘Woke supremacy is as bad as white supremacy’ | Fox News
• 55,946 new cases of COVID-19 (4,497,710 total)
• 1,712 new COVID-19 deaths (116,296 total)

March 10th, 2021

• Bizarre gymnastics of logic – Trump ruined the GOP’s brand. Now he’s trying to keep it from using his (msnbc.com)
• So government’s role is hand-outs? – Schumer calls Covid aid bill a ‘turning point’ in politics that’ll stop future Trumps (nbcnews.com)
• Supporting zero verification – Democrats rethink the U.S. voting system. What’s in the massive H.R. 1. (nbcnews.com)
• OK, let’s all be honest, Mormon history is only slightly less weird than Scientology – Netflix’s ‘Murder Among the Mormons’ uses the same stereotypes about our faith as the villain (nbcnews.com)
• Give everyone a trophy – America’s Covid spring shouldn’t include standardized tests for any students (nbcnews.com)
• Hooray! I put your children in debt for generations to come!! – King Biden plans victory lap after passage of Covid relief bill (nbcnews.com)
• Would only happen under King Biden‘s watch, who would – China could invade Taiwan in the next 6 years, assume global leadership role, U.S. admiral warns (nbcnews.com)
• The Supreme Court reject? – Senate confirms Merrick Garland as Biden’s attorney general (nbcnews.com)
• New York idiots – Search is on for murder suspect mistakenly released from NYC’s Rikers Island – ABC News (go.com)
• Open borders – Biden White House under pressure as border arrests increase – ABC News (go.com)
• Uh oh – Arkansas near-total abortion ban certain to face legal showdown – ABC News (go.com)
• Retiring from doing nothing? – Michelle Obama hooked on knitting, thinking about retirement – ABC News (go.com)\
• Biting the hand that feeds you. – Man sues Hertz over receipt that cleared him of murder – ABC News (go.com)
• Yes – Did Joe Biden (already) blow his chance at bipartisanship? – CNNPolitics
• Gross – Cuomo groping of female aide at governor’s mansion detailed: Report | Fox News
• Well, he definitely did at least one thing right – Trump takes credit for ‘china virus’ vaccine: ‘I hope everyone remembers!’ | Fox News
• Just 7????!?? – 7 Cringeworthy Moments from Joe Biden’s First 50 Days in Office (breitbart.com)
• Nobody gives 2 shits about this fat ass – Michael Moore: White People Who Vote Republican Having a ‘Hard Time’ Becoming a Minority in America (breitbart.com)
• OMG! This is crazy! – ‘Trump Buddha’ Statue Sells Quickly on Chinese Alibaba Platform (breitbart.com)
• F’ open borders – Texas Gov. Abbott Sending 500 Guard Troops to Secure Border | Newsmax.com
• Duh – Left-Leaning Poll: There Is ‘Broad Support’ For GOP Push To Ban Biological Males From Female Athletics | The Daily Wire
• Lack of transparency – WATCH: Harris Pressed To Give A Comment On Andrew Cuomo Amid Alleged Sexual Misconduct Scandal | The Daily Wire
• Why is there debate on this? – A tough-on-China GOP is split on whether to boycott the China Olympics – POLITICO
• Because Schumer is a putz? – Collins-Schumer rift shocks Senate – POLITICO
• Yep, here come the taxes – A $60 billion surprise in the Covid relief bill: Tax hikes – POLITICO
• 60,355 new cases of COVID-19 (4,558,065 total)
• 1,610 new COVID-19 deaths (117,906 total)

March 11th, 2021

• King Biden the liar – ‘The mess we inherited’: Biden leans heavily on Trump’s ‘Warp Speed’ but won’t give credit – ABC News (go.com)
• Wow, this guy is getting the shaft – Judge reinstates third-degree murder charge against ex-cop Derek Chauvin in George Floyd’s death (nbcnews.com)
• Oh the mental gymnastics necessary to invent this twisted logic – Teri Kanefield: Covid stimulus bill passes as Republicans use cancel culture to hide their obstruction (nbcnews.com)
• WTF? So do men get free shaving products? Or free toilet paper, since men tend to use more of that than women? Hell, let’s just make everything free. – Covid relief bill was a missed opportunity to address ‘period poverty’ in America (nbcnews.com)
• Lies, damn lies and statistics. The methodology here is so jank. If you want the facts, go here. Let’s see, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island are the top three in deaths per capita and they all have Democratic governors. – States with Republican governors had highest Covid incidence and death rates, study finds (nbcnews.com)
• 62,913 new cases of COVID-19 (4,620,978 total)
• 1,605 new COVID-19 deaths (119,511 total)

March 12th, 2021

• Cancel culture – Daylight saving time starts soon. What if it never ends? (msnbc.com)
• Toast – Sens. Schumer, Gillibrand and most House Dems from N.Y. call for Cuomo to resign (nbcnews.com)
• Tiresome – Biden compares himself to the alternative (Trump) in first prime-time speech (nbcnews.com)
• More rule changes – CDC guidelines update: Face masks and fully-vaccinated people (nbcnews.com)
• Open borders – Biden moves to relieve strain of child border crossings – ABC News (go.com)
• Global warming – Major storm moving east, will bring record-breaking snow and damaging thunderstorms – ABC News (go.com)
• Don’t speak truth – Georgetown law professor terminated after remarks about Black students – ABC News (go.com)
• Trump – After Biden stimulus, US economic growth could rival or even surpass China’s – CNN
• Yep – Democrats push ‘assault weapon’ ban in new gun control bill | Fox News
• Random – Joe Biden Takes Swipe at Sarah Palin During Celebration (breitbart.com)
• TBD new cases of COVID-19 (4,620,978 total)
• TBD new COVID-19 deaths (119,511 total)

That’s right, still can’t let this Twitter thing go. Something’s been sticking in our craw about this whole Twitter banning a sitting President of the United States and we think we have boiled it down to the seemingly oddly specific rule that Twitter used to justify it’s ban of President Trump. You see, the Twitter rules page includes an “Authenticity” section under which there is a “Civic Integrity” rule. If we are so bold as to “Learn more” about this civic integrity rule, we arrive at this page and the following snippet:

Misleading information about outcomes 

We will label or remove false or misleading information intended to undermine public confidence in an election or other civic process. This includes but is not limited to:

• disputed claims that could undermine faith in the process itself, such as unverified information about election rigging, ballot tampering, vote tallying, or certification of election results; and
• misleading claims about the results or outcome of a civic process which calls for or could lead to interference with the implementation of the results of the process, e.g. claiming victory before election results have been certified, inciting unlawful conduct to prevent the procedural or practical implementation of election results (note that our violent threats policy may also be relevant for threats not covered by this policy).

First, remember that President Trump was permanently banned from Twitter for the following Tweet:

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

Regarding this particular tweet, Twitter stated that the tweet about skipping the inauguration was “further confirmation that the election was not legitimate.”

Couple things. First, that’s thin Twitter. That’s a very subjective interpretation of that tweet. An objective person would read that as informational only. If the tweet had read:

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the illegitimate Inauguration on January 20th.”

OK, then that would be a clear violation. But as the tweet stands, that’s just putting words in someone’s mouth. Second, the policy states “label or remove”, not “permanently ban for all time”. Minor point, and yes down at the bottom there is a permanent ban warning for repeated violations. And it is very specific about the 5 strike process and everything. But third, how about that part about “inciting unlawful conduct to prevent the procedural or practical implementation of election results”. That’s, wow, that’s extremely specific considering the events of January 6^th, 2021. Like really specific. Did that rule go up before or after January 6^th? When exactly did that rule come about? Inquiring minds want to know.

If only we had a time machine and could go back in time to read the Twitter rules page at various points in the past. If only… Oh wait, shit, this is the age of the Internet, we actually have one of those! It’s called the “Wayback Machine“. The Wayback Machine is a time machine of sorts that captures and archives pages on the Internet. With the Wayback Machine, we can peek back into ancient times to read web pages that talk about ridiculously old-fashioned things like going to a movie theater, eating inside a NYC restaurant or even buying perfectly reasonable amounts of toilet paper.

So, using our time machine, we can actually dial the clock back to the first time that the Wayback Machine captured the Twitter rules page. And, while it took a bit of work, we finally decoded the magic number, 18311. You see, this was the original page name for the Twitter rules page, https://www.twitter.com/rules/18311. You can see the first listing in the Wayback Machine for this page on August 2^nd, 2010 here. It’s a single, short page with no links to any sub pages. And, there’s no mention of Civic Integrity or really much else other than a really long section on spam.

OK, so this Twitter rules page remains remarkably consistent in content. You can view this page at the end of 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018. It’s essentially the same. No mention of civic integrity or anything of the sort. However, 2019 is different.

On June 7th, 2019, the Wayback Machine first captures a version of the Twitter rules page that includes an “Authenticity” section and within that Authenticity section there is a rule about “Election integrity”. If we follow the “Learn more” link we arrive at a new sub page, the very first “Election integrity policy“. Well, not so fast, because the first version of this page was actually captured on April 28^th, 2019 but apparently Twitter never bothered to link to it from their rules page until 2 months later. Incompetence aside, the policy states the following:

“You may not use Twitter’s services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections. This includes posting or sharing content that may suppress voter turnout or mislead people about when, where, or how to vote.“

OK, there is some verbiage here about interfering with elections but nothing about bitching and moaning about election results. However, down at the bottom, we also see the introduction of the “permanent suspension” language. Except that it is vague, like really vague. Alright, getting closer. And look at Twitter being all responsible and smart, getting out in front of that 2020 election by over a year! Oh, except…ummm…kind of hate to point this out, but you sort of whiffed on the two previous presidential election cycles so….yeah, not too swift are you Twitter? I mean, 2012, 2016? Pshaw! Hey man, you can interfere all you want, we know Barack Obama is getting re-elected and there’s no chance that Hillary is not getting in…

Moving on, let’s focus now on this “Election integrity policy”. Again, the content on this page remains relatively the same for like a a year and a half until September 11th, 2020. That’s an unfortunate day to pick. In any case, here is where what is essentially the current version of the page comes into being. The verbiage about misleading election blah blah blah is the same but now we have the bitching and moaning about election results clauses. So, why the sudden rule change?

Interestingly enough, if we use the Trump Twitter Archive. I know, right? Like that’s a thing. Holy smokes! It is a thing. Wow, well if we use this other time machine of ours, we find a tweet from President Trump on September 10^th, 2020:

Sep 10th 2020 – 8:54:48 AM EST
Sending out 80 MILLION BALLOTS to people who aren’t even asking for a Ballot is unfair and a total fraud in the making. Look at what’s going on right now!

Causality? Hard to prove but it sure looks like Twitter is basically changing the rules of the game while it is being played. Trump tweets about possible fraud and Twitter responds by making a rule that talking about possible fraud is suddenly against the rules. But, whatever. Our moms always told us that changing the rules in the middle of the game was “cheating” but we never bought into that narrative either. So…you know…moms.

But, the amazing thing is that the September 11^th, 2020 version of the page includes the verbiage:

“inciting unlawful conduct to prevent the procedural or practical implementation of election results“

What? As in literally what the hell? Nobody was talking about anything even remotely like what happened on January 6th, 2021 in any way shape or form at that time. Hell, every last reporter said something like “Nobody could have predicted…” and stuff like that. Bullshit! Apparently Twitter predicted it. Twitter. Like, how is that even possible? Did they know something?

Alright, alright, dial it back. We’re not conspiracy theorists here at The Objective Observer. But that’s…that’s just weird. The company that can’t get their shit together to protect the two previous election cycles is now suddenly omnipotently prescient? It’s…it’s hard to swallow. Just sayin’.

OK, one last item to wrap up. The current version of the “civic integrity” policy includes a “5 strikes and you’re out” clause. So when did that come about? Back to the Wayback Machine. Surely this 5 strikes language was in the policy before they banned a sitting President of the United States. That way there is no possible confusion about the rules. Surely. Oh…well…nope. January 9th, 2021 is when the 5 strikes language was added. Wow. There’s a CYA moment for you!!

OK, so what is the point of all of this? Well, President Trump during his time in office continually complained about his unfair treatment in the press and such. In his mind, he was the “worst treated President of all time”. And, to be fair, we think that to any objective observer, he has a bit of a point there. Now, that’s not to say that a lot of it wasn’t self inflicted. The man tended to escalate and not deescalate. So, that’s on him.

Now, fairness is a core American concept. It’s sort of fundamental to the American narrative, that everyone is treated fair. Blind Lady Justice and all that. Sure, it’s a complete and utter lie. If you are rich, you don’t go to jail. But, it is an American ideal after all. It is what we strive for.

So, was President Trump treated fairly by Twitter? We’re going to have to go with big fat “no” on that one. Clearly, the evidence demonstrates that Twitter seemed to be changing their policy rules in response to President Trump’s tweets, effectively changing the rules of the middle of the game. Furthermore Twitter had a very vague “permanent ban” clause that was essentially entirely subjective and arbitrary. There was clearly no warning given to Trump such as small suspensions leading up to the ban as they have now. Then Twitter goes in and covers their ass by putting in that language. Finally, Twitter seems to have purposefully put words in President Trump’s mouth by inferring meaning in Trump’s final tweet that is a highly subjective interpretation.

So, was Trump treated fairly by Twitter? Well, you can decide for yourself but we think the evidence demonstrates that no, President Trump, regardless of what you think of the guy, wasn’t treated fairly. And that’s not the America we strive for quite frankly.

Full disclosure, the content of this article was originally supposed to be included in the article What is Free Speech?. However, we admit, we sort of got off on a bit of a tangent there with the whole cigar thing and, well, we just kind of ran with it. And then we felt the article would be too long so… Anyway, this whole Twitter fiasco over banning President Trump has raised so many questions and issues surrounding free speech that we still have things to say on this topic and, well, damnit, we’re going to say them. This is our blog after all.

As referenced in What is Free Speech?, there are; perhaps surprisingly, limits to free speech in America. We say surprisingly because the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America seems pretty clear:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. – Bill of Rights

And yet Congress has, in point of fact, made laws limiting free speech in America. Specifically, we are referencing the federal felony enacted by Congress in 1917 as part of the United States Code Title 18, Section 871 regarding the threatening of a President of the United States. Soooooo…what now?!? How is that even possible? The plain language of the Bill of Rights clearly reads that making a law abridging free speech should be not be possible. As in, 100% impossible.

OK, sure, Congress makes up stupid laws all the time because it is full of complete and utter morons. We all know that. It’s obvious. But those idiotic laws created by halfwits are invariably eventually overturned by the Supreme Court. So surely this statute has been overturned by…HOLY SHIT!…it’s actually been upheld?!? What the hell? Are we in opposite world? Something is clearly amiss! We need to take a look at the history here and what we find is that the saga of the curtailment and censorship of free speech in America has a surprising long and twisted path.

The curtailment of the freedom of speech unconditionally and unequivocally guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, which is part of the Constitution of the United States, actually began a scant seven years after the adoption of the Bill of Rights in 1791. So a mere seven years to say whatever the hell you felt like saying. Then, in 1798, Congress adopted the Alien and Sedition Acts in a clear F’ You! to the First Amendment. This act prohibited:

“false, scandalous, and malicious writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame…or to bring them…into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them…hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition within the United States, or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States”.

OK, first of all, can you spell i n s e c u r e? Come on guys, you can’t abide a bit of criticism? People gonna hate. However, this act expired three years later in 1801 after never being challenged in the Supreme Court. In fact, after the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson pardoned everyone that the John Adams’ administration had prosecuted under the statute, and there were many. So, Jefferson…mad props, yo!

Alright, so other than state and local “obscenity” laws passed at the state and local level; hey, the Constitution only specifies “Congress shall make no law…”, everything remained fairly static up until the 1917 statute making it a federal felony to threaten a President of the United States. People have actually been convicted under this statute. Notably:

• United States v. Stickrath, 242 F. 151, 153 (SD Ohio 1917) – “President Wilson ought to be killed. It is a wonder some one has not done it already. If I had an opportunity, I would do it myself.”
• Clark v. United States, 250 F. 449 (C. A. 5th Cir. 1918) – “Wilson is a wooden-headed son of a bitch. I wish Wilson was in hell, and if I had the power I would put him there.”
• United States v. Apel, 44 F. Supp. 592, 593 (D.C. N. D. Ill. 1942) – Regarding posters advocating the hanging of President Roosevelt
• 2010, Johnny Logan Spencer Jr. for the poem “The Sniper” about the assassination of President Obama
• 2010, Brian Dean Miller – “People, the time has come for revolution. It is time for Obama to die. I am dedicating my life to the death of Obama and every employee of the federal government. As I promised in a previous post, if the health care reform bill passed I would become a terrorist. Today I become a terrorist.”
• 2017, Stephen Taubert – For threatening to hang President Obama

Wow, who knew that President Woodrow Wilson was almost as hated as President Barack Obama? Wasn’t that dude white? And yo, Stephen, you were a bit late to the game there bud. Huh…huh…“wooden headed son of a bitch”…classic.

All joking aside, that’s all awful stuff. We aren’t advocating for threatening a President of the United States, or anyone else for that matter. Which begs the question, why the hell does the President get such special treatment anyway? That’s complete and utter B.S. Is the President a king or something? We don’t want people threatening us lowly plebes either we’ll have you know. But f’ it, apparently people can do that all day long. Lame. Regardless, how the hell is that law Constitutional pray tell?

To answer the above enquiry, we need to look no further than to Schenck v. United States in 1919. This Supreme Court decision states:

“The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. […] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”

Aha!! That’s where “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” comes from! Bonus! And thus we land on where the Supreme Court apparently starts to agree that Congress can, in fact, abridge free speech. Morons. Note that Schenck…really Schenck? That’s your last name? In any case, Schenck was convicted for distributing flyers urging resistance to the draft and the Supreme Court upheld this decision. OK, but sure, everyone makes mistakes, obviously the Supreme Court immediately started to walk back that nonsense. Nope, in fact, the Supreme Court double-downed on that B.S. circa 1942 with Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire. Really…Chaplinsky?

In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, the Supreme Court implemented the “fighting words” doctrine. Swear…swear to God, as crazy as that shit sounds, we are not making this up. You see, in 1940 a Jehovah’s Witness named Walter Chaplinsky was detained for distributing pamphlets accusing “organized religion” of being a “racket”. Setting aside the fact that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are, well; you know, sort of an organized religion and all while simultaneously setting aside that, well, the dude kind of has a point there… In any case, good ol’ Walter ends up calling a town marshal, and we quote: “You are a God-damned racketeer” and “a damned Fascist”. Poor S.O.B. ends up being convicted under New Hampshire’s “offense language” law and the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of the United Freaking States upholds this nonsense, stating:

“There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or “fighting” words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.”

Honestly? In any case, it is not until 1969 that things start to get any better with Brandenburg v. Ohio. Damnit Ohio, always sticking your nose in things. In any case, this is where the Supreme Court started to walk back the ridiculous restrictions around free speech. Sure, it’s beyond unfortunate that this particular case essentially defended KKK member Clarence Brandenburg’s right to spew vile racial bigotry. And, what the hell, are all KKK members named Clarence? We don’t mean to stereotype but; damn, you meet a guy named Clarence and you know you are immediately thinking “This guy’s a Ku Klux Klan Grand Master”. OK, sure, maybe not Clarence Thomas. Maybe. But still… In any case, this is essentially the start of the Supreme Court steadily narrowing the scope of what is regulated speech. Fortunately, that narrowing continues to this day.

Oh wait, except for New York v. Ferber, where the Supreme Court upheld bans on child pornography in 1982. Wait…a…minute…1982? Are you telling us that in 1942 poor ol’ Walter got fined for calling someone a “racketeer” and a “Facist” but it took you Supreme Court yahoos 40 more years to declare child freaking pornography illegal?!? Shame! Shame on you Supreme Court. Priorities. Priorities people. Honestly though, Supreme Court, we are 100% with you on the child pornography thing. Definitely not something that the founders of the Constitution could have ever dreamed of in their day. But the rest of it? It’s like you read the Constitution to say:

“Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, unless at some point in the future Congress just says “F’ it” and makes some laws to abridge free speech anyway and then it is OK.“

But…it doesn’t say that. The Constitution…it doesn’t say that. Still, technically, the child porn stuff should have been an Amendment. Technically.

So, anyway, that is the condensed version of the history of the limitations on free speech in the United States of America. That is, until Big Tech tossed a veritable hand grenade of controversy into the whole steaming pile of excrement that is the Supreme Court’s history on this issue. Seriously, honest to God, we’ve…we’ve lost a considerable amount of respect for the Supreme Court researching and writing this article. You convicted poor ol’ Walter for calling someone a Fascist for Christ’s sake? Might as well lock up half the freaking country at this point, starting with Don Lemon.

So, what is the point of this exercise other than a long, drawn out excuse to once again point out what an idiot Don Lemon is? Well…you say that like it is a bad thing. Personally, we think that’s enough. The dude called like 74 million Americans fascist Nazi’s after all. But sure, what the hell, let’s make this an “and knowing is half the battle” moment.

OK, so let’s go with this. Perhaps you are wondering just why is The Objective Observer so concerned about free speech? Well, the reality is that it is because we; well, if we are being honest, we say some pretty messed up, crazy shit on this blog site from time to time! Not Don Lemon moronic messed up crazy shit calling everyone Nazis, but still… Seriously, have you read A Cure for the Flu or Vegetarians Are Still Stupid? Admittedly, no joke, we’re “out there”. So, you had better believe that we are concerned about free speech. Luckily though, we have a secret weapon at our disposal. Want to know what it is?

Canada.

You see, WordPress is owned and operated by a Canadian firm. That’s right, SUCK IT! American Big Tech and all of you other censuring, freedom hating Americans, you can’t touch us here! Nyah, nyah, nee, nyah, nyah! And this is how Canada has become more free than America, the “Land of the Censured”.

Honestly, we…we truly hate Big Tech and other American censors. You’re…making…us…defend…Canada! Canada! Of all places! We truly despise you Big Tech, you…you…you…Fascists!! Oh…oh shit…we’re going to jail. We’ll be sure to say “hello” to Walter…

Seriously though, we…uh…we kind of feel bad for Walter.

A lot of attention has been paid to the recent action by Twitter to permanently ban (exclude) a sitting President of the United States of America. However, as is so often the case, everyone seems to be missing the vastly more intriguing bigger picture here. To an objective observer, what is most interesting about Twitter’s banning of President Trump is the fascinating case study this action represents in terms of the “tragedy of the commons“.

For a bit of background, the tragedy of the commons is a concept first introduced by William Forster Lloyd in 1833. Lloyd was an English economist and he released a pamphlet where, per Wikipedia, “he postulated that if a herder put more than his allotted number of cattle on the common, overgrazing could result. For each additional animal, a herder could receive additional benefits, while the whole group shared the resulting damage to the commons. If all herders made this individually rational economic decision, the common could be depleted or even destroyed, to the detriment of all.”

A “common” in this context refers to public land that is free for anyone to use. Lloyd’s concept was resurrected in 1968 by Garrett Hardin’s article “The Tragedy of the Commons”. The name stuck. Since Hardin’s article, the concept has been applied to anthropology, economics, environmental science evolutionary psychology, game theory, politics, sociology and taxation. In short, one can sum up the tragedy of the commons as a situation where individual users deplete or spoil a shared resource by acting contrary to the common good and in their own self interests.

Now, over the years, there have been attempts to apply the tragedy of the commons to the digital world with varying degrees of success. The arguments tend to fall along the lines of overuse of digital resources causing pollution in the physical environment or a “pollution” of information causing things like misinformation, crime, terrorism, confusion, manipulation, etc. We have actually argued similar things when discussing open source here and here. And that goes as far back as 2008. What can we say? We’re brilliant and way ahead of our time like that. Can’t argue with awesome.

Back patting aside, we would argue that Twitter banning President Trump is a fantastic example of a digital, tragedy of the commons. To understand why this is the case, however, we need to define what it means to “consume” Twitter, demonstrate how Twitter can be classified as a “common good” and exactly how this common good “failed”. Let’s get to it.

OK, consumption. To fully “consume” Twitter (participate) you need to be able to read and be able to post. Only being able to read Twitter is akin to only being able to look at the scenery of some common land but be unable to graze your cattle on it. If you are unable to fully utilize a common resource, then that does not count as true consumption.

OK, Twitter as a common good. In the interests of not having to write an entire treatise on economic theory let’s summarize. Goods are either private, club, common or public. Goods are classified into these categories based upon their degree of excludability and rivalry. Excludability is the degree to which something is limited to only paying customers. Rivalrous and non-rivalrous pertain to the degree to which consumption reduces the ability of others to consume the resource. Common goods tend to be non-excludable and rivalrous.

Is Twitter non-excludable? Sure, up until they banned President Trump for life, Twitter was very much non-excludable. Anyone with Internet access was free to read and tweet on Twitter. Is Twitter rivalrous or non-rivalrous? Eh, that’s more of a gray area. One could argue that Twitter is rivalrous, non-rivalrous or even anti-rivalrous. Again, in the interests of not having to write a treatise on the subject, it’s somewhere on the spectrum of rivalry, meaning that there are at least some aspects of rivalry that fit the attributes of a common good. For example, once a username is claimed on Twitter, no one else can use that same username. Also, it is not zero cost for Twitter to scale as consumption increases. Those are examples of Twitter being rivalrous.

OK, so Twitter can reasonably be thought of as a common good. Sure, it’s an arguable point. One could also reasonably make the case for Twitter as a public good or, less likely, a club good. But, again, without authoring a treatise on the subject, we think that the definition of Twitter as a common good is best.

So, how did Twitter “fail” in a manner consistent with the tragedy of the commons? Well, the short answer is President Trump. By permanently banning President Trump, Twitter voluntarily threw the switch between non-excludable to excludable. Thus, Twitter effectively failed as this once common good suddenly became most decidedly excludable and thus no longer a common good. In other words, the self interests of a single individual “spoiled” the common good and thus Twitter #failed as a common good and became yet another victim of the tragedy of the commons.

Let’s review, the tragedy of the commons is a situation where individual users deplete or spoil a shared resource by acting contrary to the common good and in their own self interests. President Trump acted in his own self interests to such a degree that he caused Twitter to become exclusionary versus non-exclusionary. While perhaps not an “according to Hoyle” tragedy of the commons, this is still an example of commons collapse disorder. We just made that up. But anyway, that is why this case is so fascinating, this episode demonstrates that “over consumption” is not the only way in which a tragedy of the commons event can occur, which is wild.

If you think we here at The Objective Observer are crazy. Rest assured, we are not the only ones that think in these terms. There is an amazing article in The Hill that came out while we were still in the process of writing and editing this article. The article argues that Twitter and Facebook need to become nationalized public goods. The article doesn’t mention tragedy of the commons by name, but if Twitter and Facebook; the same logic holds for Facebook as well, had succeeded as common goods and not victimized themselves via self-inflicted tragedy of the commons, then you wouldn’t need to nationalize them in order to fix them. Both Twitter and Facebook have failed as common goods because they have firmly crossed over the line from non-excludable to excludable and thus, by definition, can no longer be considered common goods.

And, just to wrap this up, there is an element of irony here. There can be no question that President Trump’s use of Twitter greatly benefitted the platform. President Trump was a marketing gold mine, constantly keeping Twitter relevant and in the news. Tremendous irony then that Twitter chose to commit “Suicide of the Commons”, effectively killing themselves as a common good, over this one “selfish” consumer.

No, that title is not a typo. The title of this article is simply an expression of reality at this point. It is time we face the facts and drop the “United” from the quaint name “United States of America”. America is anything but united at this point and, well, there’s no going back. In fact, things are only going to get worse, not better. If you doubt this simple, undeniable truth or have a burning desire to understand the true culprit behind this division, read on.

In order to understand how we have arrived at this moment and the inexorable march we are on to an even more divided future, we have to dial up the way back machine and understand a bit of history of media and, in particular, news. If we focus on television news then from pretty much the invention of television up until the 1980’s, Americans primarily received their news from just three organizations, ABC, NBC and CBS.

Now, at this time, each of these organizations were essentially fair and honest brokers of news and information. What mattered was that the news of the day was reported factually and without opinion. And while there may have been slight differences in the news stories each organization covered or in presentation, the same core set of content was delivered with very little filtering. If we were to picture this improbable, by today’s standards, state of affairs, it would look something like the following:

The little blue dots are the audience. Hey, we’re writers here, not graphic artists, give us a break for Christ’s sake. More importantly than the god awful graphics, the takeaway here is that all Americans were essentially receiving the same information. While there were differences of opinion among Americans, we at least had a core, common set of essentially unfiltered facts that everyone agreed were true.

Importantly, we must point out the economics of this situation. As long as the available audience was every individual within America, there were enough viewers to support these three networks via advertising revenues. There was no need to “spin” the news as these organizations differentiated themselves through their entertainment programming. The news was the news and was a relatively small part of the overall programming.

So what happened? Well, technology happened for one. HBO and cable TV became a thing. Now, cable TV technically dates back to 1948 but after the advent of HBO in 1972, cable TV saw exponential growth in the 1980’s and reached 50 million homes by 1990. With it, cable TV brought dozens of news “channels”. News organizations like CNN launched in 1980, Fox News in 1996 and ESPN in 1979. Hey, some people only care about sports news. What are you going to do? Regardless, Americans now had a much greater choice of sources from which they could self select their news. And we thus saw the advent of specialization. CNN specialized in only news 24/7. ESPN specialized in only sports news 24/7. Later, Fox News specialized in a more conservative view of the news. The audience became more fragmented between these different channels.

And yes, we kept the old style logos for ABC, NBC and CBS because we’re lazy and not graphic artists to begin with. So tough.

Anyway, at around the same time this increase in channels and specialization was occurring in television, similar things were going on in radio. Whereas NPR had been the primary source of news via radio, suddenly conservative talk radio became a thing in 1988. And here we see a harbinger of things to come. Here we see the advent of the news being filtered through the lens of a single individual, like Rush Limbaugh, versus broad filtering of say, sports. Here too we witness the movement towards news analysis and opinion versus solely and dispassionately delivering facts. It’s a here’s what happened but more importantly, here is my opinion on what happened. Not saying right or wrong but this is an important portent of things to come.

What hadn’t changed? Newspapers. Good ol’ newspapers. Each major city only had one or two and everyone could be assured that the politics and opinion were relegated to the editorial pages. Here still could Americans get unbiased, unfiltered, fact based reporting on common information we all had access to and could all agree upon the facts. And then…yep, the Internet.

While cable TV channels continued to grow from dozens of channels to hundreds of channels, the Internet created not hundreds, but thousands, if not millions of new channels through which information could flow and be filtered. Things like the Drudge Report became a thing. Suddenly news websites were springing up all over the place and individuals could further self select and “tune in” to only the websites they liked. But nobody really got their news solely from the Internet back in “those days” (1990’s). And many news websites were just the online avatar of newspapers, radio stations and the like. And then came…social media.

Ah yes, here now arrives social media circa the 2000’s. The channels of information now become exponentially fractured yet again as individuals self select their “friends” and join specialized “groups”. Don’t like what someone is saying? Simply unfriend that idiot. Retreat from differing opinions into your own myopic tribe of facts and opinions. People started to now only receive their information via these “social circles”, solely via the Internet as it were.

Cutting to the chase, the end game here is that every individual eventually has their own custom “channel” of filtered information and this channel has little or no commonality of base content with anyone else’s “channel”. Nobody can agree on anything because nobody is talking about the same thing, the same base set of unfiltered facts. It is all just filtered analysis and opinion.

And here we must once again address the economics of all of this. The economics of millions of channels is vastly different than the economics of three, or just a handful, of channels that reach mass audiences. Instead, sources, news providers, must specialize in order to cater to and reach some specific, target audience. This is why certain news organizations, we won’t name names, have swung hard left while others have swung hard right. Take a look at the front pages of CNN.com, MSNBC.com, FoxNews.com. Oh shit, did we just name names? Damnit. Anyway, the disparity between the news stories covered is striking. Depending on the channel, the base set of content delivered is vastly different. How are two people supposed to agree on anything when there are zero facts and content that those two people have in common?

It is only going to get worse people.

So where do we go from here? We need a true and proper villain after all. Luckily, we can be much more specific about who is to blame for America’s current and future woes rather than simply the broad strokes of “technology”, the “Internet” and “social media”. In fact, if you are looking for someone to blame, we can pin that blame on one specific individual…

Al Gore

You see, Al Gore created the Internet. Note that this is, in fact, a correct attribution, unlike the false claim that Al Gore “‘invented’ the Internet”. Al Gore never, at any time, said that he invented the Internet. Never. Instead, Al Gore’s words were exactly as follows:

“During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” – Al Gore

So, if you need someone to blame, blame Al Gore, it’s all his fault. With utmost certainty, it is Al Gore and only Al Gore that has doomed us all to live perpetually bickering and misunderstanding one another within this most divided, State of America. Jackass.