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On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

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New Zealand threatens prison for publishing material showing this week’s shootings

They’re coming for you next: Even as the New Zealand government has issued threats of ten year prison terms for sharing or even possessing the video’s from the mosque shooting this week, the large internet corporations are moving in to support this censorship.

Terrorist Brenton Tarrant used Facebook Live to broadcast the first 17 minutes of his attack on the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand at approximately 1:40 p.m. on Friday – the first of two mosque attacks which left 50 dead and 50 injured.

Copies of Tarrant’s livestream, along with his lengthy manifesto, began to rapidly circulate on various file hosting sites following the attack, which as we noted Friday – were quickly scrubbed from mainstream platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Scribd. YouTube has gone so far as to intentionally disable search filters so that people cannot find Christchurch shooting materials – including footage of suspected multiple shooters as well as the arrest of Tarrant and other suspects.

On Saturday, journalist Nick Monroe reported that New Zealand police have warned citizens that they face imprisonment for distributing the video, while popular New Zealand Facebook group Wellington Live notes that “NZ police would like to remind the public that it is an offence to share an objectional publication which includes the horrific video from yesterday’s attack. If you see this video, report it immediately. Do not download it. Do not share it. If you are found to have a copy of the video or to have shared it, you face fines & potential imprisonment.”

Distributing this killer’s video to me seems more than odious, but having the government and these internet giants team up to censor it, while also censoring distribution of his manifesto, which showed clearly that this madman was no right wing Trump supporter, is even more unconscionable. Such censorship only serves to encourage further such attacks, as it shows that future attackers can have far more influence and impact than merely killing fifty people. They can shut down free speech and western civilization worldwide.

This censorship also allows the liberal Democratic press to continue to push the lie that this madman was instigated by Trump, without no facts to challenge it.

That dark age sure is coming, and it looks like it is getting here faster every day.

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13 comments

  • Cotour

    These big company’s are way over their heads related to this technology which is really in its infancy, they have not got a clue in how to dial down or eliminate such dark use of their systems. Not a clue, sharing is the nature of the information beast that is the internet. And so the government will over react in the wrong direction in order to appear responsive to the concern of the morally outraged segment of the public that exists. And in doing so individual freedom will suffer, but the collective will “feel” like it is doing something proactive. This technology has only one thing at this moment and that one thing is potential, massive potential. And government just like the big company’s have not got a clue.

    I personally refuse to watch such videos, just like I refuse to watch videos of animals suffering, being hunted or being mistreated.

    These sensational videos just like the issues of manipulation that we see being rolled out in this coming political cycle, like late term and post birth abortion, like: Michelle Obama or Michael Obama?, immigration, racism, pointing the homophobia finger (where has that finger been?), these are all in my opinion tools of mass manipulation that force the participants in the public to solidly choose their sides. This is all a psyops operation and these videos are now just another tool to force the sides to remain divided and apart. This is mass manipulation and the internet was invented or exists to master and control it.

    And what is the reaction that you hear from the New Zealand government? NEW GUN LAWS ARE ON THEIR WAY.

    What do they not get? They already have the most onerous gun laws on the planet and they are now going to further tighten them and render anyone who might have stopped such a heinous action. So in the end the rational and moral among them will again suffer for the actions of a crazy man. The public is not the problem, crazy is the problem.

    Crazy will always some how get the weapons that they want, whether through a black market or they will manufacture them themselves. Will machine shops now be specially mandated to be monitored and inspected by the government? Employees searched, private machine shops banned? Ban CNC’s?

    (Want to stop crazy? In these extreme cases have a trial and present the evidence against this crazy man, have a jury find him innocent or guilty and then if he is found guilty televise his execution by firing squad. You want to get his fellow crazies attention? Right now our “morality” and political correctness is once again in these extreme cases the exact opposite and wrong thing to do. Put him in jail so he can become a living symbol of crazy? I say no.)

    What stops such heinous actions almost 100 percent of the time on site? The knowledge that there are people where they intend to attack that will be armed and will without hesitation shoot and kill them if they dare to attempt to execute their crazy plans. Almost 100 percent. “Gun free zone”, I think not. Why doesn’t government just outlaw murder? Oh wait, that is already against the law.

    So there will be some political response and all that will be accomplished is to once again make less safe the general public and the moral among them. Everything is by design in many cases backwards.

    You want to eliminate people from invading your country? Then you eliminate the incentives that have been crafted by the politically depraved to incentivise them from coming, and you build a wall just in case they did not get the memo about the elimination of the incentive. You want to lessen the ability of crazy to take innocent lives? You make sure that it is well known that the soft targets that exist are no longer soft and crazy will be met with real and immediate consequences of the forceful and deadly kind if necessary.

    Both Brevic of Norway and this nut had and have their strategy wrong, but I will not go into that specifically. Some things just like the videos I refuse to watch I will not speak of in order to not give any crazy any ideas.

    Limits, what a concept.

  • While I generally agree with freedom positions and you, suicide contagion is a demonstrated phenomenon. And the Broken Windows theory as well as the ‘spread’ of ISIS support via social media propaganda show that widely sharing a murderous manifesto and actions has a high likelihood of very negative effects.

    Getting a reasonable balance is hard, and with the MSM and social media being so far weighted liberal it’s not surprising your first thought would be to push back. But in this case it makes sense.

  • Phill O

    Suppression of facts and the push of an anti-whatever agenda is not good. We know that the MSM will use everything including lies, to attack Trump and conservatives.

    Censorship like this, has the net effect of getting more people swayed to the terrorists cause (IMHO).

    I am reminded of the Brits trying to squash the reporting of the muslims convicted of rape etc, not long ago.

  • Cotour

    I would like to make one refinement here related to my above comment, when I said “Crazy” or use the word “Crazies”. I really need to be more specific. There is nothing wrong with being “crazy”, there is a segment of the population that are less fortunate then most and they are not right in the head, I help these people when I have an opportunity to do so. Most are just poor soles lost within their own minds.

    But what I am speaking more specifically to is when crazy becomes depraved, self delusional and then evil, just like I am fairly certain is what is true in this case. And that kind of “crazy” needs to be identified through their heinous actions if they choose to go that far and then be properly legally processed and then dispatched so as to transmit a message to those who might be on that edge where they may just be thinking crazy. The known consequences for actions taken can have a sobering effect on those who dabble in crazy think.

    A good example of this would be Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh chose to cross the line and become depraved and strategically evil and took deadly action against innocents. He was tried and then without much ceremony executed. Just a bad memory, an entry in Wikipedia.

    You want constructive content for media and the internet? These extreme cases need to be dealt with in extreme terms and it should be televised and pumped out into the web for all who choose to see and contemplate. Heinous actions met with swift and sure consequences (I still however would not choose to watch it though, but you can bet that the depraved and potentially evil would).

    Some in the “civilized” country’s would be outraged, they would despair in how barbarous humanity had become. But in these extreme cases of depraved evil a constructive and instructive purpose IMO would be served. This guy in NZ who I think just surrendered and will now become just another Brevic and a living although permanently imprisoned symbol for the other depraved and evil people who may be on the same path. And I would bet that there are some people in the world or in Norway or even in NZ right now who would argue for Brevic to be released at some point in the future, just like they would argue for this evil NZ nut to be released at some point after he has been “rehabed”.

    I say that there are more constructive and instructive ways of dealing with such extreme and depraved actions.

  • Cotour

    Desperate to “do something!” politicians can only further take away freedom from the general public to look like they are doing something proactive. Why? Because the public is what they can “control” through what politicians do, pass laws. Laws that only the law abiding live by and obey, the criminally minded, crazy and depraved among us however pay no attention to these desperate to do something politicians.

    https://thehill.com/policy/international/434519-new-zealand-prime-minister-promises-gun-reform-proposals-within-10-days

    Which in the end only means that politicians who can do not much about “crazy” and the depraved only take more freedom and the ability of the public to protect themselves. I have some compassion for their dilemma.

  • wayne

    “Set Your House in Perfect Order Before You Criticize The World”
    ft. Jordan Peterson/ Akira
    https://youtu.be/XwvP7H5OGMY
    4:19

    “That’s what these mass murders do. They’re saying, “I’m looking out in the world; I don’t like people, they’re full of flaws, they act badly, they’re a cancer on the face of planet. It would be better if they didn’t exist at all. I don’t like Being; it’s too full of suffering & evil. I’m the judge of this, I’m going to make my [expletive] case, I’m going to take them out.”

    And it’s more than that, it’s like “I’m going to take them out and I’m going to do it with innocent’s first.” Because that’s the thing you have to get about these mass murder types, they aren’t hunting down the Guilty, that’s too obvious, they’re hunting down the innocent’s.
    That’s the best protest.
    Think about it.
    –Well, I don’t want to think about it.
    Well, that’s for sure you bloody well don’t want to think about it. But you better think about it. That’s where you go when you take this criticism-of-being approach. But you don’t get to do that, unless you want to end up there. It’s bad. So what do you do, instead?

    Stop doing stupid things. Stop lying. Stop making things worse. Stop making yourself weak. Even in a Day you’ll see that you have choices in front of you, and sometimes you don’t know what to do. Ok, your ignorant, maybe you make a mistake, whatever, that’s just ignorance.
    Malevolence is when you know what you shouldn’t do, and you do it anyway. People do that all the time…..”

  • Max

    The agenda proceeds as planned. First control the narrative, and the information. Remember, we never let a crisis go to waste.

    https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/376097-trump-take-the-guns-first-go-through-due-process-second

    Red flag gun laws appear magically before state legislatures across the country.

    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/what-you-need-to-know-about-red-flag-gun-laws/

    “We are deeply concerned about its breadth, its impact on civil liberties, and the precedent it sets for the use of coercive measures against individuals not because they are alleged to have committed any crime, but because somebody believes they might, someday, commit one,”

    9 states have passed laws with 14 more expected soon.
    https://www.axios.com/gun-laws-red-flag-parkland-shooting-950c3c2f-3aa8-499b-b701-5d32f2ae0d26.html

    What happens then? Human nature is consistent, they will be coming for you next!

    Kangaroo courts.
    https://fee.org/articles/red-flag-gun-laws-turn-due-process-on-its-head/

    “they need the means to deny you of your constitutional rights in order to protect you from yourself.”

    State legislatures are discussing allowing schools to mandate mental health evaluation.
    The rules they follow.
    http://www.jedfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/student-mental-health-and-the-law-jed-NEW.pdf

    Would you trust a school counselor not to put something in your permanent record that will follow you for the rest of your life?
    “Everyone has something to hide, that is the reason we wear clothes.”
    unfortunately, what is placed in our record will always be negative, unable to disprove, and used against us, even if it’s fiction. The law says they must act on the documentation, not the truth.

  • Steve

    And what stopped this kook, again? A guy with a gun. Who took it off the bad guy! Police response time? 36 minutes. What if there had been a good guy with a gun at the start of this thing? Much different outcome I will bet.

  • Edward

    Robert wrote: “having the government and these internet giants team up to censor it, while also censoring distribution of his manifesto, which showed clearly that this madman was no right wing Trump supporter, is even more unconscionable.

    I find it worse that the government requires this censorship, but it should be an internet giant’s choice as to whether it wants to be known as a place to go for these kinds of videos. On the other hand, if any of these sites allow similar videos, such as the beheading of James Foley, then the objection to this video is disingenuous, favoring one terrorist over another.

    Steve noted: “And what stopped this kook, again? A guy with a gun.

    This is yet another freedom that New Zealand has already heavily regulated and seems poised to regulate further, as though they think that this time the lawbreakers will finally obey the laws, such as the laws against murder.

  • wodun

    <blockquote.This censorship also allows the liberal Democratic press to continue to push the lie that this madman was instigated by Trump, without no facts to challenge it.

    It really is a tricky situation because as Akiva points out above, there are good reasons to memory hole materials like the manifesto. We don’t want these people to have some sort of immortality or spread their twisted way of thinking to weak minded people.

    There are two problems with this though. One, it prevents creating counter arguments or solving problems that rightly or wrongly create grievances. Dealing with problems responsibly prevents bad actors from taking advantage of those problems. Two, as we are witnessing, it allows people to scapegoat innocents for gain.

  • Edward

    wodun wrote: “there are good reasons to memory hole materials like the manifesto. We don’t want these people to have some sort of immortality or spread their twisted way of thinking to weak minded people.

    When the Unabomber’s manifesto was published, we didn’t get more Unabombers. This censorship reasoning eventually ends in completely omitting such events from the news for fear of copycats. Is public ignorance of the realities of the world really the way we want to go?

  • wayne

    “Industrial Society and its Future”
    Dr. Ted Kaczynski
    http://editions-hache.com/essais/pdf/kaczynski2.pdf

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