You are here, Texas. One of your GOP state legislators has introduced a bill requiring internet companies to censor information related to abortion.
@georgetakei If the GOP has their way, internet companies will be required to promote information about assault rifles and suppress information about women's healthcare.
@charvaka
If the GOP have their way, the name of the US will be Gilead very soon.
@georgetakei
@loudfpv @charvaka @georgetakei Gilead is just a step on the path to Parable of the sower
@charvaka @georgetakei Red States: If a woman is shot in the uterus she must carry the bullet to term. It could grow up to be an uzi or a glock.
@georgetakei I hate it here.
@georgetakei Also checking if this is on @TexasObserver 's radar.
@golfhaus @georgetakei thank you! we'll be watching this one closely and figuring out the best way to cover.
@golfhaus @georgetakei me too biggest mistake ever made
@golfhaus Absolute insanity...
@georgetakei Hey Siri, what does a fascist state do?
@georgetakei if I were a provider, I’d stop providing.
@georgetakei on a further note: I’m starting to believe DeSantis is an Iranian Imam.
@georgetakei Texas is now turning into the Holy Roman Empire... Who will be the Pope, BTW ? Trump? Ron DeSantis? Or George Santos?
@tanhana_dm @georgetakei My vote is on George Santos. I understand he already has been pope(ish) before.
@georgetakei
The right wing will NEVER, EVER eliminate the various issues they're trying to criminalize. Such laws will only drive those issues underground. Guaranteed.
@heynav135 @georgetakei Seems you never got the full scope yet. It's worse than that.
Oh, utterly removing those 'issues' was never the point. Folks with functioning wombs will always be getting abortions.
This is all in service of making everything unsafe, of restricting options, of precluding education. Causing harm to pregnant folks -- and keeping LGBTQ+ folks uninformed, ostracized, alone.
Knowing things and being educated, well, that is a bit of a 'social contagion', now isn't it?
Prohibition of items, knowledge, or acts have never worked. See also: the 18th amendment and the war on drugs.
@mstrmustache @georgetakei Exactly what I was thinking of. Prohibition of alcohol, abortion, being gay, being Black, being a woman... none of these prohibitions have ever worked out well in the long run.
@mstrmustache @georgetakei
P.S.
The temperance movement and Prohibition struck a blow to protect women and children against drunken men. All too often, men would drink up their paychecks and go home with nothing to feed their families with, and as if that weren't bad enough, beat their wives and children, often for not being able to live without his paycheck, which was *his* to drink up if he wanted to.
Happy Women's History Month!
Which we learned to attack the material conditions leading to the violence and not the booze itself.
@mstrmustache @georgetakei
Prohibition was repealed in 1933, 14 years after it had been enacted. It was repealed because it had facilitated the explosion of bootlegging and organized crime. The country was deep into the Depression and politicians legalized booze so they could tax it.
The term "Battered Woman's Syndrome" was coined in *1979*, some 46 years later, by Lenore Walker, EdD, who studied the psychological effects of abuse by husbands.
VAWA was finally reauthorized by Pres Biden.
@georgetakei I want to learn how to make a bot farm so I can provide them with many attempts at trying to censor me.
@georgetakei VPNs are a thing
@georgetakei Talk about censorship! To hell with #freedom - #Texas #GOP in control
@georgetakei Land of the free.
@georgetakei
Just today, this is the third piece of Balkanizing internet legislation in state legislatures.
Here's the game plan. A large internet company needs to take one of the least financially fraught new laws, and intentionally ignore it, even with the help of friendly users poking the pig. Bring these laws to a boil in the federal judicial system. This cannot be allowed to be judged legal, and persist. It will truly break the internet.
@skydog @georgetakei With the current SCOTUS, what do you think will happen?
Excellent question!
I have no idea. But I know proliferation of these laws will set up fences that will be hard for the internet to integrate.
As an example, car standards, with CA having a higher set of standards, only with the internet, many of the standards will compete with each other.
@wonka @skydog @georgetakei
With the current SCOTUS, any case regarding this TX proposed law will cause the conservative majority's minds to explode.
The court will have to choose between free speech (a conservative rallying cry) and abortion access restriction.
If they choose to restrict access to the abortion information, they will curtail freedom of (online) speech by promoting censorship.
If SCOTUS rules on the side of free speech, abortion information restrictions will be unconstitutional.
@Lobstercigs @wonka @georgetakei
A great theme for the next Heritage Foundation meeting....BYOP
Bring your own petards.
@skydog ATT is probably not the one. They’re headquartered in San Antonio, and through their subsidiary DirectTV, they were the largest sponsor of OAN until recently. They will probably export this to other states.
That leaves Verizon or Cox?
@georgetakei you mean the darling “woke snowflakes” in the GOP don’t like facts?
@dhj1961 @georgetakei #Alt4You Diamond-shaped yellow roadside sign with the words "VISION LIMITED"
@georgetakei They will probably ask China for help on this.
@georgetakei Numbers 5:19-22 ... Even if you try to argue this passage is NOT about how to perform an abortion, it's still controversial enough to fall within the scope of the proposed bill and require that all providers block access to any website discussing their bible. Let them stew on THAT.
@georgetakei China does this. Iran does this. North Korea does this. Russia does this. If you identify as Republican, this is the company you keep.
@TexasObserver Haven’t seen a story on this yet, wanted to make sure you were aware
@FroTheBeard thank you we are discussing it now.
@georgetakei there needs to be legal consequences for legislators who introduce blatantly unconstitutional bills. They know this violates the first amendment, but they don't care because there are no consequences for doing it.
@georgetakei Why is it always these guys who yell about Government interference and then try to ban or censor everything they don't like?
@georgetakei Fascism attempts to march on. We must stop it!
@georgetakei Are they wrong to do so? Ststes/countries/whatever do have borders, and their standards to uphold
@georgetakei Websites on fascism are of course fine.
For Republicans, accusations are confessions.
They accuse corporations of censorship while putting censorship into the law.
@Npars01 @georgetakei this is a significant issue on TruthSocial. With grandiose headings leading posters herald unproven accusations never doubling back to acknowledge when claims cannot be proven.
@georgetakei Personal Private VPN's are gonna get way more popular and not just so you can watch Netflix in other countries.
List the times and places in history where knowledge was a crime.
That's where we're headed...
@georgetakei wtf is those people's problem ?
@georgetakei
They really just don't give a damn about the First Amendment.
@georgetakei Every time I hear about american politicians blinded by religious extremism I think of this scene from Kingdom of Heaven — an accurate depiction of humanity’s long lasting battle between rational thinking and religious belief.
https://youtu.be/A8hEpE3qGys