Even in the great Repubic of Texas, RINOs gotta RINO.
Tonight Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a “Republican,” issued a despicable and false statement smearing Gab as an “anti-semitic platform that quote “has no place in Texas.” This is the same Gov. Abbott who just five days ago said he was “taking a stand against Big Tech censorship.”
Gov. Abbott’s statement will likely not sit well with the nearly 800,000 Texans who have visited Gab.com in the past 24 hours alone. What is even more strange is that the Texas GOP itself is on Gab with a verified account.
Gab is not an “anti-semitic” platform. We protect the political speech of all Americans, regardless of viewpoint, because in this age of cancel culture nobody else will. That means unpopular viewpoints may be found on the site.
The enemies of freedom smear us with every name in the book because they hate America and they hate free speech. It’s a shame to see a GOP politician fall for this trap when conservative values are under sustained attack all over the country.
People smear Gab for the kinds of people we host. They never smear Gab for the kinds of people we ban. That’s because we don’t have political tests for our users. Ban decisions are made on an individual basis. Our test for political speech is whether it is legal or not. Pretty simple rule.
My own rule of thumb is even simpler: anything that can be expressed verbally, in print, typed, or scratched into the face of a rock—no matter how distasteful, obnoxious, or offensive—is protected speech, and shall remain strictly unmolested by official authority. Any government that fails to live up to that standard is one that has no claim on being a bastion of freedom of speech. Period, full stop, end of story.
On the other hand, I must admit that my longtime free-speech absolutism has been sorely tested in recent years. In fact, I now find myself in favor of at least two exceptions to my own rule, having concluded that Islam and Communism ought to be proscribed in any society otherwise dedicated to liberty purely as a matter of self-preservation. It’s a painful bind to be in intellectually, but in light of the existential destruction to the garden of liberty wrought by these noxious weeds in every time and place they’re permitted to flourish, I can see no better option than to throttle them early, before they fully take root.
There are many Jewish Gab users and customers, whose lawful speech we protect with just as much zeal as we would protect the lawful speech of any person of any faith, ethnicity, or creed.
This is what America used to be like: a place where The People could speak freely regardless of their faith, ethnic background, or beliefs. This is the America Gab is fighting to preserve.
Apparently Gov. Abbott doesn’t agree.
Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
March 10th, 2021
Jesus is King
Apparently he does not, which comes as a disappointment after his announcement lifting all state Fauxvid19 restrictions. Sadly, his duplicitous attack against GAB comes as no real surprise either, considering several other dubious things he’s said and done as governor. Nobody’s perfect, of course, and to expect anything even approaching perfection from any professional politician is the mark of a purblind fool. Even so, support for freedom of speech is about as fundamental as it gets, a complete gimme for anyone claiming to be a conservative.
With this maladroit betrayal of core principle Abbott has let the mask slip pretty badly, exposing his two faces in all their self-serving, double-dealing ugliness. Texans ought to see to it that he pays dearly for it, lest venomous belly-crawlers like Mitt Romeny begin to feel entirely too at home there and infest the place completely.
I agree with your rule of thumb; anything less, no matter how obnoxious, is not free speech, and Freedom of Speech is one of the pillars upon which this country is founded.
I merely note that the tribe is one of the primary proponents of Communism. Remember Bernie’s campaign that the gulags “paid a living wage.” And while not ALL Jews support it, a significant majority in the West sure do.
I support free speech for the commies and adherents to the muslim faith.
And dropping nuclear weapons on their countries at the first shot they take.
Tolerating and protecting the rights of Commies to use our own rules against us is what got us to this point, Barry.
As far as Muslims go… *shrug* Islam is right about women. *snerk*
Not nuking them is what got us here IMO.
Kinda hard to nuke the ones that were embedded in our society. That’s what backhoes and machine-guns were invented for.