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Understanding the Tech Right
- rhelz 2y agoThis article did not help me understand the Tech Right. Back in grad school, I was a Libertarian and active in the Libertarian party. I get the desire for freedom. But the first example--Twitter amplifying views the tech right doesn't agree with--would not have been considered to be censoring free speech at all. We recognized the property rights of the owners of Twitter, they had the freedom to set whatever policies they want. Similarly, companies had the freedom to choose to or choose not to advertise on Twitter. If a company doesn't want to do business with you, libertarians of my era would not have seen any problem with that. Similarly, concerns with "woke" individuals or institutions, transgenderism, etc etc were entirely the concern of those individuals and institutions. We had no desire to change the laws to force governments to curtail individual choice, or to prevent institutions from setting their own admissions policies. IMHO, the author's seeing Tech Right as being akin to libertarianism is a misunderstanding. The Tech Right does not want to give companies or individuals freedom of choice; rather they want to coerce individuals and institutions into doing what THEY think is right, moral, fair, etc. That isn't libertarianism, it is authoritarianism.