To Helen gone!

I'm not one to go tooting my own horn, as you know. I'd much rather bribe someone to toot my horn for me, and then act all embarrassed about the tootage. Oh, please, you make me blush!

Nevertheless, I wanted to put up a post today about Helen's Page, upon which I have signed for a trial basis.

Dr. Helen Smith, author of Men on Strike and, in her spare time, Mrs. Instapundit, has decided to take the cultural challenge of canceling to heart -- and fight back. Since prominent Internet platforms are deleting books and events and even persons that might get in the way of El Narrativo (in Mikeski's term), she has begun her own media page -- Helen's Page, "A Happy Place for Liberty-Minded People to Meet." 

So I created an account there. It's not much yet, mostly a means of displaying my novels and a link to come here, to this marvelous blog, whereupon one might click on those links to the right and peruse the wares. I'd like to support the page and help get people more interested in it, even if they don't want to buy my books.

We know that approximately half the known universe follows Instapundit, or should, so that's a lot of people who might check out Helen's Page. I hope more people join up, and we can make this bigger than Etsy, Craig's List, Angie's List, Huffington's Post, Drudge's Report, and Stiiv's Bunk! (Yeah, I know I got them wrong and one of them doesn't even exist. "Drudge Report" -- ha.)

Wish me luck, but mostly wish Dr. Helen luck -- this is her "Build Your Own Platform" moment, and with the other platforms becoming cancel culture mouthpieces for monothink, or being canceled themselves, we need more platforms "for Liberty-Minded People." 

There's a report on NBC that quotes a senior Department of Homeland Security official saying that "DHS plans to expand its relationships with companies that scour public data for intelligence" (you know which companies those might be). "'The idea is to identify people who may through their social media behavior be prone to influence by toxic messaging spread by foreign governments, terrorists and domestic extremists,' the official said. 'We want to Identify the narratives that are emerging, assess which narratives are likely to incite violence, figure out what targets are likely and then take steps to mitigate the risk.'" 

The ostensible cause for this plan is not the rioting last year that killed 25 people, injured hundreds, destroyed livelihoods and caused millions (if not billions) in damages; it's a handful of unarmed knuckleheads who got into the Capitol on January 6. The idea is that the government, which knew Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa of Colorado was a problem and did nothing to stop him before he murdered ten innocents, is going to put people on a no-fly list (among other things) for Liking the wrong things on Facebook. I think it's safe to say that if this had been a Trump administration initiative, you'd have heard the screaming on cable news in the Kuiper Belt.

In other words, Helen’s Page is about more than getting some books in front of eyeballs. This is about creating space on the Internet for a free citizenry to enjoy basic freedom of political expression without fear of reprisal. We need a lot more of that.