As IF Times

Source: John McCain Funeral Plans: Lying in State at Capitol Rotunda – The New York Times

It would have been impossible to miss the coverage of the recent celebrity memorial services since they were broadcast on every station as if they were moon landings. What should have been dignified proceedings morphed into big commercial productions. Both John Mccain and Aretha Franklin were given no less than state sendoffs as everybody who was anybody was present at their respective services. In the case of Franklin, music legends took their turns at eulogizing the legend, but as expected, some used the occasion to fire off not so veiled slams against the incumbent President.

Predictably, Al Sharpton, the great Uniter, snarked at a Trump remark commending her on her work thusly, “No, she used to perform for you — she worked for us…” Us meaning the folk, including of course, Bill Clinton, who as the first black president, was in attendance. Growing up listening to Aretha, it wasn’t obvious that she was performing only for a specific demo, but what did we know then? Hmm, it puts the music of Elvis and the Beatles in a different light now.

In the case of Mccain, his sendoff had to be political. When you spend the entirety of your adult life in the political arena, the majority of your peeps will be politicos. Both sides of the political divide were represented as they canonized Mccain for his service to the nation in his 60 year career. Some might have been surprised at the outpouring of affection from the Democratic notables, while others would remark that this was not the least surprising. As heartfelt as some of the eulogies were, we can’t help but be reminded of the narrative about Mccain during his career.

Huffington Post 2008: Mccain mentally unfit to be President
Huffington Post 2012: Mccain a racist and woman hater
Huffington Post 2018: Mccain a bipartisan American Hero

So it’s true that in politics, there are certainly strange bedfellows. Politicos and activists will say anything regardless of their convictions. That’s hardly news, but the next time you hear one of them bloviate passionately about some cause which makes no sense, you will know that it’s all theater. It is a darn good lesson for the public and probably the best takeaway from the memorials.  When it comes to politics, you really don’t know who your friends are.

Source: Facebook has a climate-denial problem

Oh oh; my days may be numbered.  But wait! I don’t depend on Facebook to broadcast my views anyways, so we’ll just carry on until they get enough influence to block everyone on the internet.  The way things are going, I figure I have another 4 months at least.

The battle for real information and news keeps getting more intense as the conduits for information join with the information purveyors themselves in steering and shaping the public discourse.  No one will deny the hard slants offered by the majority of the popular news outlets, both print and video media.  But you don’t expect the vehicles you use to access news to be also gatekeepers for content. This is the equivalent of your forks and knives blocking you from eating a rib steak because they feel you should be a vegetarian.  Both Twitter and Facebook have publicly censored conservative speech in favor of egregiously offensive leftist postings.  Apple and Spotify have now joined the fray by censoring those that don’t conform to their corporate worldview.   It is allowing a very small cabal of people to dictate what the masses are allowed to consume.  Free thinkers and libertarians should all have their hair on fire over this.  Unlike what Colonel Nathan Jessup thinks, we can handle the truth.

While this may be cause for celebration by the increasingly irrational left, we can easily see such actions engendering serious deleterious consequences for society as a whole.  It’s not even a matter of right or wrong, it’s a matter of putting a halt to the progress of civilization.  Imagine if Copernicus’ findings were not allowed to be publicly aired because the idea of the Earth orbiting the Sun instead of the then accepted belief of the  opposite, was deemed to be heretical.   Copernicus prevailed because he could demonstrate proof of his theory.   In today’s world, you don’t even need proof of a theory to confer legitimacy.  Just a bunch of Facebook likes and voila, it’s truth! If Twitter had been around in the day, I’m sure Copernicus’ inbox would have been flooded by angry and derisive tweeters calling for a good stoning.

The American Economist and Social Theorist Thomas Sowell wrote that, “Darwinian adaptation to environment applies not only to nature but also to society.  Just as you don’t find eagles living in the ocean or fish living on mountain tops, so you don’t find leftists concentrated where their ideas have to stand the test of performance.”

Thus, when opposing views are not aired and debated on “public” social networks, it paves the way to groupthink, a condition that would put an end to innovation of every kind.  Interestingly, this mindset is a bizarre take on Copernicus’ theory.  It portends that truth revolves around the individual, rather than the actual reality that the individual orbits the truth.