Liar alert: The government and the progressive left are at it again
When up is down: Virtually everything important that the U.S. government says is either totally false or a partisan misdirect
Do you know who the greatest propagator of disinformation in the history of the world is? The U.S. government. — U.S. Sen. Rand Paul
A couple of noteworthy things have happened in the past several weeks that confirm—as if there was any doubt—that the U.S government is populated by partisan liars, and that the modern political signature of the American Left is censorship, all wrapped up in a neo-fascist bow.
The first is the Federal Trade Commission’s probe of Elon Musk’s pending acquisition of Twitter, curiously announced just after a major left-wing group called it a threat to free speech. The second was the announced “pause” of the already infamous Disinformation Governance Board to review its mission to “protect free speech” by by suppressing “harmful disinformation,” which by definition would have to be categorized as such by the board. Cue belly laugh here.
In each case, the government is lying. In each case, the government is acting in a blatantly partisan manner. And in each case the government’s real mission is actually the opposite of its announced mission.
First, Musk’s proposed purchase of Twitter.
The FTC announced the anti-trust review right on the heels of a call by the liberal Open Markets Institute (OMI) for the government to stop the acquisition, citing a threat to free speech. At first blush, one would think the OMI is not so left-wing. It’s anti-monopoly, which has proponents on the right and the left, but it is also anti-globalization. The head of OMI, Barry Lynn, has spent a career writing about the threat of unrestrained globalization, industrial interdependence, and the concentration of political power. But the first blush is not always the correct analysis.
Turns out Lynn and his fellows at OMI believe that the way these goals can be achieved is through the execution of federal administrative power. Thus they are not for a free market but for a government-run market. As Daniel Hanley wrote in a recent OMI report, “I explain how 10 federal agencies can use their broad Congressionally delegated powers to make markets more equitable and fair.”
Note that “federal agencies” cans use their “broad powers” to make “markets more equitable and fair.” So a free marketplace of commerce and ideas and democracy does not fashion society; an all-knowing administrative state, having deemed what is equitable and fair, will coerce and compel markets to make it so.
In other words, OMI has a partisan vision of what markets should look like and achieve, and they expect the government to impose its will to achieve it. This explains their close association with Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. It also explains their opposition to the Musk purchase.
More specifically, while antitrust experts don’t expect the deal to raise antitrust concerns, the FTC announced its review on the heels of an April 26 announcement by OMI and Lynn that the deal posed a number of immediate and direct threats to American democracy and free speech.
“Open Markets also believes the deal violates existing law, and that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have ample authority to block it,” Lynn said. “The most obvious problem is that the deal would give to a single man—one who already wields immense political and economic power—direct control over one of world’s most important platforms for public communications and debate.”
As has been true from the founding of the republic, Lynn said, the American people have an absolute right to ensure the full openness and neutrality of all essential public infrastructure.
“Specific to communications, we see this in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, in the Telegraph acts of 1860 and 1866, the Mann-Elkins Act of 1910, the Communications Act of 1934, and many other federal and state laws,” he said. “Americans have also repeatedly used our antitrust laws to prevent concentrations of power over communications, speech, debate, and news.”
In addition, Lynn continued, the deal violates the law at a more technical level.
“Mr. Musk already controls one of the most important internet platforms in the world—in the form of the satellite communications system Starlink,” he said. “Since the late 19th century, the U.S. government has routinely acted to prevent mergers between existing essential platforms. Most recently, the DOJ in 2017 attempted to block AT&T’s takeover of Time-Warner (an effort which failed because the DOJ filed a poor case, as OMI made clear at the time).”
What that means, Lynn said, is that just as everyone would now expect the U.S. government to block a takeover of Twitter by Google, Facebook, Comcast, or Verizon, the same rules should apply to the owners of Starlink.
“Let’s be clear,” he said. “Elon Musk’s effort to buy Twitter is not the only threat to free communications and debate in the United States. The size, scope, and business models of Facebook, Google, and Amazon also pose a wide variety of often extreme threats to American democracy and the basic rights of citizens. That’s why law enforcers and Congress should view this deal as an opportunity to firmly reestablish clear bans on any manipulation of communications by essential platforms, and to eliminate all business models that rely on such manipulation.”
As Open Markets made clear in an article in the Washington Monthly, Lynn said, it’s past time for the FCC to get serious about regulating Starlink to ensure that the vital and increasingly important Internet platform serves the public interest only.
Of course, all those arguments were red herrings …