January 17, 2021
It's not abundantly clear at what point it happened, but somehow it's now the case that controversial truths have been relegated to the title of "opinion" in common discourse. Statements like "Multiple state legislatures had their constitutional authority to write election law usurped by the governors and supreme courts of their state" or "Twitter, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon are clearly in violation of antitrust law by coordinating to censor competing companies" would be considered by many to be opinions about the 2020 election and corporate censorship, respectively. These are not opinions, they're tautologies that sit on a mountain of evidence.
Executive Orders like the Governor Cuomo of New York signed in March of 2020[1] are clearly in violation of Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress."[2] In the same way, the aforementioned tech companies' coordinated efforts to censor each other's competition[3] is a clear violation of the American antitrust law. In particular, this coordination is in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act: "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or other- wise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal."[4] Moreover, Google and Amazon's very existence in their current form violates the Clayton Antitrust Act (codified in 15 U.S. Code ยง 18),[5] since their many,[6] many[7] acquisitions clearly "substantially lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly."
I believe Ayn Rand (quoted above) was wrong about whole fields of philosophy, but she couldn't have been more spot on when it came to the laws of logic and argumentation, among other things. Refusing to acknowledge the existence of these flagrant violations of federal law up to and including the Constitution is intellectually difficult, but possible. It will not be possible to refuse to acknowledge the fallout from such absurd assertions, however. Propagandists occasionally enjoy monopolistic control of the zeitgeist, but the inevitable reawakening of the public is always a rude one.
What's concerning to me is not how history will see this deception, my concern is how long it will take for millions of my countrymen to see it. It is a matter of fact that propaganda has made its way to the United States, and that it has been effective. Some of it is manufactured here, some of it is manufactured by foreign enemies. This isn't a partisan or politically-charged argument at all, you can tell because both sides of the aisle accuse one another of propagating Russian or Chinese misinformation. Both of them are surely pleased to see Americans so confused.
There's really only one way out of this mess we're in: We have to value the Truth above victory. As long as we are willing to lie to each other and ourselves to win popularity, a debate, or an election, we cannot recover from our painstaking division. It's not clear that we'll be able to accomplish this. I and many others would just as soon divide the United States in two, and let the two nations live separate of one another. It's becoming painful enough for all of us to live together as it is, and it doesn't seem to be getting easier any time soon. It may, but only if we start talking to one another in an attempt to reconcile our differences without all of the constant lying. I'd like to reconcile, but I fear that we're too fractured to heal. I'll write a case for separation soon, so stay posted.