Has Facebook figured out yet another way to censor pages with whom they disagree? Conservative leaning pages and pro-LE pages have often found themselves on the receiving end of what appears to be censorship by the Facebook overlords, but in most previous cases, it was pretty obvious. Facebook would artificially limit the reach of your posts, or they would deny you the ability to advertise by saying your content did not meet their criteria or that it violated some rule. Hell, most folks I know who run pro-LE pages, and I know quite a few, all have multiple Facebook accounts so that when Facebook bans one of their accounts, they can use another to run their page.
All of that is stuff we have been dealing with for years, but just recently I began getting comments and messages sent to my page all telling me essentially the same thing, whenever they click on a link to an article I’ve shared, or they click on a long post in order to continue reading it, Facebook shuts down. While some people say they only experience this when trying to visit my page (Deputy Matt & Others Who Serve) others have told me it happens to them on several conservative pages.
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So, it appears to me that Facebook has found yet another way to secretly censor conservative and pro-LE pages. I fail to see any explanation that would adequately explain how an accidental glitch would ONLY effect certain pages and not others. Seems awfully intentional to me.
The progressive left is continuing to wreak havoc on the United States, and they are doing so with the aid of a great number of well intentioned folks. I am specifically talking about the average Jane and John Doe, lifelong registered democrats. The people who love their country, love their community, and vote Democrat because they think they are helping the less fortunate. I am talking about people like some of my very own relatives.
This is not meant as an attack on any of those folks, but rather a plea just to take a step back and look at the actions of their party, then take a look at the situation the country is in, and finally to consider if those actions are helping or hurting. I think an introspective look at the current politics and policies employed by the modern Democrat party might reveal something different from what many registered democrats stand for. Rather than trying to be inclusive, trying to bring all Americans together as a country, the Democrat party instead continues to separate and divide people into groups based on skin color, gender, sexual orientation and economic status.
The sad reality is that the Democrat party of today is not remotely the Democrat party of 20-30 years ago, let alone the Democrats from the ‘60s or ‘70s. Both of the two major parties have shifted to the left as time has gone on, but where the Democrat party sits now seems to be in a different time zone from where they once were.
A quick look back at Obama’s 2012 campaign website will show you all the individual groups they are separating us into. The attached screenshot (taken October 16, 2012) of the official Democrat website shows a similar list of groups they are splitting people into. Stop and ask yourself what purpose splitting people into small groups serves. Does that help us come together as a country, as Americans, or does it serve to divide people based on their self-identified sub-category?
SEXUAL ORIENTATION
Just a couple days ago, a new veterans monument was dedicated. “A first of its kind monument now stands in the Chicago area, honoring lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender veterans. It is the first federally-approved monument honoring LGBT veterans.” It is a first of its kind because it is a ridiculously stupid idea!
The LGBT community has been demanding equal treatment (something I have zero argument with) for years, some would argue decades. And in honor of being “treated equally”, they are receiving a specialized monument to honor just them? For what exactly? Is their military service somehow different from any other soldier’s service? Different from a black woman’s service, from a Hispanic immigrant’s service, or God forbid, different from a straight, white male’s service? Equal treatment should mean just that, equal treatment, not special treatment with special awards.
Additionally, the Democrat party is constantly arguing that you are either for or against gay marriage, like there is no other option or middle ground. You are either all in, or you are a bigoted homophobe, and in that case, they are going force it down your throat, using the courts if need be. As a side note, just like many conservatives and moderates I am friends with, I fully support gay marriage. I just don’t support forcing someone who does not believe in gay marriage into performing the ceremony, but because I have that little “except clause” in there, I am evil according to the Democrat party, further dividing us, when in fact I probably have more in common with the average Democrat voter on that topic than I differ.
RACE and LAW ENFORCEMENT There are two very obvious, very current, very linked examples of this divisiveness and destruction that is being pimped by the modern Democrats. Look at what has happened to race relations in the United States, and tied to that, relations with Law Enforcement. Both of these have been directly attacked by the United States “first black president,” who one would think would have been the perfect candidate to make at least race relations better, but in fact they appear to have been set back 50 years.
But please, do not take my word for it, take it from a man who has lived through all of it, a man who happens to be extremely intelligent, highly educated, a former Marxist, and coincidentally is also black. Thomas Sowell discusses this topic in this piece from 2013, before Trayvon, or Ferguson, or Baltimore, and he ponders the question, who are the real racists? More recently, he was interviewed and asked some questions on the same topic. With the president constantly harping on racial inequality, or about mistreatment by law enforcement, is it any wonder that race relations are worse? Is there any question as to why there is a war being waged against law enforcement?
This racial division goes far beyond whites and blacks though. Look at how the Democrat party inserted themselves into the name of a football team…
GENDER DIVISION To hear the Democrats speak, there is a war on women, and it is being waged solely by conservatives. They actually argue that conservatives want to “control women’s bodies” and they want to “prevent women from access to healthcare.” They use those statements to argue their defense of legal abortion, as if either of those statements is remotely applicable to a discussion about whether or not abortion should be legal. Because apparently thinking that a human embryo in a woman’s uterus is a human life, and should not be haphazardly destroyed, equates to preventing access to healthcare and controlling women’s bodies?
Let us not forget the other front in this war on women, the wage gap. The Democrat party is constantly pointing to this issue as if it were actually a partisan thing, and like it actually exists. As far as the partisan aspect, I fail to see a single person, no matter their political affiliation remotely suggesting that women should not receive equal pay to men, NO ONE. Yet the official Democrat party line continues to chant this mantra in order to divide folks further. Now, as for whether it is even an issue or not, there have been numerous studies that explain the fictitious 23 cent wage gap. Rather than point you to those studies, it is easier to just offer this video that discusses the myth.
ECONOMIC DIVISION This is yet another category in which the Democrat party is playing on the emotions of their loyal voters in order to cause division. They constantly throw out the argument that conservatives do not want to help the poor because they oppose things like raising the minimum wage, or because we argue that programs such as SSI and welfare need significant reform. While both of those claims are partly true, the reason is not what the Democrat party is pushing. Conservatives take issue with those programs because historically speaking, neither of those programs have done what they claim is their goal.
Welfare was (supposedly) designed to help struggling families get through rough times and back on their feet. While that does happen on occasion, what more often than not happens is you end up with entire neighborhoods raising generation after generation of people who rely on that government check, because it if was good enough for mom, it is good enough for me.
Conservatives oppose raising the minimum wage because despite the hypothetical benefits, the real world results are far different. Raising the minimum wage raises the cost of living, increases unemployment and contributes to artificial inflation, which not only hurts the very people it supposedly is aimed at helping, but it hurts the entire country at the same time. Again, to point to Thomas Sowell for information, he discusses this very matter in this video. As you might be able to discern from their attire, this is video is quite old, however the facts remain the same.
FIREARMS To hear the Democrats talk about guns and conservatives who support gun rights, you would think that conservatives were rolling around in vans distributing guns to criminals so that they can run around on wild killing sprees. Honestly, think about that for one second. Why would anyone want that? Most conservatives, just like law enforcement when polled has been shown to agree (75-90% depending on the wording of the question), think that more gun laws are not the solution to criminal violence, which is really the true problem.
Think about it. Is the problem really “gun violence?” Is violence committed with a knife, or baseball bat, or a hammer somehow less violent or more acceptable? Should not the aim to be to solve the violence problem?
Conservatives realize a few things. Criminals, by definition, do not care about the law. It is already illegal to use a gun to commit a crime, and most criminals get their guns illegally already. If you need an example of the failure of gun laws to prevent violence, look no further than Chicago, Washington DC or Baltimore just to name a few. Those cities are notorious for their ultra-strict gun laws, and simultaneously are known for their crime rates, and specifically their gun murder rates.
The only person who is affected by any new gun law is the law abiding gun owner, who by definition is not the problem anyway. Gun control laws negatively affect law abiding gun owners, making it harder, and in some cases, impossible for them to legally purchase a gun to use for personal or home defense. And as a cop, I can tell you that guns are used in self-defense more than you can imagine (because the media does not cover it). In fact, there have been a large number of instances where a lawfully armed average citizen has prevented what would have been a horrific “mass shooter” event. Take it from me, a career cop, there is a very good reason for this saying: “When seconds count the police are only minutes away.”
SUMMARY Let me correct a few misconceptions that the Democrat party has been spreading. First and foremost, we Conservatives are not evil, hateful people.
Conservatives do not hate women. In fact, many women are actually conservatives.
Conservatives do not hate the poor. In fact, studies have shown that conservatives tend to donate more to charities that help the poor than those who identify as liberals. Where we differ is on how to best help the poor.
Conservatives do not hate the LGBT community. Some conservatives, as well as some Democrats, mainly those who are very religious, oppose “gay marriage.” However, just because someone disagrees with something you believe does not remotely mean they hate you, but that is what the Democrat party would have you believe. Shockingly, there are many conservatives who happen to be members of the LGBT community.
Conservatives do not want the country to turn into a wild west style shootout resulting in a bloodbath. We just happen to believe that the founding fathers included the 2nd amendment for a reason, and that the best way for people to be safe is for them to be equipped to protect themselves.
Those are just a few example of the modern Democrat party policy of divisiveness, while they simultaneously pander to their constituents. They give each of their divided groups a little something to make them feel special, so they keep voting democrat, meanwhile the policies they are enacting are actually tearing this country apart. Sadly, tearing this country apart was the very goal of a man so many prominent Democrats looked to as a role model, Saul Alinsky.
Sadly, this ploy at dividing Americans has been working. I have had family members avoid contact with me based on my conservative views, and have even had them suggest I think certain ways when my actions, some going back decades, tell a very different story. If this strategy of division is able to segregate family members, imagine what it will eventually do to the county. Right now, with all that is going on in the world, both at home and abroad, we need to be coming together as Americans, just Americans, not separated into hyphenated Americans.
