Political Clout

pmg.com

Political Clout may have different meanings to many so let us stick to one but before that we will define political: official policy making opinion; and clout: punch. Fair enough? It includes politics but goes beyond and a clout could be weak or strong. For instance, there is considerable concern today about the clout of Big Tech which can be a powerful force or weak but more than technology (engineering society and applied science). Some concerns about political clout differ like publishing opinions contrary to the Far Left as well as the Right.

Enough as our intro to this column (pillar, tower, article, structure).There is much that bothers many today such as misinformation, contrary opinions, suppression of conservative or liberal thinking, trampling on the rights of opponents, stifling the potential of helpful debate, bowing to pressure, ignoring constitutions and amendments and so on that affects both sides of issues too often disallowing proper settlements to emerge. For example, the political left could violate established laws and regulations with little or no penalty and a political right could surrender its position rather than enforce it.

There are situations where the winners become losers because of overwhelming political clout because of suppression or huge numbers. Just the size numerically, economically, socially, immorally, sexually and leadership alone in organizations like Amazon, Apple, Bing/Microsoft, Facebook, Simon Schouster. TicToc, Twitter, and YouTube are some mentioned in the Media as threats of Big Tech which could include many other forces not really considered tech but do have clout for good or ill and could include academia, religion and sports as well.

Size and fame alone can be dangerous or beneficial to virtually any Country or State unless there are perfected means of controlling erroneous methodology as currently seen in the leftest partisanship against the American Democracy. Most likely if successful it could happen even without a public majority. So what’s the cure (solution)? A miracle? Politics? A return to honesty, decency, obedience to by-laws and the Constitution? A cleansing of erroneous media, political arenas and academia? Or Godliness (genuine religion and morality?) How would you resolve things? Tough issues aren’t they to think about? 

Editor's Note: Related to what Dan is saying is a recent column by Susan Estrich, "Bring Back Brandon," in which she discusses the removal of content by Big Tech companies under the guise of protecting their users from misinformation. In part, she says:

So, what's going on? We won't find out by labeling the [profane anti-Biden chants at a NASCAR race] "misinformation" and taking them down from YouTube. If the government were to censor those images, we would rightly claim it was violating the First Amendment. YouTube is a private company, but its control of the national bulletin board — like control of public space — raises questions as to whether it is performing a "public function" and thus should be subject to the First Amendment. Calling speech you don't like "misinformation" does not make it so.

Neither Dan nor I would put ourselves in the same idealogical camp as Estrich, yet her columns in recent months have increasingly raised the question "who decides?" what we in a free society should think or be exposed to. While Big Brother has been seen as an over-reaching government, we now belately see that Big Business and Big Tech have the same DNA.. As Dan concluded, "Tough issues aren't they to think about?"