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In The Prince, Machiavelli speaks of how a ruler who needs to do something unpopular can simply get one of his subordinates to do it for him, and then, if worst comes to worst, he can not only deny responsibility, but make a public spectacle of punishing the subordinate. A government can not only use that to wield "unpopular" powers, but also powers that it is not supposed to have in the first place. In the United States, censorship is one of these powers -- and the subordinate in this case is the "privately owned" corporations, who "volunteer" to be subordinates because they have to, because the government wields various carrots and sticks. The government has figured out a way to get the practical effects of censorship while not doing it itself, thus having plausible deniability. This depends on allowing a few big corporations to have their hands in almost all speech -- and then the government "delegates" the power of censorship to them. I think it's actually is proper to call this "censorship," because, when it comes down to it, it is the ruling regime doing it -- indirectly. The corporations aren't really doing it of their own free will. If somebody puts a gun to your head and makes demands, then whether you agree with the demands or not doesn't really make any difference -- although the gunman might tell you that things will go better for you if it seems that you do agree. But it's a little different when the gunman is the government: people who really do agree might not mind the gun at their heads, because they figure, "the bullets in that gun are for other people, people who disagree... but I agree, I co-operate, so I don't have to worry about it." When the corporations become unpopular, the government can make a big spectacle of "trust-busting," and the showmanship on this has actually already begun -- but you'll find in the end that, even if the government theatrically breaks these companies up, it won't make any practical difference. A few new rules will be announced, nobody will go to jail, and if you end up with two or three Facebooks or whatever, they will all toe the same line. In a free market, companies would compete for people's business, and a company that started banning people for their political views would simply drive those people into the arms of the competition. A company in a free market wouldn't ban people for political reasons, because it's suicidal.** So why are companies doing it? Because they're confident that there is no competition for those people to go to. Why are they so confident? Because the government is guaranteeing it. We don't have a free market. Trump has failed to grasp the nature of this problem and thus is proposing incorrect solutions. However, once again we see some people claiming that there isn't really a problem at all, and that if people are being kicked out of the public sphere for their political views, it's just "the free market at work." That isn't true either. (Some Republicans are doing one other thing wrong -- when they see the power being wielded, they don't want to eliminate that power, they want to take it over for their own use. That's not right, either: some powers cannot be used for good, at least, if good is defined as "promoting human survival.") Over the decades, there have been a lot of people complaining, rightly, about smaller "public-private partnerships" than these, and how such partnerships somehow manage to wield government powers while simultaneously not being subject to any constitutional restrictions because "they aren't part of the government, they're privately owned." Well, now we're coming to the culmination of the trend: companies and government are, for all practical purposes, just aspects of the same thing. To save the free market we need to separate these things: the only ultimate solution to this censorship problem is a separation of state and economics, which would include the elimination of all of these powerful regulatory agencies, so that the regime has no way of compelling compliance with its censorship desires. ** This sentence isn't correct as worded. A magazine publisher, for example, is not "suicidal" if he only accepts certain kinds of articles for his magazine. A phone company, on the other hand, would be "suicidal" if it tapped in on people's calls and cancelled their service over their views.

The Hill has published an editorial by Alan Dershowitz on Donald Trump's new lawsuit against several major social media companies. If I recall correctly, Dershowitz is widely regarded as an expert on freedom of speech. If my memory has served me well, God help us.Image by Jens Holm, via Unsplash, license.The Miami Herald precedent and those that followed it came long before a small number of social media behemoths assumed so much control over the marketplace of ideas. At least one justice -- Clarence Thomas -- has indicated a willingness to consider whether these media giants should be treated as common carriers that are subject to some governmental regulations. But media companies are different than buses. The product they sell is public speech and press, which are expressly protected from government regulation by the First Amendment. The conflict between free speech and the First Amendment arises when these private companies use the First Amendment as both a shield and a sword selectively to censor [sic] free speech. The conflict becomes most acute when a small number of private companies are powerful enough to essentially shut down the marketplace of ideas -- which the First Amendment was designed to keep open -- to certain views. [links omitted, emphasis mine, format edits]There are at least three things I can see wrong here, just off the top of my head. (1) The concept of censorship pertains only to government action. (See link above at sic.) (2) Forcing a private company to publish views its owners disagree with very much violates their right to freedom of speech. And (3) these companies are not selling speech, but providing a platform -- their platform -- for same in exchange for the ability to insert advertisements. So forcing these companies to provide a platform for some speech is not just a violation of the owners' right to free speech, it also violates their right to the use of their own property as they see fit. (Before I go on, let me make clear that my recognition that the left-wing apparatchiks who run these platforms have the right to cherry-pick which politicians they will host is not in any way an expression of moral support for what they are doing or for their anti-American, "progressive" causes.) Gus, you're a just some random -- albeit pretty sharp -- dude on the internet. Who cares what you say? Fine. Let's quote the widely respected philosopher, Tara Smith, who has been published in peer-reviewed law journals, on this matter:People sometimes treat the ability to do something interchangeably with the freedom to do that thing. This is reflected in the complaints that because a person can no longer use Facebook or broadcast his political views at work, his rights are violated. On just a bit of reflection, it is easy to see that there are plenty of things that a person is unable to do that he remains free to do. I cannot speak Polish, as it happens, and I do not know how to juggle, yet no one has interfered with my freedom to do either. Had I wanted to learn, I have been free to do so. My inability results from factors other than others' coercion. Admittedly, other people play a more influential role in a person's inability to broadcast his beliefs through certain media (T-shirts at work, on Facebook, etc.). Yet those uncooperative people are not coercing him. His freedom is intact, although his desires may be frustrated. For freedom does not mean: "I get what I want." (Again, such a notion of freedom could only be fulfilled by trampling on others' freedom. It is thus not an internally coherent conception.) The larger point is simply that an inability does not entail a lack of freedom. [emphasis added]This Smith specifically enumerates within an article titled The Free Speech Vernacular: Conceptual Confusions in the Way We Speak About Speech. I highly recommend anyone genuinely concerned with freedom of speech, our most important right, read it and recommend it widely: That right (not to mention property) is now under direct assault by a man once sworn to protect it, and under the cover of at least one person whose authority seems more dubious than that of the proverbial One-Eyed Man in the Land of the Blind. -- CAVLink to Original

The key thing about realism is that it can't be demonstrated and the very attempt at trying it is what motivates the anti-realism.

You should check out Leonard Peikoff's book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. It answers these questions in the first chapter!

Technically, yes -- but context is everything. If Coca-Cola does this of its own free will in a free market, that's one thing. Because in a free market people would probably switch to alternatives, and, more importantly, they'd be able to. (Even if Coca-Cola had the same bias as 99% of the population, in a free economy, a niche market would arise for the remaining 1%... because there is good money to be made serving niche markets... unless, like, that were prevented somehow...) A semi-free or non-free market changes things considerably, though, because the idea that Coca-Cola is somehow just a private company making its own decision is merely a cover. This is not an independent, uncoerced decision, and you can tell because all companies are leaning the same way, and any time somebody wants to start a competitor that leans the other way, the effort is stymied by legal and regulatory issues. The thing is, this is not about Coca-Cola at all. That's what I think DeSantis and Trump are missing when they target Twitter or Facebook. Yeah, the people who run these companies are jerks. But the government is pulling the strings here, and only that kind of jerk would be allowed to succeed under this government. (Edit: When a guy has a gun to his head, the solution is not to put another gun on the other side of the guy's head, with an opposite set of demands -- but that seems to be what the Republicans are proposing...) Permits which you're required to apply for will mysteriously take longer to get -- any inspections or audits that have to be done will take longer and will find more little problems, and they'll dispute you whenever you claim to have corrected them -- you might get constantly harassed by law enforcement over crimes you can't control that are associated with your product or service -- whether you qualify for liability protections will be disputed -- your suppliers, employees, customers, investors, etc. will have similar problems. On the other hand, a company that cooperates will get permits promptly, will breeze through inspections or audits (if there are any), will find that law enforcement doesn't blame them for the actions of miscreants who happen to use their property, will find that of course it qualifies for liability protections, and its business associates will have similar benefits. This is how political machines in big cities have always worked -- e.g., try getting a permit in NYC or Chicago -- and now it has moved to the Federal level. It can be many times more expensive to operate a company if it is disfavored by all these bureaucrats with discretionary powers. If the operating expense is too high, the company can't stay in business. Even if the company does stay in business, it is at a disadvantage. And yet, if a court asks the bureaucrats why they decided something the way they did, they can always come up with an answer that sounds "reasonable," and hey, the metal was rusty, so we did have to close the company until they had it replaced (never mind that the other company has metal that's about equally rusty but we decided it wasn't an issue there). All this is only possible because the government is in a position to do this sort of thing. This is basic cause and effect, although in this case you see the effect and have to infer the cause, just like seeing the effect of X-rays and having to infer that there are X-rays (because you can't see them directly). There are also many historical examples of this sort of thing, including "machine politics" cities like Chicago and Detroit, where this has been going on for decades, although Ayn Rand also saw it in Russia, and it also existed in Wiemar and Nazi Germany and in other authoritarian states throughout history. What more evidence do you require? Ayn Rand herself recommended a separation of state and economics. Why do you think she recommended that? Was she wrong?

Between the insults and failure to identify common ground to precede from, and now stretching into 14 pages to be used as a shining example for whom, about what? I don't see the lions and tigers and bears frittering away their time bickering about their position on such matters. I would suggest that the animals chose otherwise, but I know better. Positions have been indicated. Are you (collectively) not men enough accept that an impasse has been reached, that minds may not be changed on the basis of what has been presented? This is not the first issue that the charge raised that Rand is deficient on. Rand would also declare that you not take her say so on matters, but to identify the relevant factors within the scope of your own capacity.