FOLLOWING AND UNFOLLOWING

 

Milo Wagner, AKA Milo Yiannopoulos

 

I was disturbed (as usual) by several things I read on Facebook and Twitter today. Being disturbed by social media is healthy, in my opinion. If you sit staring at Facebook GIF's and Retweets for hours on end without being disturbed, I suggest you check your pulse. If you still have one, proceed immediately to your local psychiatric emergency room. If you are already on psychiatric medication, I suggest you look into getting your prescription reevaluated.

 

I have considered leaving Facebook. Some intelligent people I know already have. Today I thought about ditching Facebook after reading an account of a young German couple whose page was censored by Facebook after some Left-Wing-Fascist-nut-job complained that it was "hate speech". You see, these native Germans had simply put up a page to give other Germans an opportunity to express their reactions to illegal mass migration. The couple had taken special care to exclude what they considered radical speech, based in violence and blanket xenophobia. Nonetheless, they were sentenced to suspended prison sentences and a 1200 Euro fine for posting a Facebook page! I suppose, by that standard, I should be folding sheets in a prison laundry as well. That is why I must stay on Facebook.

 

This is a crystal-clear example of why Brits voted out of the EU. Merkel's Germany has descended into the worst kind of Fascism. It is plutocratic Fascism posing as Enlightenment. And, I fear, it is exactly that brand of Fascism which Hillary Clinton will bring to the White House. I doubt Congress will comply with it, but we may just get another eight years of no substantial betterment of the country and a surplus of egoistic media posturing. Donald Trump, if he pulls out a surprise victory, will also posture, but he may well change the political landscape with the help of the Libertarians, people like Milo Yiannopoulos..

 

I did unfollow Milo Yiannopoulos today, considered by some to be the Libertarian Anti-Christ. Milo is an outspoken free-speech advocate. I like that. However, he is also an elitist without compassion ... or even class. He has taken to displaying a kind of narcissistic homosexual behavior which we have endeavored to leave behind since Stonewall. The tweet which broke my tolerance implied that poverty is always a choice. The pure insanity of this assertion in concert with his recent condemnation of abortion rights sent me searching for the unfollow button. Enough is enough. I am close to that same edge with several social justice warriors on the New Left as well.

 

A world of followers and unfollowers is a world prone to extremism. It is as simple as that. It displays the proclivity of the young geniuses who devised social media to become plutocratic Fascists themselves. After all, social media are becoming a collection of vast adolescent bedroom walls, bedecked with posters which often seem grossly absurd in retrospect. Perhaps it is time for more intelligent people to move out of that protracted adolescent space to something more actualizing, like physically participating in local community, local politics, local education and local environment.