The Narcissism of Small Differences

Social thieves will wait for you in the age of digital sting.

The Liberals and Liberalism is once again in danger of being consumed to feed a socialist machine. Corporate greed and identity politics. A deadly combination. Will Conservatives return to Authoritarianism in response or will today’s Liberals and Conservatives join forces once again to promote common Liberty?

Several years ago there was a little noticed story running in the news about the right to be forgotten online. Google was of course fighting a regular guy’s legal request to remove his information from search results. He had a small infraction, some legal trouble with a neighbor, and was finding it difficult to get a job because employers would search online and find his dirty laundry. This was long before #metoo. Digital mobs weren’t yet the profitable industry it has since developed into.

Privacy laws matter. They’re critical for those who want to:

“determine the development of their life in an autonomous way, without being perpetually or periodically stigmatized as a consequence of a specific action performed in the past.

Of course there are consequences for our actions, but perpetual punishment for the past is abusive. In Canada, specifically, our Charter of Rights And Freedoms demands that punishments must fit crimes. Social activists can’t just make up “social crimes” and then exploit imperfect, everyday people for profit, karma, likes, views…ad revenue.

That, now anonymous, man won the fight, but we’re still fighting the war. Since 2006 this issue has only grown in both scope and potential harm. In 2018…in the age of Trump…where nothing is truly forgotten, even if Google scrubs it there’s so much hostility the legal system can’t keep up. It’s not economically stable to sue everyone online who posts nasty stuff about us. Yet, the major social media platforms profit from all the brouhaha.

Just because we use the internet or social media doesn’t automatically grant rights to use all facts about our lives against us. The essence of anti-trust is that we are to pursue the construction of our own enterprises without directly attacking or trying to destroy competing businesses. This principal applies to all of us. Freedom means we don’t need to fear our neighbour just because they’re working to feed their family, too. Maybe even in the same industry. We aren’t enemies…at least we aren’t supposed to be.

Our private social networks are supposed to be private, not because it’s impossible to find the information, but because decent people respect the difference between public activity and one’s circle of trust. Going to a public restaurant with a friend is NOT a PUBLIC event. It is not an implied consent to invade personal space. Running a podcast doesn’t grant anyone the right to harass our families or employers even if someone doesn’t like what we’ve said. The law is on our side.

When a large group of techno-savvy bigots wrap themselves in a rainbow of “progressive” bullshit; we get an industry of “witchhunters” ruining the lives of people they currently hate. For the money. For the re-tweets. For the social capital. Conveniently they target whoever drives the ratings today. Attracts donors, fuels political ambitions. Lacking productive skills, facing an economy that appears to demand results and promotes on merit…it’s just easier for contemporary monster hunters to specialize in digital brinkmanship.

Judge, jury, executioner. The social warrior is driven by ideology and is therefore incapable of recognizing nuance or detail. They employ a very low resolution standard synchronized to the branding/advertising strategy currently trending. Everyday people’s lives are the fuel consumed to promote more culture war.

One or two immutable characteristics firmly cement reputations and there is no effective way to get ones reputation back. Sexist. Racist. Rapist? Does a sex offender have the right to work? Especially after they’ve done their time? How about a pedophile? The effective social thief steals your future and then hides behind hypotheticals and ignorance when it turns out their accusations were as hollow as they are.

Personal preferences are being twisted into excuses for social attack. Since almost anything in our private lives is personal; all attacks become personal the moment the targets are private. Wives, kids, businesses. Destroy it all because [Insert identity we don’t like here] doesn’t deserve to be happy or have property or have personal space or have the means of producing more of [Insert the capitalist plot that we fear might undermine our socialism here].

If a man compliments a woman at work…phone his wife. Make sure she knows what a piece of shit he is. Get that divorce started. Oh, man. Did that woman just yell at her misbehaving child??? Unacceptable. We must shame that woman, make sure a social worker stops by for a visit and possibly even take the child away. Whatever we have to do to remind the child that anytime the parent asserts authority it undermines the power of the state the child now represents by proxy.

Want that promotion, but a white man with ten extra years of experience is ahead of you…how typical. Another work place holding down minorities to promote yet another white man. So many white men in this company…so many white men. Not enough women, minorities, picnics, team building, company culture, bankruptcy. Where does any of this go? What happens when small differences are used to feed the narcissism of idiots who can then use social weapons to destroy real lives?

Short answer: Liberty rises. The best of us face the enemy and we show the world what the term “Greatest Generation” really means. See ya out there!