Amazon 451

[Webers_Home]

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The online mega merchant recently revised its business model to exclude
books from its inventory that contain what it deems as "inappropriate or
offensive" content. In other words not what is universally deemed
inappropriate or offensive, rather, what Amazon deems; which is an entirely
arbitrary deeming; and quite possibly politically biased too.

The Bible contains quite of bit of material that Amazon could deem as
inappropriate or offensive so I expect it's only a matter of time before
Christianity's holy book ends up thrown atop Mr. Jeff Bezos' commercial
bonfire.
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[Webers_Home]

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quite possibly politically biased

This is my primary concern because Big Tech is on the move to suppress the
flow of information and/or discussion that exposes, and opposes, its political
ideology.

In a nutshell; it is Big Tech's ambition to do all in their power to assure that
the public hear only one side of the coin rather than both.

As for me:

I prefer to decide for myself which books to read and/or which books not to
read.

I prefer to decide for myself which books are appropriate and/or which
books are inappropriate.

I prefer to decide for myself which books contain objectionable content
and/or which contain acceptable content.

I prefer to decide for myself which side of the coin is true, i.e. I prefer to
hear and weigh dissent as well as consent, criticism as well as approval, and
fact as well as fantasy.

I do not agree to a band of book sellers and social media moguls banning,
censoring, suppressing, and deleting any and all publications and/or
discussions that aren't in line with their own personal agendas.

Thus far the US Constitution has prevented Washington from controlling the
free flow of information and public discussion in America, but if the current
wave of political discrimination is left unchecked, and allowed to become a
powerful force in public life, then I fear it's only a matter of time before it'll
have enough influence in Washington to steer Congress into amending the
Constitution in order to allow our country to forge into law its own version of
China's cultural revolution; along with something similar to North Korea's
system of gulags for dissidents.
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[dev553344]

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The online mega merchant recently revised its business model to exclude
books from its inventory that contain what it deems as "inappropriate or
offensive" content. In other words not what is universally deemed
inappropriate or offensive, rather, what Amazon deems; which is an entirely
arbitrary deeming; and quite possibly politically biased too.

The Bible contains quite of bit of material that Amazon could deem as
inappropriate or offensive so I expect it's only a matter of time before
Christianity's holy book ends up thrown atop Mr. Jeff Bezos' commercial
bonfire.
_

I would suspect so too

 

[Webers_Home]

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• 1Cor 5:6a . .Your boasting is not good.

The Corinthian church was liberal in its attitudes about intimacy. That's no
surprise considering that particular city's culture in their day and age.

Then, as now, liberals tend to think of themselves as sophisticated and
progressive; and vastly superior to stodgy, inflexible conservatives.

A recent article in the Epoch Times shared some of the secrets of a former
KGB agent whose standard plan for moving countries towards communism
includes demoralization. He said that Americans make the task easy because
they were, and are, corrupting themselves on their own; and actually
accomplishing the task much quicker than the KGB could even dream.

America's moral decadence began gaining momentum with the counter
culture back in the 1960s -- it continues to this day in our schools and
universities, in our entertainment, in our business practices, in our work
ethic, in our government and, sort of like the expansion of the cosmos, is
picking up speed instead of slowing down as might be expected.

That's good news for the left because if they are ever to succeed in turning
America into a version of George Orwell's 1984 and/or Ray Bradburys
Fahrenheit 451; they will first have to suppress and/or eradicate any and all
religions that promote traditional, old time moral values; honesty and
tolerance are especially detrimental to the left's agenda.

Conservative Christianity is one of those kinds of religions. We neither teach
nor support a flexible morality that adjusts to evolving social mores. We do
not believe the end justifies the means so long as it benefits the so-called
greater good; and we encourage the publication and the distribution of
books and discussions that examine both the pluses and the minuses of
things like non-binary gender identification, LGBT, transgender, abortion,
human rights, patriotism, dissent, capitalism, property ownership, and
capital punishment, etc. and of course Machiavellian ethics, and oligarchy,
communism, socialism, and totalitarianism.
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[Webers_Home]

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The Bible contains quite of bit of material that Amazon could deem as
inappropriate or offensive so I expect it's only a matter of time before
Christianity's holy book ends up thrown atop Mr. Jeff Bezos' commercial
bonfire.

While active on another Christian forum some years ago, one of my posts
pointed out that the Bible teaches that gays and lesbians are in just as much
danger of ending up in Hell as murderers. Well; one of the moderators
deleted my comment as "hate speech".

NOTE: The United States does not have codified hate speech laws; since the
U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that laws criminalizing hate speech
violate the guarantee to freedom of speech contained in the First
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

To my knowledge, and in my experience, neither the US Supreme Court nor
the US Constitution have jurisdiction in cyberspace; which is quite likely why
human rights abuses are common on the internet.

It's nigh unto impossible for users of social platforms to comply with a rule
that forbids "inappropriate and/or offensive" content because opinions about
what constitutes that kind of content varies from person to person, and
culture to culture.

It would be very helpful if platform managers would precisely define and/or
describe inappropriate and/or offensive content so people don't have to
guess at it.

Precise definitions and descriptions would help to curb abuses too because
without them, platform managers can ban just about anything they want by
arbitrarily deeming it inappropriate and/or offensive; not only comments and
discussions related to gender issues; but even something as silly as a Betty
Crocker cake recipe.
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[Webers_Home]

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This comment based upon *spark notes related to Ray Bradbury's novel:
Fahrenheit 451

In explaining how books came to be banned in the first place, the main
character's supervisor explains:

"Special interest groups and other "minorities" objected to books that
offended them. Soon, books all began to look the same as writers tried to
avoid offending anybody.

. . .This was not enough, however, and society as a whole decided to simply
burn books rather than permit conflicting opinions."

That so reminds me of some lyrics in QUEEN's song titled: One Vision.

One man, one goal,
One mission.
One heart, one soul,
Just one solution.

I had a dream when I was young,
A dream of sweet illusion:
A glimpse of hope and unity,
And visions of one sweet union.

So give me your hands,
Give me your hearts.
I'm ready.
There's only one direction.
One world, one nation,
One vision.

You see; by selectively banning books, we make the world a nice safe little
haven for only one ideology, one perspective, and one morality; which of
course everyone must accept on penalty of being branded an insurrectionist,
a traitor, and/or deplorable, non patriotic, an enemy of unity, toxic, and/or a
tumor.

Later in the novel, the main character meets a former English professor who
laments;

"The current state of society is due to the cowardice of people like himself
who would not speak out against book burning when it was still possible to
stop it."
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[Irwin Fletcher]

We should not be surprised to see things like this happen. Big tech is centered in Silicon Valley and for years they have been immersed in the world culture. There is very little Christian influence in that sphere. The America of today worships different values and decisions like this represent those values. As individual believers, we should stand strong in our faith, and be very active in local ministry in our communities. We shouldn't rely on trying to vote the right person into power or coming together to try our own boycotts of these platforms. Those aren't bad things, but the real power is in the Gospel and in getting the Gospel out to individuals in our communities. That is what allowed the church of the first and second century to turn the world upside down even though they had no political power or societal advantages. The Gospel is where our strength is.