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> Actually yours is the predominant view of those on the left

Actually it is the predominant view, left and right. Except in this specific case, where the right doesn't like it.

> We are seeing the beginnings of a country of ~300 million people being cracked in two, on a much deeper level than has ever happened before.

The Civil War may beg to differ. The real issue is that we've never reconciled the divergent view point from that war. Race is still the largest dividing factor in this country and this incident was about race (and ego) more than anything else.

Except in this specific case, where the right doesn't like it.

Show me an instance where anything remotely close to this happened - right leaning businesses banding together to take a left-leaning business entirely offline by cutting off all services to them. I’ll wait.

Civil War...

The Civil War occurred at a time when actual physical war was the predominant way that societal differences were settled. That is no longer the case, except perhaps in the minds of some of the idiots that stormed the Capitol.

But on an intellectual level, this event with Parler is akin to an act of modern civil war. When you endeavor to kill an organization, are you not in a sense declaring war on them? Further, was this action not designed to frighten others into getting in line with the ruling party, lest they suffer the same fate? While no guns were used, those seem very similar to the actions normally taken by those engaging in civil war.

AWS deciding to no longer host Parler is not an act of civil war, modern or otherwise.

You’re right. But Apple, Google, and Amazon all colluding for the singular purpose of warning others that conservative speech will get their businesses instantly killed by the largest and most powerful companies on earth? That sure is.

> Show me an instance where anything remotely close to this happened - right leaning businesses banding together to take a left-leaning business entirely offline by cutting off all services to them.

An example is pirate sites or underground drug sites. Those are largely blacklisted -- and fit into a (far) left-leaning philosophy around a class of freedom. I'd argue most of those are less extreme than Parler.

> When you endeavor to kill an organization, are you not in a sense declaring war on them?

Isn't that what Trump wanted to do with the NFL after Kaep took a knee?

> Further, was this action not designed to frighten others into getting in line with the ruling party, lest they suffer the same fate?

Sure, in the same way that death penalty is meant to scare murderers.

You're trying to make this out to be a site of critical thinkers espousing different views that are being trampled on, while most everyone else recognizes it more like a revenge porn site.

Sure, in the same way that death penalty is meant to scare murderers.

You are comparing the exercise of freedom of speech to committing murder. Not quite the same thing in my opinion.

An example is pirate sites or underground drug sites. Those are largely blacklisted -- and fit into a (far) left-leaning philosophy around a class of freedom.

Those sites are offering illegal goods and services. That is why they are offline. Companies are generally ordered by law enforcement to take them down. Again...hardly comparable.

> You are comparing the exercise of freedom of speech to committing murder. Not quite the same thing in my opinion.

The point is they weren't only exercising free speech. They were inciting a violent riot.

> Those sites are offering illegal goods and services. That is why they are offline. Companies are generally ordered by law enforcement to take them down. Again...hardly comparable.

Again, the calls to march into the Capitol, provocation of violence, etc... are also illegal. But you won't find our government ever willing to take that stand. The distinction is less clear than you suggest.

Lets put it this way, no one is suggesting to blacklist the WSJ or the National Review. The Parler is the equivalent to an Antifa social media network for planning attacks on right wing establishments.

Have you ever been on Parler? I had never heard of it until the left decided to cancel it and it made news. So I went there a couple of days ago, and saw nothing of which you speak. Certainly nothing that would equate it to an “Antifa social media network”.

Speaking of Antifa...if Parler is equivalent to it...it’s bit hypocritical that they still have a Twitter account: https://twitter.com/antifaintl?s=21

I did go on Parler a few days before the Capitol attack and it was pretty crazy. Not everything was violent, but definitely a different take on virtually everything. And definitely calls towards violence and overthrow mixed in. Haven’t been back since.

Note, Parler does have a Twitter account too. I have not heard people looking to ban that — so really not hypocritical at all.

Interesting, because I went on there after the attack and found nothing of which you speak. I found no plans for attacks, calls to violence, or anything else. There were a few links to pro-Trump news articles, but that was about the most “right” thing I saw on there.

OK, you were on a very different version of Parler than I was on. And different than the one that Amazon noted in their response to Parler or all of the various articles that I've read written about Parler. Maybe we all just ended up in the bad part of Parler.

> Lets put it this way, no one is suggesting to blacklist the WSJ or the National Review.

Yet.

Right, we are talking about social norms. The social norm for most transaction commerce seems to be, that if the fees are paid and the services isn't "abused" (in a criminal sense) then the private beliefs of the purchaser don't matter. The grocer should still sell lettuce to heinous racists.

But we are starting to break that norm, beginning with the natural wedges: commerce where the service or product _IS_ enabling the purchasing in a direct way. The question is if we can stop at _direct_ enablement or whether it will continue to indirect forms.

A scary example would be for Square to start refusing to process payments for ideological reasons.

I suppose one could argue your scary example has already occurred. I believe stripe cut off Donald Trump [1]. As a non-American, I don't really care about Trump and may be a bit ignorant here, but I find the big tech companies cutting him off under "inciting violence" a bit of a stretch. To me, it's actually extra scary to cut off a politician's fundraising for disagreeing with their "politics".

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/stripe-stops-processing-payment...

This is why I mentioned square, not stripe. Anyone acting more like a utility or common carrier. Stripe is good, but there are many other comparable options out there. But my local coffee shop only uses a single POS systems. The latter seems more sinister to me, especially since they would be taking an action that is potentially independent of the their customer (the business).

For stripe, the example would be refusing to process any CC payments (as a consumer) for registered republicans whatsoever. Beyond it being foolish commercially, it is much more intrusive than a refusing a direct 1:1 contract.

>it's actually extra scary to cut off a politician's fundraising for disagreeing with their "politics"

Except that's not what happened. Stripe didn't cut off the Trump campaign's ability to raise funds. They didn't block access to their bank accounts. They didn't freeze their assets.

Rather, one company (and they aren't even close to the largest player in that industry) chose not to process online credit card transactions for them.

The Trump campaign has many other online payment processors that it can do business with. They can still accept donations via many other means (checks, bank transfers, cash, etc., etc.).

A single company (which is just a group of people) decided they didn't want to do business with another group of people.

Stripe, it's shareholders and employees are under no obligation to do business with anyone.

And the fact that the customer is a political entity strengthens that, as their right to support (or not) any particular political entity, candidate or position is integral to a free society.

>Rather, one company... chose not to process online credit card transactions for them.

I don't see how people can make this argument with a straight face. If you accept that this one company should be allowed to decide to cut off someone for ideological reasons, you tacitly accept that all companies could cut someone off for the same reason. Hiding behind it being "only one" right now is to use a technicality to dodge having to defend the principle you are implicitly advocating. The action isn't more right or wrong because one or more company is doing it--you either defend the principle at full usage or you disavow it.

>I don't see how people can make this argument with a straight face. If you accept that this one company should be allowed to decide to cut off someone for ideological reasons, you tacitly accept that all companies could cut someone off for the same reason.

I'm not people. I'm just me and don't represent anyone else except myself.

As for it being "just one company," that isn't really important. It could be 10 or 100 or 1000 companies and I'd say the same thing.

And not because of the content of the political views being (or not) supported.

It has nothing to do with any of that.

If the government can force Stripe (or anyone else) to support a particular (it doesn't matter which one either) viewpoint by forcing them to associate with a person or group they don't wish to associate with, then they can force me (or you, for that matter) to do the same.

I can't and don't speak for anyone else. For me, it's about specific constitutional rights. I don't and won't support abridgement of those rights for anyone, whether I agree with them or not.

If you believe that it's just fine for persons or organizations to have their freedom of association rights abridged, then you are anti-freedom and stand in opposition to the liberties and ideals in my constitution.

And if that's true, then so be it. But don't try to pretend that your argument is anything other than an anti-liberty, anti-democratic (small d) one.

>If you believe that it's just fine for persons or organizations to have their freedom of association rights abridged, then you are anti-freedom and stand in opposition...

This is utter nonsense. For example, abridging a company's right to not "associate" with minorities/gays/etc, i.e. their right to not serve them, is not anti-liberty. If the goal is maximizing liberty, it takes targeted regulation to achieve the maximal state. Ensuring everyone can participate in the economic and social infrastructure is a feature of maximizing liberty.

>This is utter nonsense. For example, abridging a company's right to not "associate" with minorities/gays/etc, i.e. their right to not serve them, is not anti-liberty. If the goal is maximizing liberty, it takes targeted regulation to achieve the maximal state. Ensuring everyone can participate in the economic and social infrastructure is a feature of maximizing liberty

I didn't realize that I needed to specify that this didn't apply to protected classes[0]. I assumed that was understood, but I guess not.

Yes, there are a number of groups (see link) which individuals and businesses are barred from discriminating against. But in this circumstance, that's irrelevant.

Because political affiliation is not a protected class under federal law, and even where it is (CA, NY and a few other states) that only applies to employment issues, not business-to-business contracts/transactions.

The right to political association has never been abridged, nor should it be. Any suggestion otherwise is, as I said, anti-liberty and anti-democratic.

Political choice is a bedrock principle of our system. And forcing anyone to support a political viewpoint they do not wish to support violates both settled constitutional law and the ideals of a free society.

Nitpick about protected groups if you like, but there's no "there" there.

The law is the law. We are a nation of laws. We are not a nation of "do what hackinthebochs wants."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group

There you go again, hiding behind technicalities to dodge the interesting discussion. Laws aren't magic; protected classes aren't magic. The laws reflect our understanding that abridging liberty in some narrow cases served the greater good in some manner. My argument is that some restrictions on liberty serve to maximize liberty more broadly. If you want to argue that political viewpoint should not be one of them, you have to actually make the argument. Simply citing the law doesn't make your case.

Political choice is a bedrock principle of our system. And forcing anyone to support a political viewpoint they do not wish to support violates both settled constitutional law and the ideals of a free society.

> I can’t think of something less American than a bunch of business owners ganging together to strangle the life out of a small business

This is the most American thing I can think of if you remove the last bit about "because of politics".

> Where does it end from there?

That escalated quickly!

Given that being “censored” by sites like Twitter is also a big complaint of the far left (because it has happened a lot), my hope is that splintering to alternative sites won’t be so binary. Having 40 Twitter clones seems better to me than having just one or two.

"giant private companies can do whatever they want" is a much more rightist stance than a leftist one. And pretty anti-liberal too.

>Where does it end from there? Do hotels and restaurants in California demand to see proof that you are a registered Democrat before you are allowed to patronize them? Do liberal employers start carrying out mass firings of conservative employees?

Except those are false equivalences. It's not "conservatives" that are the problem. And they aren't.

They have just as much right as anyone else to their point of view, political preferences and to advocate for them as anyone else.

However, those who would use violence, intimidation and lies to advance their political goals are not conservatives. Or liberals.

They are, at best criminal thugs and, at worst, radical insurrectionists bent on destroying our constitutional republic and the rule of law.

And calling such folks out for their behavior isn't a slap at "conservatives," because those who are honest when they call themselves that (at least in the US) want to preserve our constitutional system of government and the rule of law.

Don't conflate the two. Because they aren't even remotely similar.