Censorship

I only went to law school because my father would pay for it and I had the world's worst case of mononucleosis and I had to get out of Utah. But despite not caring a whit about the law, not ever wanting to practice law, I did learn a few things there.

Then again, this was just after Watergate, which permanently damaged the image of attorneys. Then again, this was back when you wanted your kid to be either a doctor or a lawyer, a professional, to ensure they existed above the hoi polloi, that you didn't have to worry about them, that they could survive.

Ain't that a laugh.

I know this doctor my age who was making 250k back in the eighties, he was richer than anybody I knew. Today? HE MAKES THE SAME 250k!

I'm not saying doctors are poor, but the truth is the model has changed, very few practice independently, they've sold their souls to the hospital chains, and although a few, like surgeons, make beaucoup bucks, most don't. As for lawyers... The biggest story in the business is how the schools have snookered the students into borrowing a ton of money to attend when in truth jobs paying enough to retire that debt are very few in number. Graduate in the top 10% of your class, maybe top 15%, and you're covered. Less than that odds are you won't be able to get a legal job whatsoever.

But if you go into banking... You'll work around the clock but you'll be handsomely compensated. And techies can win the financial lottery. As for attorneys? It's illegal to sell your practice in California, your firm has no asset value, so your odds of getting rich? You'd better be a personal injury lawyer or make good investments or get really lucky.

Now it could be worse. You could have worked for a record label. Read about that Elektra A&R guy who just died, destitute? That's not an uncommon story. The streets are littered with not only broke former A&R guys, but dead ones. I mean a promo guy is a salesman, he can sell anything, and many of them now do, real estate and... But it takes no qualifications to get an A&R job and having done it it delivers no skills someone outside the industry is going to pay you good dough for...

But you still think you want to be in the music industry.

Not that many know any of the above, they're just riding on emotions, forget that they've got no power of analysis, they're clueless when it comes to the law, although if you just read the business sections of either the WSJ or the NYT it's amazing what you'll learn. As a matter of fact, I'm all about self-education. As for law school...I think I learned more in the bar review course than I ever did in class. If you can read and analyze, you don't need a teacher.

And all this is to say that if Spotify cancels Joe Rogan's contract IT IS NOT CENSORSHIP!

Spotify is a private company, it can do what it wants. As can the newspaper and the social media outlets and...

Now it's something different if the place, virtual or real, is the only game in town. There have been rulings saying that you must allow protests at shopping centers, back when they were the center of human discourse, but... Today shopping centers have died, they're empty shells, or have been turned into apartments or offices, and we live in a virtual world, where there are a zillion locations just a click away.

Meaning if one company, i.e. Spotify, decides not to exhibit something, this does not deny the speaker the right to exhibit it elsewhere. It's kind of like restaurants, no shirt, no shoes, no service. You don't have an inherent right to eat at somebody's restaurant, and you don't have an inherent right to be on Spotify. Spotify gets to decide what it wants to feature. And if it says no, it is not censorship, it's a BUSINESS DECISION! There's not a single law on the books that prevents them from doing this. As a matter of fact, just the opposite is true, there's a ton of examples stating just this point!

Not that the average person knows all this.

Hell, I thought my legal education was a waste until Napster came along. It was copyright infringement, any lawyer could see that. And then there was a legal case deciding that. But we'd hear wankers talk about the egregious behavior of labels, overcharging for one good track on a CD...THAT WAS THEIR RIGHT! The fact that practically, as the wheels of the future turned that was no longer a good business model...has nothing to do with the law.

Just like if you lose at trial you don't get the right to appeal and get your case heard all over again. You can appeal ERRORS, but if there are none, the judgment stands.

I don't care if you like Joe Rogan or not, if you want him on Spotify or not, the bottom line is that Spotify has the complete right to cancel him or not. And if they do... Rogan, contractual details aside, has the right to make a deal with any other outlet, of which there are many, or go into business himself. It's not like Spotify is his only opportunity.

As for canceling a conservative viewpoint... Why is it the right calls the left Karens, goes on about how wimpy they are, but continually cries that it is being unfairly silenced? Hell, Fox News eclipses the ratings of CNN and MSNBC. Morgan Wallen was canceled for using the n-word and he still ended up with the biggest selling album of the year, despite the fact that most radio stations refused to play it. Believe me, if Joe Rogan leaves Spotify he won't go unheard, his fans will follow him somewhere new just like Howard Stern's fans followed him to Sirius, AND THEY HAD TO PAY!

Having said that, distribution is king. It's hard to reach people. Which is why no alternative to Twitter has emerged. Sure, start your own brief message social network, Trump says he's launching one, but even before it has gone up there are questions about its financial legality.

So as a society, we are fully within our rights to try and diminish the reach of misinformation, messages contrary to the health of society. I mean isn't that what is wrong, that there are no agreed upon facts anymore? Hell, we have an NBA player saying the earth is FLAT! I mean we're not living in the 1400s, we've got photos from space, isn't this settled science? I guess not.

But do we want this inane opinion on the front page, taken seriously, no, we don't want it anywhere unless it's for a laugh. That's right, let's give misinformation the same placement and amplification as correct information. Because otherwise those spewing inanities will be CENSORED! Well, no. That's not what the law says.

Furthermore, that's how we got into this mess. The false equivalencies in the news. Which prints the right and left opinions even when the right's, and it's always the right's, is just made up malarkey!

And then there's all this beating up of Biden, when the fact is the economy is RAGING! But in polls, people say the economy is the big problem. Huh? That's just because the news has never gotten to them, the facts. As for inflation, it's about supply and demand, and interest rates too, everybody's shopping and because of supply chain issues there's little product and prices have gone up. It's bad that your salary is not keeping up, but every expert says they expect inflation to ease by the end of the year, when supply catches up with demand.

And the fact that Old Joe was snookered by the Republican Congress when everybody on the street knew they would never compromise, that they wanted to thwart anything Biden proposed, is completely confounding. I mean no one's passionate about Joe, but is public passion the only metric?

I mean people are passionate about Joe Rogan, but that does not make him right. And this guy champions Ivermectin, which every test has said doesn't work against Covid. Have you been reading the reports of relatives of the infected arguing for Ivermectin with doctors? That's right, this guy has a decade of training but Joe Rogan knows more. I mean how can you run a society like this?

We're not doing a good job of it.

I mean on many subjects there can be a difference of opinion, there can be debate, but that's not what's going on now. One side is basing its decisions on science, and the other is just making it up as they go!

As for experts... Let's go back to that guy who said vaccines cause autism. HE FAKED THE DATA! The study has been completely discredited. But as a result there are kids without vaccinations today, measles is back.

I mean this is like someone saying swimming causes mental retardation, so then believers stop swimming.

Or that asparagus causes lung cancer.

Or that fresh air leads to agoraphobia in children.

I mean if we can't agree on some basics, we're completely screwed.

So, the government wants to stop distributing the Regeneron and Lilly antibodies because they don't work on Omicron, but Ron DeSantis says NO! He wants them provided in Florida. What next, placebos as vaccines? It's not like the antibodies are political, it's a scientific issue, the companies themselves posted the numbers. And now 99% of the infections in America are Omicron.

Do new facts arise, do we learn, do we make mistakes along the way? OF COURSE WE DO! That's the nature of the scientific method, that's the nature of being human, but now we've got litmus tests, Trump is inviolate, you can never admit you're wrong, you've got to pledge fealty to the team, even if it's a death cult.

Yes, more unvaxxed are dying than vaxxed. The odds are double digit times higher that the unvaxxed will be hospitalized. But my inbox fills up with just the opposite. Yes, I've got tons of e-mails saying you don't want to get the vaccine because it causes you to die if you get infected with Covid, just the opposite of the truth.

And where are these people getting their information?

From Joe Rogan and people like him.

Do we want Joe's voice to be amplified?

OF COURSE NOT!

Of course Joe could stop spreading falsehoods, stop featuring the discredited on his podcast, but he refuses to do this. And when confronted with this issue he just claims he's an idiot. Yeah, right. This guy is so self-satisfied he doesn't believe that whatsoever. So you've got a podcaster with no training acting as the Covid minister of choice. That's right, famous people get sick and call Joe and do what he tells them.

I just want these same people to refuse medical help when they're really sick.

And then Howard Stern says he wants the unvaxxed to be refused treatment and...this is a big story on the right. Yes, Howard was being histrionic, BUT YOU TELL ME TUCKER CARLSON IS NOT?

And the truth is in France you can't go anywhere unless you're vaxxed, and you've got to show a passport to get into buildings. France has got issues, but it's far from an authoritarian dictatorship. Hell, what would be happening in Ukraine now if Trump was still president. Oh, I know, he'd say he spoke with Putin and trusted him... When everybody knows the guy is completely untrustworthy!

I'm not saying the left is perfect, but the bottom line is they've got their feet planted on the ground much more than the right. As for creeping socialism... Unions, higher minimum wage, guaranteed pay...isn't this exactly what the underclass who used to be Democrats and are now Republicans want?

No, they want their freedom.

Well, the truth is Joe Rogan has plenty of freedom. And Spotify has the freedom to say it doesn't want Joe on its platform. Will they do this? I have no idea, but they've got the right, AND IT'S GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH CENSORSHIP!


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