re: Enjoy this board while you can

The culture of censorship is one of the scariest things forming right now. I am always quick to shoot down the straw-man argument, "But the First Amendment applies only to government action."

The reason that's a straw man is because, yeah, no shite. No one said otherwise.

But the First Amendment doesn't mean shite if we live in a culture willing to self-censor because we no longer value freedom of expression and value more the freedom from offense or exposure to "negativity" (aka "opposing views").

My mantra for decades has been that law follows culture. So the First Amendment, while it won't be repealed or amended in my lifetime or yours, can be gutted and ignored in many "judicial" and extra-judicial ways. It already has been in many jurisdictions. Thank GOD we don't have HRC stacking the Court over the next several years. But even still, the Court can't hear everything.

Also, as behemoth companies like Google, FB, Amazon, and Apple continue to control the exchange of information, there isn't much the Supreme Court or any other court can do about their domination of "expression." We may end up the victims of a pseudo-fascist "free market" dictatorship.

So I do believe it is paramount to oppose even private censorship. Not in an SJW whiny way, but by grasping and preaching the importance of open discourse.