Michael Matteo: Disinformation – New speak for censoring conservative views

Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

The left never seems to run out of imaginative ways of imposing their will and using creative language to push an agenda that squashes opposition to their twisted vision of America.

Recently the Biden administration has added a new office to the Department of Homeland Security; it’s called the Disinformation Governance Board and its purpose is “to coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security, focused specifically on irregular migration and Russia.” The new body will be headed by Nina Jankowicz, a so-called Russian disinformation expert, which is appropriate because she will be installed as the first czar of free speech in America. 

In case people aren’t familiar with her, she is someone who dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story (a story proven to be true) as a “Trump campaign product” and has intimated opposition to the First Amendment because she believes it is bad for “marginalized” communities. In other words, dare to express an opinion against anyone deemed a progressively favored group and you risk being labeled a domestic terrorist and suffer the consequences of speaking freely. 

Her response to Elon Musk’s claim that “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy” was, “I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms, what that would look like for the marginalized communities,” and went on to suggest that not censoring free speech would cause these communities to suffer abuse. 

As the fear of being slaughtered in the midterm elections grips the Democratic Party, they will pull out all stops to censor, bribe and allow this new ministry of propaganda to convince people that prices are not high, there are plenty of jobs, the border is secure, men can have babies, and the rich (except Disney) don’t pay their fair share. The amount of spinning of narratives will surely make people’s heads spin faster than a little girl possessed by a demon, which fits nicely with their plan to turn America into a one-party, third-world dictatorship.  

So how did we get here? Let’s examine a brief history of America’s move to the extreme left.  In the mid-1980s political correctness was more of a joke, than reality. The idea of calling a bald person, hairing-impaired/follicly challenged, a fat person, a metabolic overachiever, and a short person vertically challenged was a source of humor at the time. 

Yet, as hypersensitivity increased and nothing became funny any longer to those who needed safe rooms to soothe their emotional wounds, the jokes stopped and today we have PC on steroids, which is known as Woke Culture. As time passed, PC became a festering virus in college classrooms, and those educated there infiltrated the educational system at all levels. This grew into new ways of making excuses, and the victim culture was born. New words and language were promoted, speech codes were invented and the idea that anything and everything (which was initially blamed on parents way back when) evolved into individuals blaming society for majoring in gender studies, taking 10 years to get the degree, (and expecting taxpayers to foot the bill for it) showing up to a job interview with four different colored hair, multiple face piercings, using profanity and then wondering why you weren’t offered the job. 

Nothing was anyone’s fault, crime was excused because it was a consequence of poverty, and everything came back to systemic racism because America is such a terrible place. “Hate speech” was viewed as intolerable and free speech was only defended when you agreed with the ideas of the self-appointed speech police, who did their best to get people fired for expressing an opinion. Authors promoted unproven ideas as facts about racism, sexism, and transgenderism, and any who dared criticize these ideas were labeled as racists, sexists, transphobic, homophobic or some other derisive term and these authors got rich.

Fact-checking on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms became extremely one-sided and those with conservative views were more likely to be fact-checked or censored than those who shared the political agenda of those who owned and controlled these internet businesses. Enter Elon Musk, and his purchase of Twitter, and a hysterical left that reacted to the breaking up of a left-wing social media monopoly that would ban Donald Trump from tweeting, but allow Vladimir Putin, Louis Farrakhan, and OJ Simpson to continue to tweet, so something had to be done.  

Now the Biden administration has taken the Office of Homeland Security, an office that was created as a response to the 911 terrorist attack, which is headed by someone who obviously had a very biased view of what free speech means, as evidenced by her own spread of disinformation in linking the Hunter Biden laptop story to Russian disinformation.  Yet, she will be the person who will head a bureaucratic office to determine what is and is not “disinformation.” 

It was one thing to demand more security at airports and other places to protect Americans from the carnage that was caused by terrorists on 911, however, the creation of an office that seeks to “govern” information is another step towards fascism and it’s not about protecting Americans; it’s about protecting the Democratic Party. The irony here, of course, is that the Biden administration announced its push against disinformation only 2 days after Elon Musk’s agreement to buy Twitter was reached.  It is this kind of disingenuous thinking and application that puts every American (on the left and right) at risk because of the subjective nature and rationalizations of those censors who are to judge what is and is not “disinformation.”  

Sadly, if Americans were actually educated to discern fact from fiction, recognize fallacies and illogical arguments, and taught critical thinking skills instead of fantasies, there would be no need for “disinformation” experts to determine what is and is not true. They could decide for themselves, but this is not what those who believe the government knows best want. The educational system is a puppet in the hands of those who would keep people ignorant, so they could “explain” things, which is exactly what happened in Nazi Germany during Hitler’s administration. It is also reminiscent of the Dark Ages when people couldn’t read and were at the mercy of translators whose spin gave kings control over them, but that was a time when there was no education for the masses. 

Freedom of speech is a core value of what it means to be an American. It is a right that cannot be chipped away by the creation of any bureaucratic office created by an embattled president whose poll numbers show that the majority of Americans do not agree with his policies, or his attempts to silence opposition and criticism, which is patently unAmerican.

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