“I cannot think of many things more anathema to #civic #virtue and a #freesociety than to try and do away with #introspection. And, in a way, that’s what #slopulism offers: external enemies, shadowy machinations, and very little interiority.”

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5zca2ola2zxpkw37w4f3wxtu/post/3mhgoaegdns2g

Good points in here.

Yes, hypocrisy and arbitrariness are running amuck at the moment but the real danger is allowing mistrust in free enterprise (with appropriate regulations) to support a situation where there it becomes ok for using heavy-handed state power for arbitrary coercion. That is far more dangerous than any individual company's situation. https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/anthropic-and-the-right-to-say-no #Anthropic #StatePower #FreeSociety #FreeEnterprise #Coercion #Pentagon #AI #Principles #Policy #Hypocrisy #Business

A quotation from Henry Commager

But this we can say with certainty: a government and a society that silences those who dissent is one that has lost its way. This we can say: that what is essential in a free society is that there should be an atmosphere where those who wish to dissent and even to demonstrate can do so without fear of recrimination or vilification.

Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
Essay (1965-12-18), “The Problem of Dissent,” Saturday Review

More about this quote: wist.info/commager-henry-steel…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #commager #henrycommager #criticism #censorship #demonstration #dissent #freesociety #freespeech #freedom #freedomofexpression #freedomofspeech #protest #silencing

Commager, Henry Steele - Essay (1965-12-18), "The Problem of Dissent," Saturday Review | WIST Quotations

But this we can say with certainty: a government and a society that silences those who dissent is one that has lost its way. This we can say: that what is essential in a free society is that there should be an atmosphere where those who wish to dissent and…

WIST Quotations

"In any #freesociety, it is the right of every citizen to access and comment on the news, decisions, and reasonings of their #government. We believe it is a government’s responsibility to ensure this right for its constituents. #Publicinstitutions should communicate with their citizens on #openplatforms, not ones that require creating an account and sending personal data to a self-serving tech company."

Cc/ @marcoamarelo

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/12/the-world-needs-social-sovereignty/

The world needs social sovereignty

The world needs to log off corporate-owned, centrally-controlled social media platforms and log on to a better way of being online. The world needs an open social web through the fediverse and Mastodon.

Mastodon Blog
“In a #freesociety, all are involved in what some are doing,” said Abraham Joshua Heschel, an American rabbi who opposed the Vietnam War and participated in the civil rights movement. “Some are guilty; all are responsible.” www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/o...

Opinion | How to Be a Good Cit...
Opinion | These Israeli Dissidents Can Show Americans How to Be a Good Citizen of a Bad Country

And why it matters so much to try.

The New York Times
Pretty good article on the state of the libre software ecosystem today: https://paragraph.com/@holonic-horizons/the-stallman-paradox-how-web3-became-the-ultimate-open-source-theater

It does a stellar job pointing out the problems (first 2/3), but less so the solutions. Some good points even there, though.
#lang_en #freesoftware #freesociety #opensource #libresoftware #linux #gnu
The Stallman Paradox: How Web3 Became the Ultimate Open Source Theater

Have you ever wondered why we celebrate Richard Stallman as a visionary prophet of digital freedom while simultaneously abandoning every principle he fought for? The contradiction runs deeper than you think—and the evidence suggests Web3 has become the most sophisticated extraction machine ever wrapped in open source aesthetics. This is the Stallman Paradox: the growing chasm between our intellectual reverence for genuine free software principles and our practical convergence on venture capit...

Holonic Horizons
Do you know a scientist or hacker ( programmer ) who wrote a thesis like coding while socializing in other words "social code" ? #code #hacker #scientist #freesoftware #freesociety #GNU #Emacs #Linux
GNU Emacs is also my new Desktop Environment :) #GNU #Emacs #Linux #freesociety #FreeSoftwareActivism #freesoftware #opensource

#DystopianTimes - The collective West decided to #censor the entire internet instead of not doing #genocide

Ricky Hale and @cemedia
Jul 30, 2025

Excerpt: "Since the #OnlineSafetyAct came into effect, we've seen an awful lot of political censorship and nothing in the way of saving children. Children's lives have not been improved by this bill, but all of us have seen loss of privacy and loss of information we should be allowed to access in a #FreeSociety.

"There is a petition on the Parliament UK website to repeal the Online Safety Act that I have attempted to sign three times. I still have not received the verification email, meaning my signature has not been counted. I suspect this is deliberate and that many more than the official 427,000 people have attempted to sign.

"The government has already responded to the petition by dismissing everyone's concerns and refusing to debate this in parliament. The whole point of parliamentary petitions is to trigger parliamentary debates, but the government is no longer pretending to listen to what we want.

"The level of #overreach in the Online Safety Act is off the chart. Section 179 bans people from saying something false that could cause 'non-trivial psychological harm', potentially banning #humour and #satire. It could also ban any speech that counters a government narrative and is therefore deemed false.

"If your government decides there is no genocide and you say there is, there is nothing stopping them deeming this misinformation and banning you.

[...]

"The #MinistryOfTruth now gets to decide which online content is factual or harmful and that will always be a political decision. There is no impartial way of doing this, and aside from anything else, people in a free society are allowed to say what they want. No one needs to be protected from speech."

https://www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/no-government-has-the-right-to-censor

#Censorship #GazaGenocide #GazaHumanitarianCrisis #Orwellian #DoublePlusUngood #EndlessWar #PalestineAction #UKPol #Fascism #CharacteristicsOfFascism

The collective West decided to censor the entire internet instead of not doing genocide

Since the Online Safety Act came into effect, we've seen an awful lot of political censorship and nothing in the way of saving children.

Council Estate Media