Let me come back to my articles on conservatism that was published in Quadrant at the end of last year. Here’s the conclusion at the end of the second article, Conservative Thought in the Time of Covid (Part II):
These are the elements of conservatism as it needs to be understood if we are to defend ourselves against the rising socialist beliefs that are its major political alternative.
1. An individual’s right to be left alone to live one’s own life as one pleases with no interference from government unless to prevent harm to others.
2. Absolute right to free speech—anyone can say or write anything about anything they like at any time as part of a public discussion.
3. Market economy—economic outcomes should be almost entirely based on individual personal decisions to produce. The government’s role in the creation of wealth is minimal.
4. Adherence to a legal and moral tradition with historic roots based on individual rights and freely determined religious beliefs so long as those beliefs are not imposed on others.
The first of these issues gives the government a pass to impose restrictions during a pandemic, since the aim is to prevent harm to others, but the second is the only safety valve – the absolute right to free speech. Lose that, and you have lost the lot. Which brings me to this email I have just received. This is a quote from someone who sends out a number of emails on Covid who tries to suggest that it may not be the greatest catastrophe in medical history.
Bigpond ISP has black listed and banned me. Bigpond are referring to “sender score (dot) org” who initially gave me a low score and now have me blacklisted. Sender score are eves dropping in on all private emails looking for political content and particularly related to the virus and it’s jab. If they don’t like what you are saying they give you a low score. I don’t know what other ISPs are using this mob. I have sent a letter of complaint to the Communications Minister and demanded he do something. As far as I am concerned, what they are doing is illegal. Bigpond are now censoring your private emails.
Came with this example:
Free speech is your only protection from a tyrannical government.
This was Part 1: Conservative Thought in the Time of Covid.
PICKED UP LAST NIGHT: We have little idea what is being done behind the scenes to manipulate the information flow. We might get only the occasional glimpse but here is another look at the possibilities in place: The Gateway Pundit Files Official Complaint Against T-Mobile with Missouri Attorney General – Requests Investigation of Mobile Carrier for Blocking and Erasing Text Messages with GP Articles and Links.
In early January we learned the tech giants are using a frightening new method to censor and control what you are able to see, read and discuss online. T-Mobile was disappearing our links. You could not send our links through T-mobile. They would disappear them. Your friends would not even know that you sent them a Gateway Pundit article.
Dozens of our readers sent us proof that this was happening.
The terror tactics being used by almost every government across the world to make fighting off Covid the most important issue which has led to astonishing restrictions in our freedoms and a massive loss of personal wealth, especially amongst the lower ranks of the community can only be resisted if there is access to information flows that contradict the official versions of events.
Freedom of speech, so that anyone – including Whoopi Goldberg – can say what they believe in public is our only form of protection at this stage.
The trouble with the current Woke narrative on just about everything in daily life is that it is profoundly opposed to freedom of alternate views & the expression of those views.
It is the insidious and persistent intrusion of Woke fetishes that is destroying freedom of speech – indeed freedom of thought (!) – in contemporary life.
Pathetic attempts at being good citizens of the reich. Falling over themselves.
Ummm. I have a work history that would lead me question the authenticity of this claim. Not saying someone is lying, but an ISP reading and scoring (any) email is unlikely. Need more convincing this is a factual account of the situation.
HT says:
February 3, 2022 at 11:08 pm
Fair enough, but I ask you this, how does Google know all of my repeated passwords, my short, ie. unsecure passwords and asks me to change them? They are listed on Google, and they reminded me about them twice already, I went ahead and changed some deleted others.
These have nothing whatsoever to do with Google accounts.
Again, I ask how? Only two email accounts have anything to do with Google, as far as I know.
On top of that, how does Google know that on one of my Android phones I only use a swipe to open it instead of a pin or password?
I too have some doubts regarding the claim. Sender Score measures the reputation of an email marketer, not individuals. This leads me to believe that the person in question is either bulk sending emails and receivers have complained, or has a compromised computer that is used to send spam, and has been reported to and blacklisted by their ISP.
This happens all the time with unsuspecting internet users, usually those who have no computer security and are not careful with what they open when receiving emails etc. It is easy to have your email relisted if you contact your ISP and explain the situation and you are genuine.
Because you have allowed this in your phone settings and there are some settings when it comes to Android phones that are a part of the Android operating system. Identifying insecure passwords is an operating system default procedure and is their to protect the unwary from being compromised. If you are compromised because you have used an insecure password, or use the same password everywhere, you may become the source of spam email and get blacklisted.
When I hear media people going on about “medical misinformation in podcasts” they are branding themselves in fluorescent colours as ardent lefties. To then mention Spotify and money adds the usual dollop of hypocrisy to their grab bag, since they don’t identify mandating jabs for kiddies as patently about money rather than health.
bemused says:
February 4, 2022 at 6:05 am
Fair enough, but I ask you this, how does Google know …
I would agree with you if I were to use my phone for all those websites. I never do!
They’re all on my desktop computer, I only ever gave my phone number for the bank for two stage ID.
Never to any website.
The remark about the screen lock I now understand, but not the passwords.
This is a short version of the email I got:
So you’ve set up a Google account. Once you do that, Google will monitor your phone activity (depending on your settings). Also, your computer activity, if you use Google, use will be reflected on your phone via the Google account. It’s a double-edged sward having a Google account, it allows you to backup your phone etc, but then it’s Google everywhere.
bemused says:
February 4, 2022 at 6:50 am
Got it, thanks.
Bemused is correct. On the old site once I posted a shed load of information on COMSEC for individuals, no one was particularly interested so I’m not going to do it again, but there are plenty of resources out there these days to learn for yourself. I’ll deal with a couple of points though about your questions:
1. Go through your phones/device settings and pay attention to what your allowing your device to tell the world about you. Unsure they need permission to fulfil the service they provide, then deny it. For example Google Maps needs to use your GPS to operate its navigate function but there is no reason in the world you should let Google Maps store your location history. Same same with serviced like SIRI, just, WTF…shut the bitch down and cremate her remains…
2. Edit your Google/Apple/ and any and ALL service providers profile and explicitly deny permission for it/them to track, record or monitor you.
2. Use password manager, and use it properly.
3. If your worried your ISP knows too much about you, use a VPN (but don’t get sucked into the whole VPN protects you from everything bullshit, it doesn’t).
4. Go in a flush any Cookies your devices have been collecting. Repeat weekly.
Do those 4 things and your more secure than 90% of the population.
It is by no means clear that Google take a blind bit of notice of the settings you apply.
In the end, though, if you want a mobile phone, you’ve pretty much got to place your trust in either Apple or Google.
BTW, just for laughs: I set up my daughters iPhone and it happens she was “Contact Traced” by the VicStasi at the height of the troubles. They took her phone off her >:( and smugly set about running through her location history. Boy where they pissed when it told them nothing.
And was I ever pissed she handed it over to begin with let alone opened it for them, but that’s a different story, and a mistake she will never make again 🙂
Then we’re in trouble, because Australia has the weakest legal protections of free speech in the developed world, and the conservatives/liberals have done nothing to change that when they have been in a position to do so.
“Then we’re in trouble…”
One of the reasons we need a bill of negative rights (what the Government CAN’T do) as part of our constitution – and it’s not just free speech that we need to look at, it’s also the right to bear arms, the right to a timely trial etc etc. NOT in common law, in the freaking constitution so that it applies to ALL levels of government – local state and federal.
And for the numpties, in the US, shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater IS protected by the 1st amendment – but the consequences to you for saying it (especially when it is not true) still apply. That is as it should be.
Mr Kates, I am wondering what you think of this line of thought:
“Only the Jew knew that by an able and persistent use of propaganda heaven itself can be presented to the people as if it were hell and, vice versa, the most miserable kind of life can be presented as if it were paradise. The Jew knew this and acted accordingly. But the German, or rather his Government, did not have the slightest suspicion of it. During the War the heaviest of penalties had to be paid for that ignorance.
— Mein Kampf, Chapter 10”
? Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
“1. An individual’s right to be left alone to live one’s own life as one pleases with no interference from government unless to prevent harm to others.”
Trouble with this one is that those on the dark side will use ‘indirect harm’ as a reason to interfere with you. Not wearing a bike helmet? Well if you crash and get injured then the community facilities etc will be used by you to get better, therefore you are causing ‘indirect harm’ and we can make you do what we want to prevent this harm.
Boomers and computers huh? Boomers and computers. One can only shake one’s head. I think on my deathbed I’ll remember countless hours trying to explain tech to boomers, and want those hours back. One can be too altruistic with one’s time. They didn’t spend much time bequeathing us a decent civilization to live in. Yet for some reason I had endless patience to act like a computer teacher for various relos and colleagues. Still using an ISP email address in 2022. Shaking my head.
I’m a Boomer and have no trouble navigating all manner of technology. In fact, I think I understand technology far better than many of the younger generation who rely on whatever their mobile phones deliver. It has nothing to do with being a Boomer, but what you studied throughout your life.
Note also that most of the technology that you utilise and depend on today was discovered and developed by Boomers. I would not consider Facebook or Twitter in the same league of discovery or value to humanity.
Took the words right out of my mouth…I can’t count the hours I spent getting non-Boomers to understand using a Search Engine isn’t knowledge, it’s a data gathering. Complementary skills like the application critical thinking and analysis of that data to create knowledge and insights, let alone an ability to communicate that knowledge and insights clearly isn’t found in an App.
You need to remember, those that are pulling the strings do not want us to have knowledge and problem solving skills.
We are simply meant to regurgitate the specific talking points we are given. 😉
Critical thinking of any kind, by any individual is a threat to the system
“In fact, I think I understand technology far better than many of the younger generation…”
I tend to agree.
Current tech allows you to largely “brute force” a solution (ie, just throw more resources at it until it succumbs) rather than finding solutions through other – often indirect – means. This “thinking outside the box” and “making do with what’s available” appears to be a dying skill. As is being “jack of all trades, master of none” – which seems likely to be the reason for the first failure.
Intelligent people with the right attitude and who are well trained in how to think, but are “outsiders” in any particular field often come up with novel solution to intractable problems, and also often ask the questions that the experts think are already “settled”, but the “experts” have neglected that circumstances change, and so what they “know” is true is often no longer true.
In my experience, we all often look to the “higher level”, skip steps and so on. Don’t assume anything, don’t skip steps and don’t be afraid to ask “dumb” questions – “I’d rather answer a dumb question than fix a stupid mistake” is something I say a lot, and I mean it. Because often enough, asking a “dumb” question actually starts you on the path to a solution – not always, not even most of the time, but enough of the time to make finding and considering the answer to the “dumb” question worthwhile before proceeding.