ADL, Sacha Baron Cohen, and the Criminalization of Thought

Another Day in the Empire – by Kurt Nimmo

My brief hiatus from this blog was interrupted by a call to strip countless Americans—beginning with a select group—of the right to say and write whatever they want without the undue intervention of special interest billionaires and political pressure organizations. 

I’m talking about Sacha Baron Cohen, the “comedian” and provocateur who recently gave an authoritarian speech at the Anti-Defamation League advocating widespread censorship of “antisemites” on social media.  

“I’m just a comedian and an actor, not a scholar,” Cohen said. “But one thing is pretty clear to me.  All this hate and violence is being facilitated by a handful of internet companies that amount to the greatest propaganda machine in history.”

Cohen didn’t bother to unpack the ludicrous claim speech is responsible for violence and intolerance. Instead, he offered an idiotic example—comparable to one of his “comedy” skits—that “hate speech” threatens “our pluralistic democracies.” 

If a neo-Nazi comes goose-stepping into a restaurant and starts threatening other customers and saying he wants kill Jews, would the owner of the restaurant be required to serve him an elegant eight-course meal?  Of course not!  The restaurant owner has every legal right and a moral obligation to kick the Nazi out, and so do these internet companies.

So there it is, the crux of the matter—it is the “moral obligation” of the titans of social media to deplatform those engaged in politically incorrect speech. 

Despite its murky connections to the national security state, according to Cohen Facebook is engaged in “ideological imperialism,” with “six unelected individuals in Silicon Valley imposing their vision on the rest of the world, unaccountable to any government and acting like they’re above the reach of law. It’s like we’re living in the Roman Empire, and Mark Zuckerberg is Caesar.”

In other words, according to Mr. Cohen, laissez-faire capitalism feeds on hatred and violence. Thus government intervention and denial of a basic tenet of natural law are required to save the innocent from “unelected individuals in Silicon Valley” somehow akin to Ceasar and Roman autocrats. Apparently, Cohen believes the leadership of corporations should be decided by a public he has criticized for its “indifference” to antisemitism. 

“There is such a thing as objective truth,” Cohen said. “Facts do exist.  And if these internet companies really want to make a difference, they should hire enough monitors to actually monitor, work closely with groups like the ADL, insist on facts and purge these lies and conspiracies from their platforms.”

Yes, facts do exist, Sacha. For instance, it is a fact words cannot physically hurt anyone and if they “incite” or “radicalize” individuals, it is the unprovoked violence of the individuals that must be held to account, not what they say or think, no matter how reprehensible. 

However, under our collectivized social and political system where special rights are established for preferred groups—some folks are more equal than others—words alone are capable of “triggering” emotional reaction on the part of ideologically indoctrinated progressives. Words are now perceived as violence and, ludicrously, “micro-aggression.” 

Allow me to leave you with a suggestion for a different aim for society.  The ultimate aim of society should be to make sure that people are not targeted, not harassed and not murdered because of who they are, where they come from, who they love or how they pray.

In short, Cohen advocates a society that punishes speech and thought. He would like to see “ignoramuses” victimized by the state—prosecuted, fined, imprisoned, and killed by the state if they resist. 

But let’s step back here and look at the larger picture. Mr. Cohen would have us believe he advocates on behalf of all imagined victims of thought crime which is supposedly endemic on social media. The fact Cohen delivered his speech to the ADL makes it plainly obvious what his primary objective is—the targeting of individuals critical of Zionism and Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. 

Facts do exist, Cohen declared. Some facts, however, must remain hidden and those exposing reality over fairy tales must be punished. Israel has for more than seventy years massacred (at Deir Yassin, Balad al-Shaykh, etc.) and denied basic human dignity and political rights to millions of people. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is historical fact. 

Cohen talks about indifference to antisemitism but says nothing about the indifference of the indoctrinated to Israel’s crimes—massacres, targeted assassination of political leaders and Iranian scientists, the murder of medics, journalists, and activists, and the incarceration and torture of children. 

In response to Cohen’s “remarkable” address to the faithful, the ADL posted a list of selected individuals it demands be stricken from social media. It is, by the ADL’s own admission, “hardly an exhaustive list” of people who “should have been removed long ago.” 

The list is topped by the poster boy of antisemitism, David Duke, and followed by a host of others, including Louis Farrakhan, Richard Spencer, Gilad Atzmon, Kevin MacDonald, Israel Shamir, Gordon Duff, Kevin Barrett, and others. 

Atzmon and Shamir, both Jews, have written extensively on the behavior of the Israeli government, criticism you will never see in The New York Times. Neither have called for the mass extermination of Jews, lampshades made from Jewish flesh, or a long queue of naked and shivering women and children at the crematoria. 

But you don’t need to advocate genocide of Jews to be treated the same as a Nazi guard abusing inmates at a concentration camp. All you need do is criticize the murderous behavior of a racist Zionist state in order to be considered a card-carrying Nazi.

Note that none of the people mentioned by the ADL have called for the mass extermination of the Jews. Some are certainly harsh in their criticism of Israel and Jewish individuals, but this is a far cry from actual violent antisemitism. 

Tennessee, South Carolina (home of rabid pro-Zionist Nikki Haley), Illinois, Alabama, Colorado, Indiana, Florida, Virginia, Arizona, George, Iowa, New York, New Jersey, California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Arkansas, Texas, Minnesota, Nevada, Kansas, North Carolina. Maryland, Wisconsin, Louisiana, and Kentucky all have laws forbidding your constitutional and natural law right to boycott Israel.

The ADL and other Jewish groups are pushing hard to sanitize social media. They may begin with David Duke and Louis Farrakhan, the most obvious targets, but the purge will not stop there. 

The FBI has made it crystal clear—if you believe “alternative facts,” especially those concerning Israel and the Jews, you are a domestic terrorist. 

And since the implementation of the Constitution-negating PATRIOT Act, we know how the state treats suspected terrorists. 

Another Day in the Empire