[ExI] Nobody can say we weren’t warned

[spike]

>… Behalf Of John Clark
Subject: Re: [ExI] Nobody can say we weren’t warned

 

On Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 12:18 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net> > wrote:

 

>>> ​… what do you think that's code for?

> ​> ​…I hear that comment a lot, but no one can produce a consistent code book.

 

​>…You don't need to be ​Alan Turing to figure out Trump's code book… John K Clark

 

 

Ah, so this is where we end up: assigning any arbitrary meaning to any words a candidate utters, a meaning dictated by anyone, and we may attribute that meaning to the candidate.  We end up in a most bizarre Newspeak world, where the candidate’s words matter not; the real meaning is found in an arbitrary codebook never published.  In this case, a candidate’s adversaries get to write that candidate’s secret codebook and control its contents.

 

I call nonsense on the whole notion.

 

But I can do better than that.  Consider the case of Sam what’s his name, the swindler on probation who decided to go into the movie business.  When the attack on the embassy in Benghazi took place, our own government officials were desperate to find ANY cover story anywhere to deflect the blame for that, so he was the hapless schmendrick who was assigned the blame, a guy who made a video that no one had ever heard of and one that made no sense.  I viewed it as long as I could stay awake: it made no sense to me, it wasn’t anywhere close to anything having to do with the attack in Benghazi.  Afterwards, the US government went about apologizing for something it did not do and cannot control, which had nothing to do with the matter for which it was blamed.  

 

Our own Attorney General made comments that sounded a lot like if people make internet videos that incite violence, they can be prosecuted.  OK then, if anyone posts a video one does not like, one can incite a riot, then claim that video caused it (hey, if the US government can do it, then others can do it.)  This sounds a lot like buying evidence against one’s own political adversaries.  Everyone on this list has read posts by someone who suffered serious legal sanctions for a trumped-up charge where the evidence was purchased.  Anyone here could suffer the same fate, if speech really isn’t free.

 

The notion of covert meanings and a secret code book leads to all manner of societal chaos.  Any speech could be assigned a secret-code meaning and declared illegal after the fact, having resulted in violent rioting, even if that riot had nothing to do with the presumed encoded meaning.

 

The notion itself is a full frontal assault on our cherished first amendment.

 

spike

 

ps: there are no secret codes anywhere in the previous commentary, none.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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