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he is proposing that all Americans need access to the modern economy. Oligopolies/monopolies who control an entire industry SHOULD NOT be allowed to decide who gets to use their service. When there are a million cake makers, this is irrelevant. Cutting off Mastercard and Visa is downright Orwellian.
How about your perspective? Where does it end? Does the wrong political view mean you cant go to college, cant get a job, cant rent an apt, cant use electronic payment methods, cant open a bank account... where does it end?
How is this not 1930's Nazi Germany?
Exactly. If there were 3 dozen Facebooks, limited by geography and roughly the same size, it wouldn't matter.
But there aren't 36 Facebooks, limited by state, but rather 1 Facebook Globally. In many countries, businesses don't have websites, just Facebook pages.
There's only 1 FOX News too. Should they be forced to air Krugman and Warren and Bernie?
You want Equal Time/Fairness Doctrine back? I'm game.
The SPLC has come down pretty far into the mud. It's time to block donations to the SPLC because of their activities in opposition to free speech.
Free speech in the bill of rights only applies to government regulation. Why is that so hard for so many people to grasp.
Free Speech is an American Principle and certain businesses are prohibited from refusing service based on Speech.
This would just expand it to internet and financial Combines that control 90% of the market, like Visa/Mastercard, or Patreon, or Facebook/Youtube. Youtube controls almost all non-porn streaming video.
You have options outside of visa/mastercard people CHOOSE to use then.
There isn't any constitutional protection no matter how much you try to find one.
Youtube doesn't control 90% of the steaming market, 90% of the streaming market CHOOSES to use youtube.
Powerful Financial Institutions shouldn't be prohibiting their users from exercising their free speech, it's Un-American.
This is too funny. So, remind me which side of the gay bakery you were on again?
There's a difference between a small business - to which there are scores of nearby alternatives - run by one or two people, and a massive international conglomerate.
So if it was Little Debbies, you'd say they should be required to bake the cake then? What's the cutoff to where Big Brother gets to decide how you must run your business?
More about the size and status of the company than even market share. If it's a public stock company, then they don't have the power, because their role is to make money for the investors, and it's highly unlikely that a majority of investors would agree to lose money by not engaging in a transaction. However, if sole proprietor Abdul the Jihadi Baker doesn't want to make a "Happy 70 Israel!" birthday cake,that's his privilege.
For Social Media, the solution is that open and neutral forums are not liable for the content. However, Social Media that employs "Quality Filters" or actively removes non-illegal political content would be. If you're going to police content, you're saying you're responsible for the content!
That's fair dinkum, I think.
How many non-MC, non-Visa bank cards do you own?
Free Speech is an American principle and courts HAVE identified political contributions as a form of free speech.
Powerful Financial Institutions shouldn't be prohibiting their users from exercising their free speech, it's Un-American.
Do you think Banks should be legally able to refuse to pay checks written to political organizations that pressure groups don't like?
Right, Standard Oil didn't control 90% of the oil market, oil consumers "chose" Standard Oil. ;)
The real hypocrisy is on the side of the Modern Hard Left: Mr. Small Fry, you must Bake the Cake though there are scores of equivalently sized businesses like yours nearby, but I the Massive Conglomerate to whom there is no equivalent alternative, can refuse to process your donation (even though I'm the middle man and neither the source nor destination, the provider or payer, in the transaction).
So if it was Little Debbies, you'd say they should be required to bake the cake then? What's the cutoff to where Big Brother gets to decide how you must run your business?
Do you need a nanny state to tell companies how to run their businesses??
I do have AE.
Banks are required by law to honor checks. They are not required by law to open accounts for everyone. Actually they are required by law to not open accounts for everyone who asks. Political organizations are free to use whatever bank is willing to do business with them. Banks are free to do business with the customers they choose to do business with. Didn't the supreme court just affirm that with the gay cake thing?
Damn right they did. Compared to whale oil and bees wax standard oils kerosene was a godsend.
The real hypocrisy is pretending there are no way to "process your donation". Donations got sent long before any of these institutions existed. You can still write a check and put in an envelope with a stamp the old fashioned way.
If these tech companies want to pick and choose the content - they might as well be honest and classify themselves as Publishers.
They can't have it both ways and pretend to be neutral and not be held to libel laws, but somehow all their algorithms and SJW monkey monitors seem to only block Conservative content.
There is no cut off. The same principal applies for every business. Funny how conservatives are such big believers in free markets, except when the free market does something they don't like.
bob2356 saysI do have AE.
Is AE a bank card?
I have never seen an AE bank card.
This is interesting. So a paper check is one thing, but using a check card to do the same thing is something else?
And yes, like Teddy Roosevelt I believe in regulating Trusts and Monopolies, along with enforcing US Values
If it walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck. So tell me how do you pay for dinner differently with AE card than with Visa card?
My "check card" aka debit card isn't Visa/MC logoed. Every bank has a plain old debit card. Not a requirement to take the visa/mc debit card, it's a choice. So if you CHOOSE to use the Visa/MC network which is a totally different private company from the bank then yes they can have their own rules. It's not the same thing to use a check as to use a visa/mc debit card. Checks don't go through the Visa/MC network. Want to keep on thrashing around trying to make 2+2 equal 5?
lol at "US Values". How ridiculous is it to assume that your values are US values? I can assure you that reciting an idiotic pledge in an act of fake patriotism is most assuredly NOT a US Value. The US was not founded on fake patriotism.
The US is certainly not centered around banks determining which payees they're going to prevent their customers from paying.
I want to hear why MC/VISA should be allowed to decide which legal US political organizations should or shouldn't be allowed to receive donations.
If we need a regulation to protect consumer freedom, so be it. That's the best kind of regulation, and what regulations should be about, to protect freedom and consumer rights to utilize a tool they pay for.
We're talking about normal processes, not finding ways "around" something.
I want to hear why MC/VISA should be allowed to decide which legal US political organizations should or shouldn't be allowed to receive donations.
Why that's an American thing to do, and why that isn't chilling for free speech, which is a national civic value.
We had it, but Trump and his cronies have gutted it and torn it to pieces.
Writing checks is a normal process and has been for 600 years. There are 28 million checks processed every day in the US. That's pretty normal in my world. Being too lazy to write a check and mail it isn't suppression of free speech.
Because they own the processing system and can decide who gets to use it It's not different from owning a bakery and deciding who to serve. The principal is exactly the same.. The post trump supreme court has spoken.
Private business being able to operate without government control beyond safety and fraud issues is an American thing. People are free to speak through their checkbook as easily as their visa card.
"OMG! If we don't have NET NEUTRALITY! The ISPs! Will charge us more money to access our FAVORITE WEBSITES! They may even promote certain providers over others! For example Bank of America might pay to be free and fast but Citigroup would run slower! "
"So? There are alternatives. Most Populated areas have multiple ISPs and where 90% of the population lives, there's a choice of 3G/4G Networks. You can always link your phone to your desktop with a hotspot."
"Not the same we need NET NEUTRALITY. So they don't slow down certain web content"
_________
"Google, Facebook, Youtube are censoring Conservatives and applying opaque conditions to content providers. They are promoting Snopes and Vox and CNN! And downplaying Washington Times, Breitbart, etc.!"
"HAHA! Private Companies, Suck it up Buttercup! Use the sites that have 1-2% of the user base like Minds.com or DuckDuckGo."
"Not the same! We need regulation so they don't compl...
Guess what--net neutrality is dead. So, again, the only hypocrites are Trump cultists.
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David Horowitz is a NYT Best Selling Author, has been a public figure for decades.