Losers Resort to Slander

“When debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.” It is a quote that is often attributed to Socrates, but we do not know whether he said it or not. Regardless of the source, there is a popular meme going around which shows a Socrates statue with the quote digitally rendered next to it. According to Snopes, this quote became popular on the internet around 2008, but no one really knows where it came from. Within internet culture, this meme (and its memelings) have become popular anytime someone gets wholly defeated in debate and then starts to accuse the other party of something they most likely did not do. This was the case on January 16, 2020, when Broward State Committeewoman Michele Merrell posted the meme as a jab at the Democrats failing news cycle, only to have her post censored by the Facebook Gestapo. They called it fake news.

If this is where it ended, it would be understandable — even expected. We do not know whether or not Socrates said this quote and Facebook is making some effort to keep fake news off a site basically created by the “say what you want culture.” But it did not end there. Being a sterling citizen, Mrs. Merrell took down the post and simply posted the quote “When Debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.” She did this with extra quotes to show that it was thought to be Socrates, but not known to be Socrates. According to Christopher Moore, a Philosophy Professor at Penn State, Socrates accused those who lost debates with him of slander. He did not directly call them losers, though, as the loser would not be a colloquialism in the time. This means at the very worst, Mrs. Merrell was simply paraphrasing Socrates from a known debate in Plato’s Apology.

Shadow Banned by FB for a Meme

Even more alarming is that this meme has been shared millions, if not billions of times by the internet community. The issue is why Facebook waited until prominent Republicans, such as Mrs. Merrell and Allen West (who used the meme during the Kavanagh Hearing), posted the debate to flag it as fake news. This is because the new shadow banning. Sites such as Politifact, Snopes and others tend to use conjecture and opinion to squelch statements with which they do not agree. While both sites do discredit false statements with facts occasionally, they often use “expert opinions” to dismiss things that are not provable. Dr. Moore is a real expert, not an air-quote expert, which could lead people to believe that something has been “proven” when no one can prove whether or not it happened!

Regardless of the origin, we also must ask whether the statement Mrs. Merrell paraphrased was true or not. The news cycle has been pretty telling this week that slander is the story of the day. Elizabeth Warren made the statement that Bernie Sanders told her “A Woman can’t win this election.” Bernie immediately denied these charges, even challenging them in the debate. Warren has had a sketchy relationship with the truth. It is hard to forget her claims on being a Native American and her claims of being fired for being pregnant. The fact is, she is losing in the polls and needs something to unseat Bernie who is gaining traction in the far left.

What Will Democrats Resort to Next?

We also see President Trump just signed a record-breaking trade deal with the Chinese. The stock market also continues to set new records with another one on January 15th, yet Democrat owned University Economists say that the economy is going downhill. Regardless of who said, “When the debate is lost, slander is the tool of the loser.” Using the paraphrase was right on this week as the Democrats are losing everything and turning to blatant slander as their last hope to reach their goals. In the the last week, this has included defending a terrorist, standing against the people of Hong Kong and Iran as they fight for freedom and seemingly derailing the best economy the United States has ever seen.

The scary part of this situation is Facebook continues to pick and choose what stories and memes that it is allowing on its site. With stories rife of unprovable facts such as Q, lizard people and the Illuminati, the “iPad Jihadis” of Facebook chose to attack a woman who is also an elected Republican Committeewoman for marking a post as a quote rather than a paraphrase. In the age of shadowbanning, this should give us all pause as our voices are being silenced, our protectors are being attacked and the rights that are God-given are slowly stripped away from us. Our nation was founded as a Republic and Ben Franklin said that it was our “Republic, if [we] can keep it.” The question becomes will we stand up to corporations and corrupt officials, like the Virginia Governor, and keep our republic, or will we allow freedom to die with a whimper as we watch our freedoms slip away, little by little.