Gab grab bag.

Parler is fighting for its life now after being cut off at the knees by Google, Apple, and Amazon, fearing that the president of the United States (for two more days) will flee to that platform. So I've established a profile with my handsome Vitamin Fred icon on Gab's site now. 

As I wrote when I joined Parler back in October, "I always entertain hopes that my blog might entertain others, and maybe even entice them to try one of my novels," and I thought that the site might help me do that without enduring the firehose of horror that is Twitter.  

Now it's become more than that, though. For years I desired to keep this blog free from political content beyond some light satire. I never intended to write fiction for political purposes, hoping to entertain any reader. I would prefer to write funny stuff about food and dogs and middle-class life and post goofy cartoons every day. But I was raised by libertarians and conservatives and liberals to love free speech, even when I don't like the content, and the cancel culture that's gripping the West is an abomination to everything for which our nation stands. Books are being forced out of publisher's lists or literally out of stores; persons are not only attacked but their families and livelihoods threatened. The only law these victims have broken is the law in some dillweed's imagination that says YOU CAN'T SAY THAT, although everything in our culture and history is meant to say we can. Meanwhile, our totalitarian enemies around the world smile.

The weird thing is, the Left used to garb all kinds of things as political speech -- comedy, obscene music, getting naked in public -- as political speech to prevent its being banned. Now the very speech they most seek to ban is political speech, and of course everything is political when you look at it through blood-colored glasses. The kind of speech that conservatives are apt to censor is very narrowly defined -- obscenity, threats, slander and libel (especially of private citizens) -- but if you remove all that I think half of the world's Tweets would disappear.

This all makes it sound like I'm using Gab for firebrand purposes, but no -- I just want to help support a free-speech centered company that believes in the user's privacy and doesn't support the Leftist mobs. A lot of people feel that way, and the Gab servers are being somewhat overwhelmed as I write this. I'm sure it will all settle down soon, and when Gab becomes popular enough to pose a threat to Facebook, the tech oligarchs will come after it as well.

Meanwhile, should you decide to join up, look for your friendly Fred Key on the site and let's have a gabfest. Hey, talk is not only cheap -- it's free.

Parler games.

Their quarry cornered, Twitter, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and even Pinterest have decided to make Donald Trump a nonperson by refusing him access to their platforms. 

And just in case, they are delisting Parler, expecting Trump to flee to the same free-speech app that I joined a couple of months ago. 

I noticed that on Sunday Parler had refused Apple's ultimatum to knuckle under to their enforced censorship codes, and thus the Parler app was removed from the App Store.

Little pipsqueak of a nobody that I am, I sent Apple a note suggesting they develop an A.I. soul to replace the one they lost when they betrayed the founding principles of the nation. I also suggested that they have made their tyrannical friends in China very happy. 

Apple can be awfully stubborn. Last August the wildly popular Fortnite game decided to try to cut Apple out of their in-game purchase money by using an independent system. Apple promptly bumped their app off the store as well. Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, promptly released a parody of the famous Apple 1984 commercial, showing Apple to be the tyrant it now is. Epic is suing Apple, and also Google, but they have Facebook on their side. In the meantime, the Epic app is still off the store.

Parler has got to sue its opponents on Constitutional grounds and hurry. If they don't, they will be destroyed before they've even begun. If they give in to pressure, they will be nothing but Twitter Junior, and who needs that? 

Like it or not, Parler is a test case going forward for whether our tech oligarchs will get to decide who can say what in this modern era. I hope they give it to their opponents good and hard and fast, or we'll be living under a censorship as fully as any Chinese mainlander does. Fortunately, it sounds like Parler is planning on a fight, and God bless them if they are.  

In an era where our speech is considered violence and their violence is considered speech, we have no choice but to fight this battle. Personally, I'm too old to learn Newspeak and I'm not going to now.

UPDATE! As noted in Comments, Amazon has thrown Parler off its AWS, so the app and the Web sire are not working. Pardon my francais, but this is a shit thing to do by any measure, and I can only pray for a Republican blitz in 2022 that will lead to a Congress that will start busting these trusts to bits in a way that would make Teddy Roosevelt flinch.

Step into my Parler.

 Some of you may know -- since it brought you here -- that I joined Parler. 

Why would I do such a thing, when I have thus far eschewed all the other social media platforms? Well, the reason I decided to try Parler is that I always entertain hopes that my blog might entertain others, and maybe even entice them to try one of my novels. 

The problem is that Parler only has about 2.8 million users compared to Twitter's supposed 330 million and Facebook's 2.6 billion. 

But Parler is devoted to the exercise of free speech. Therefore, Parler is not dedicated to hosting the mobs who moo as one to destroy the lives of people who say things they dislike. And Parler itself does not go about silencing the voices of people who might -- just as a hypothetical -- post something embarrassing about its preferred political persons while promoting the voices of those who make wild claims about persons it dislikes. 

As Mark Steyn often says, if you don't believe in free speech you dislike, then you don't believe in free speech. There was a time when that bald fact might be enough to shame Leftists who shout down and threaten political opponents, but no more. To them it seems power is the only principle, and all other principles are only speedbumps to be run over, torn up, paved over. 

I hope very much that Parler sticks to its guns, and that its membership continues to grow. It will take quite a lot more Parleyers to get to the point of cascading popularity, where people go on the platform because so many people they want to follow are on the platform. 

Twitter looks invincible now, but so did MySpace, AOL, and Yahoo, once. 

So come drop by @Vitaminfred if you're on Parler and say hi. Hell, say whatever you want. It's a free country -- so far.