I offer you 3 panels, all of which appear independent on the surface, but are irrevocably intertwined.
Panel 1-Zuckerberg says, “You have someone like Elizabeth Warren thinks that the right answer is to break up the companies … I mean, if she gets elected president then I would bet that we will have a legal challenge, and I would bet that we will win the legal challenge.”
Panel 2-Dr John Patrick says, “The problem with the liberal ethos is that it is parasitic on the history it denies. It doesn’t have to have the intrinsic strength to enforce what made it work.”
Panel 3-Michael says, “Soft-nihilism is becoming the American way. We must resist this temptation, as it is all too easy to embrace it.”
Ok… I’ll take my lumps up front. I, just like you, think it creepy as hell when people speak of themselves in the 3rd person format. So, I offer you a quick apology for panel 3. 😉
That aside, apparently Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook creator and CEO, was recorded as saying Elizabeth Warren, a liberal running in the Socialist primary, was a threat to Facebook. She believes Facebook, a private business, should be broken up into pieces. Mark obviously doesn’t want this. You have a socialist member of the political class threatening to shatter a private business conglomerate run by a socialist. Only in America folks… Only in America.
The only way people like Zuck and Warren have to voice their beliefs, run for office sputtering their campaign rhetoric and lies, manipulate the masses all while saying, “they opted into our user agreement, didn’t they?”, and manage to sleep at night rests solely on the idea that the founding principles of this country were, and are, good ideas and are necessary.
In order for Zuck to build a company big enough to manipulate billions of people, he has to stand atop foundational conservative principles like freedom and liberty to accomplish this monumental task. …And with that same freedom and liberty he’s built a machine in which we’re willingly addicted. He used conservative principles to erect a structure that works only on his terms, not yours. …And his are socialist to the core. There is no freedom and liberty on Facebook. Your every move is monitored and when it is deemed contrary to his “values” which is another word for “opinion,” then you’re sequestered, or worse.
What about Warren? She’s identical. She’ll use freedom of speech all day long to say whatever it is she wants, but when you depart from her ideology, even in the slightest, you’re judged as someone offering hate speech, or you’re branded a bigot, or labeled unkind, etc., etc., etc. It doesn’t matter to her if what you offer comes from your heart or head. If she doesn’t agree, much like Zuck, your ability to project your concerns shall be squashed.
With no small irony, you have two liberal socialists using daily conservative principles to force their view of socialism on us all. And if you think about it, using core conservative principles is the only way they can do so. If they adhered to liberal philosophy, they’d never get a start. Thus, they use our rules if you will, against us to accomplish the opposite. Is that an oxymoron or what? Where else can you find two socialists using conservative principles to further a radical liberal agenda?
The above shore up panels 1 and 2. The idea that nihilism is upon us isn’t quite true. I have heard various people, including Dr. John Patrick who I quoted in panel 2, use the term soft-nihilism. Instead of wandering around through the cosmos void of caring or religion, we simply do so on a ‘light’ basis. Sure, we care, and we call ourselves Christian, but we really don’t do so with zeal or consistency. When we’re being watched by our peers, we’re pretty good. But when no human being is taking our acts to bear, we sluff it off… I’ve read that ethics are things people do when others aren’t watching. With ethics practiced part time, religion something we do only when convenient, and caring the thing we act on when we can get credit for it, we’re beginning to inhabit a soft-nihilist world. And when we do that, a series of inherently poor and irreversible things come next.
I recognize that Zuck’s responses shouldn’t bother me much. But when the opportunity presents itself to point out the paradox, I’m compelled. I make a statement to you, and ask a question at this point. Piss on the paradox, as it matters little. Instead, are you going to embrace soft-nihilism or resist it?