Let’s Cheer the Deep State

The Press Has Betrayed Us [The Daily Reckoning] April 26, 2024 [WEBSITE]( | [UNSUBSCRIBE]( Let’s Cheer the Deep State West Hartford, Connecticut Editor’s note: A free and independent press is supposed to report about government overreach and abuse of power. But now the mainstream press is essentially the partners of government, and carries its water. As you’ll see today, Jeffrey Tucker is not happy about it. Are you? [Jeffrey Tucker] JEFFREY TUCKER Dear Reader, They’re wearing us down with shocking headlines and opinions. They come daily these days, with increasingly implausible claims that leave your jaw on the floor. The rest of the text is perfunctory. The headline is the takeaway. A few weeks ago, The New York Times told us that “As It Turns out, the Deep State Is Pretty Awesome.” These are the same people who claim that Trump is trying to get rid of democracy. The deep state is the opposite of democracy, unelected and unaccountable in every way, impervious to elections and the will of the people. Now we have the NYT celebrating this. And the latest bears notice too: “Government Surveillance Keeps Us Safe.” The authors are classic deep staters associated with Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush. They assure us that having an Orwellian state is good for us. You can trust them, promise. The rest of the content of the article doesn’t matter much. The message is in the headline. Amazing isn’t it? You have to check your memory and your sanity. These are the people who have rightly warned about government infringements on privacy and free speech for many decades dating way back. And now we have aggressive and open advocacy of exactly that, mainly because the Biden administration is in charge and has only months to put the final touches on the revolution in law and liberty that has come to America. They want to make it all permanent and are working furiously to make it so. The Rare Is Now the Norm Along with routine warrantless surveillance, not only of possible bad guys but everyone, comes of course censorship. A few years ago, this seemed to be intermittent, like the biased and arbitrary actions of rogue executives. We objected and denounced but generally assumed that it was aberrant and going away over time. Back then, we had no idea of the scale and the ambition of the censors. The more information that is coming out, the more the full goal is coming into view. The power elite want the internet to operate like the controlled media of the 1970s. Any opinion that runs contrary to regime priorities will be blocked. Websites that distribute alternative outlooks will be lucky to survive at all. To understand what’s going on, see the White House document called Declaration for the Future of the Internet. Freedom is barely a footnote, and free speech is not part of it. Instead it is to be a “rules-based digital economy” governed “through the multistakeholder approach, whereby governments and relevant authorities partner with academics, civil society, the private sector, technical community and others.” [You have (1) item on hold at our warehouse:]( Item #: [51987]( Status: On hold Value: Approx. $300 Claim by date: 04/29 Our Head of Customer Experience will show you what you need to do. [Click Here Now]( This whole document is an Orwellian replacement of the Declaration of Internet Freedom from 2012, which was signed by Amnesty International, the ACLU and major corporations and banks. The first principle of this declaration was free speech: Don’t censor the internet. That was 12 years ago and the principle is long forgotten. Even the original website has been dead since 2018. It is now replaced with one word: “Forbidden.” Yes, that’s chilling but it is also perfectly descriptive. In all mainline internet venues, from search to shopping to social, freedom is no longer the practice. Censorship has been normalized. And it is taking place with the direct involvement of the federal government and third-party organizations and research centers paid for by tax dollars. This is very clearly a violation of the First Amendment but the new orthodoxy in elite circles is that the First Amendment simply does not apply to the internet. Does the Supreme Court Believe in Free Speech? This issue is making its way through litigation. There was a time when the decision would not be in question. No more. Several or more Supreme Court justices do not seem to understand even the meaning of free speech. The prime minister of Australia made the new view clear in his statement in defense of fining Elon Musk. He said that social media has a “social responsibility.” In today’s parlance, this means they must obey the government, which is the only proper interpreter of the public interest. In this view, you simply cannot allow people to post and say things that are contrary to regime priorities. If the regime cannot manage public culture, and manipulate the public mind, what’s it there for? If it cannot control the internet, its managers believe, it will lose control of the whole of society. The crackdown is intensifying by the day. Rep. Thomas Massie shot a video after the Ukraine vote for a total foreign aid package of an astonishing $95 billion. Vast numbers of Democrats on the House floor waved Ukrainian flags, which is a violation of House decorum. The sergeant-at-arms wrote Massey directly to tell him to take down the video or get a $500 fine. True, the rules say you cannot film in a way that “impairs decorum,” but he simply took out his phone. The decorum was disturbed by masses of lawmakers waving a foreign flag. So Massie refused. After all, the entire disgraceful scene was on C-SPAN but the presumption is that no one watches that but everyone reads X, which is probably true. [Bloomberg: “Elon Musk Will Become a Trillionaire With [This Company]”]( [click here for more]( As soon as December, Elon Musk could take yet another company public… One that could instantly become the biggest IPO in U.S. History… AND make Elon the world’s first trillionaire in one single move. But it won’t just be good for Elon… Because technology analyst Ray Blanco discovered another company… One that could be a hidden “backdoor” way to profit thanks to the ‘trillionaire-making’ company Elon is building right now. [Click Here For The Full Story]( Clearly, GOP speaker Mike Johnson doesn’t want his perfidy this well advertised. After all, it was he who shepherded the authorization of spying on the American people using Section 702 of FISA, which 99% of GOP voters opposed. Just who do these people think they are there to represent? Elon Musk Stands in the Breach It’s actually astonishing to do a conjectural history in which Elon did not buy Twitter. The regime monopoly on social media today would be 99.5%. Then the handful of alternative venues could be shut down one by one, just as with Parler a few years ago. Under this scenario, closing the social end of the internet would not be that difficult. The domains are another matter but those could be banned gradually over time. But with X rising in a meteoric way since Elon’s takeover, that is now far more difficult. He’s made it his mission to remind the world of core principles. This is why he told the boycotting advertisers to jump in a lake and why he refused to comply with every dictate by the despotic head of the Brazilian Supreme Court. Daily he is showing what it means to stand up for principle in extremely hard times. Glenn Beck [puts]( it well: “What Elon Musk is doing in both Brazil and Australia is this: He is simply standing where the free world used to stand. They have moved, not him. They are the radicals not him. HAVE THE COURAGE to remain standing, unmovable in the truth that can never change and you will be targeted and eventually change the world.” Censorship isn’t an end unto itself. The purpose is control of the people. That’s also the purpose of surveillance. It’s not, rather obviously, to protect the public. It’s to protect the state and its industrial partners against the people. Of course, just as in every dystopian film, they always pretend otherwise. Somehow — call me naive — I just didn’t expect The New York Times to be all-in on the immediate establishment of the surveillance state and universal censorship by the “awesome” deep state. But think of this. If the NYT can be fully captured by this ideology, and probably captured by the money that goes with it, so can any other institution. You have probably noticed a similar editorial line being pushed by Wired, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, Salon, Slate and other venues, including the entire suite of publications owned by Conde Nast including Vogue and GQ magazine. “Don’t bother me with your crazed conspiracy theory, Tucker.” I get the point. What is your explanation? Regards, Jeffrey Tucker for The Daily Reckoning [feedback@dailyreckoning.com.](mailto:feedback@dailyreckoning.com) Editor’s note: This week, Paradigm Press hosted what might be the [craziest live event we’ve ever conducted.]( If you weren’t there… eccentric entrepreneur James Altucher handed out to viewers $1,000 per minute! That’s right, he gave away $1,000 every minute. The link for the 1,000 VIP vouchers worth over $20,000 vanished the moment we quit the Zoom. But if you missed it, joined late or had to leave early, here’s the good news: You can still claim a special voucher at [this link.]( That link will give you a VERY special offer for EVERYTHING James publishes. With the level of depth and knowledge James provides for his readers, it’s seriously one of the best deals we’ve ever seen in the industry. Please don’t hesitate — WE ONLY HAVE 1,000 AVAILABLE. [ Click here to get all of the details.]( Thank you for reading The Daily Reckoning! We greatly value your questions and comments. Please send all feedback to [feedback@dailyreckoning.com.](mailto:feedback@dailyreckoning.com) [Jeffrey Tucker] [Jeffrey Tucker]( is president of Brownstone Institute and senior economics columnist at Epoch Times. [Paradigm]( ☰ ⊗ [ARCHIVE]( [ABOUT]( [Contact Us]( © 2024 Paradigm Press, LLC. 1001 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. By submitting your email address, you consent to Paradigm Press, LLC. delivering daily email issues and advertisements. 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