First, They Came for Alex

Alex Jones is off the air. His InfoWars studio and other assets auctioned off to pay a ridiculous but sinister-in-its-implications  $1.5 billion court judgment to his “victims” – whose feelings he hurt.

No actual harm done was established.

Of a piece with – among other examples – the comparably disproportionate hammer that was dropped by the federal government on Volkswagen for the “crime” of hurting the feelings of the government. Which is what it came down to. Yes, VW cheated on emissions certification tests the government imposed on VW . . . by tailoring the software programming that controlled the operating parameters of its TDI (diesel) engines to pass the tests.

Which they did.

This is done routinely, incidentally. But VW was the first to get hammered as hard as it was – but not because of the “cheating.” The federal government rightly perceived the threat to its authority implicit in the “cheating.”  The distinction is important to understand. If it were merely that VW’s TDI engines generated more than the allowable amount of oxides of nitrogen – or whatever it was at issue – the remedy would have been to impose a mandatory fix/recall and leave it at that.

But it became much more than that – because VW had done exactly that. It had figured out how to program its TDI-powered cars to pass the test. It wasn’t “cheating.” It was smarter than the test – and the testers.

Which is another way of saying VW hurt the government’s feelings.

Just like Alex Jones did those of his “victims.” No tangible harm was proved – in either case. In which case it is difficult to understand why Jones and VW were harmed so severely. Assuming you’re one of those odd ducks who has trouble understanding how there can be a “crime” when their is no victim.

If the premise is that those who cause harm must be held accountable for the harms they cause.

It is absurd – it is vicious – to “hold accountable” people (or companies) that have not been proved to have harmed anyone. Not a single victim of VW’s “cheating” was produced. It was enough that the federal government was affronted.

Jones believed there were fishy circumstances surrounding the Sandy Hook school shooting.

His crime was openly saying so.

These are dangerous precedents – and as is always true with this sort of dirty business – the precedents are set by going after easy targets. Jones is obnoxious to some and easy to portray as a loud-mouthed jerk. VW was easy to portray as an environmental accoster – because it is easy to portray any car company that way nowadays. The average person having been conditioned to so regard them. Which has been greatly helped along by the car companies’ servile-guilty response whenever they are accused of being “polluters” by the Communists who control the federal regulatory apparat and the hyenas of the “media” that operate as the apparat’s propaganda arm.

The point being, they choose a target that most people will look at and think: Well, he ( or they) got what he (or they) deserved. Failing to grasp that they have just endorsed being on the receiving end of the same thing, whenever it suits whoever doesn’t like them.

It need not be the government, per se, that doesn’t like them. But the government is always the useful tool. In the case of Jones, it was the government’s courts – which were used to bankrupt (and thereby) silence him. In the case of VW it was the government itself, which claimed “victim” status rather than acting on behalf of asserted “victims.”

Either way, the precedent gets set. And once set, the precedent will be used. This is the danger of precedents. They serve to change both the law – and people’s perceptions of what is or ought to be legal as well as illegal. When the precedent was set that the federal authority had the lawful (constitutional) authority to impose a seatbelt requirement on car  manufactures, it was inevitable that car owners would be forced (by law) to wear seatbelts. And then to pay for air bags. First just one. But that inevitably became two. Then four. Now six, at least, in most new cars.

And now that Jones has been bankrupted – and silenced – because he was adjudicated guilty of having hurt some people’s feelings, expect that precedent to serve as the foundation for similar assaults upon the assets, persons and livelihoods of pretty much anyone else on the same basis.

It is already on the verge of a prosecutable offense to criticize the policies/actions of the government of Israel. This is “anti-Semitic” – a snarl-word imputing a dislike of and even a hatred for people who are Jewish. It is used much the same as “anti-Vaxx” was used during the “pandemic” to pariah-ize people who wanted everyone else (as well as themselves) to be free to make their own decision regarding their bodies and what gets injected into them.

Under the senile old Grifter, the targets were “election deniers” and “threats to “democracy,” who were wanting to know whether the 2020 election was decided by people who had a right to vote (as distinct from votes that were counted) and who raised questions about such things as the Democrats’ nominee being undemocratically selected without anyone having voted for her in a single primary.

The take-home point is we are all Alex now.

Or could be.

. . .

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