Sensible civil libertarians want microphones and cameras attached to police so what they do and say can be recorded and made public, used as evidence. So, should not they cherish that people like the Trumpians make public their thought and behavior on social media?
If there are plots being hatched to do evil and the evil are constantly revealing their plots in public forums, the problem is not hearing what they say but failing to listen, to take what they say seriously and act before they can do harm, right?
A tonic is what the banning of people from social networks is, used to sooth guilt for not solving Trump who was very transparent in his aims and thinking because of Twitter. Better hidden, right, because then it could be claimed that we did not know what he was up to, about?
Trump on twitter was something of a blessing. The public had an opportunity to tune into the thinking of the president of the USA. He consistently revealed who he was, a good thing. That he was allowed to continue as the nation’s leader despite his thinking, that is the problem.
Amazing that little is said of those before Trump who paved the way, very much, for example, those who were enablers during the Bush administration who are now cleansed by their vows to a Biden administration. Really, friendly doesn’t necessarily mean friend.
Democracy was attacked! Democracy was the problem, problematic democracy, democracy distorted, altered to force bad decisions from the citizens whose lives those decisions affect but good for the few with the power to manipulate and control them.
Do not forget that before January 6, Trump was democratically elected, before Trump racial and economic inequality defined this society, that wealth and political power commingled to insure injustice. Restoration of that kind of order is not a sensible democratic goal.
Important to focus on what happened on January 6 and the four years leading up to that day. More important is consideration of what led to the election of Trump, this critical to determining where democracy went wrong.
Perhaps if our system of education focused on the development of what Postman and Weingartner bullshit detectors rather than distribution of propaganda of a kind, we would trust the public to make proper sense of what is said on social media?
Seeing the news of the the Twitter ban, my daughter asked me how Congress will get his tweets for use as evidence in the impeachment trial. That’s a prosecutor’s daughter right there!