What has become of us
Just 25 years ago there seemed to be a broad consensus that unpopular speech, even the hateful variety, was protected speech.
The nearly unanimous consensus from recent college graduates seems to be that the only way to stop hate is to deplatform, unperson and then financially ruin dissidents. Alex Jones, Kanye West and Kyrie Irving being the most recent examples. This is a massive shift which occurred very rapidly by national standards and is deserving of some deep reflection.
The people that ‘deeply oppose capitalism’, thanks to the indoctrination of our higher learning-mills, have discovered that big business’s relationship to government serves as the city gate for which their trojan horse may enter; by which they can now turn the Marxist cultural revolution into actionable economic warfare. Destroying capitalism from within. Worst of all, few libertarians and even fewer conservatives have caught on to how this new tactic works. Often times throwing their hands up in frustration and just accepting that these businesses, being privately owned, can do what they want. This is wrong. None of this is possible without an all powerful state and central bank. Needless to say, you don’t need those governmental power-centers in a free market and failing to realize the impacts they have had on big business’s decision making will render your analysis worthless.
The access to the fed window, government contracts, favorable regulatory rule-making over fledgling competitors, favorable tax treatment etc. etc. are all vital for any multinational business to survive. We will focus on just one industry today as it really puts this scheme into motion: money managers
I’m not talking mom and pop shops, I’m talking Blackrock-styled behemoths
Any publicly traded business must be favored by the money managers or the company’s share price will tank and the CEO will be shown the door. This is why ESG works.
If you are unfamiliar with ESG you can start to get a handle on it by watching my episode of Liberty Lockdown here: How ESG Took Over the World. If you already know the basics of ESG we can move forward…
This is a fairly straight forward flow chart:
The government favors a policy that is counter to free market demands and is often times illegal for them to implement
The money managers, needing to maintain their positive working relationship with the government and central banks, dutifully coerce big business into acquiescence via ESG scoring
Big business then violates your constitutional rights under the cloak of private property rights
Clever huh?
The governments’ hands appear clean to all but the keenest observer. Once seen this cannot be unseen. You will be stunned at how pervasive this practice is now that you understand it.
So let’s give a recent example to drive this point home: Elon’s purchase of Twitter. More specifically, his wish to reduce censorship and the massive pushback he is receiving from activist groups, the media, politicians and most recently: advertisers.
But Clint, you say, Elon took Twitter private, surely he isn’t at the mercy of ESG still?
And you would be correct, at least not directly. This is why the activist groups are targeting the advertisers which ARE publicly traded companies at the mercy of Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard and all the other trillion dollar money managers that deploy capital using ESG guidance. Tesla already has a low ESG score despite it having what you would think to be the ideal business model to appease these lunatics. But no, Elon is no longer a favored Son (in part because he claims to value free speech and thinks the fear mongering over overpopulation is insane) so he is suffering the consequences and just as cancel mobs will use your affiliation to other unsavory individuals to cancel you (six degrees of Alex Jones if you will), so too will the money managers punish these advertisers share-price if they do business with the reviled Elon Musk and his platform of “hate speech spreading, election interfering/denying, extremist blah blah blah”. You get the picture.
So this is how the sick illiberal idea of censoring your political opponents traversed its way from academia into the business world and why you’re now likely on your 3rd or 4th Twitter account if you haven’t already given up thanks to the ever moving goalposts of censorship and Twitter’s TOS.
This is why Musk has to make Twitter a non ad-based revenue platform and is seeking to start an $8/mo subscription fee for verified accounts. He knows that if he is at the mercy of advertisers he will never be free from ESG.
I’m going to skip over the recent reports that the CDC, DHS and other federal agencies have been directing social media platforms on not just what but whom they would like to be censored. A clear first amendment violation. You can read more here:
Needless to say this obliterates the idea that these are simply private companies doing what they want. This is fascism, textbook.
In my view, we desperately need one major social media platform to embrace free speech and allow for open debate, this is the only pathway to make that a reality. While I don’t trust Elon Musk I am left with no choice but to pray his prior claim of being a “free speech absolutist” was sincere and he can somehow navigate this minefield to make my dream a reality. It may sound like hyperbole but I think the fate of humanity may rest on his shoulders; without open dialogue the chasm between our warring camps will widen and things will almost certainly turn violent. Let’s give peace one last shot. Words will never hurt you but civil wars most certainly can.
Nice work. Long form content is best and I prefer to read vs listen. I look forward to seeing more.
Good article, Clint. I look forward to more as I rarely listen to podcasts. Reading Substacks is highly addictive to me when there's good content.