We had been selling coffee mugs using a service called ‘Zazzle.’ I drew a cigar-smoking Pepé frog with the words, “Welcome to Montana.” We made small amount from each mug sold. Tina handles most of the marketing and sales and informed me that the coffee mug was canceled. Here’s the message she received:
How could an innocuous cartoon frog violate their content guideline? Because Pepé was just listed as a ‘hate symbol’ by the Anti-Defamation League. Apparently, Hillary and the left get to decide what is ‘hateful’ and what is not. This is how tyranny gets established. We know Hillary is a control freak. She wants everything rigged, choreographed and planned. In her favor, of course. She’s a Stalin-like sociopath who wants to edit the Internet. She wants to control the dialogue and free speech. Her ownership of the mainstream media isn’t enough. She wants to control the dialogue on the Internet, too.
Since Pepé was used in conjunction with pro-Trump posts on the Web, Hillary’s feelings were hurt. Something had to be done. Feelings are paramount, after all…not facts. Trump being smeared as 'Hitler' wasn't enough. Pro-Trump memes must also be stopped in their tracks. So now Pepé is being banned and that’s that. Nobody voted on it. The people have no say. It's the ruling clique that decides.
The green frog, originally created by Matt Furie, was utilized to convey emotional states. “Feels good, man!” is how he got started. There are hundreds if not thousands of images out there featuring Pepé in various incarnations. Sure, some Nazis added a swastika armband on him, but such instances amounted to only a tiny percentage. Hillary has focused on this tiny percentage to imply that all Pepé images are hateful. Even Furie himself blames ‘fringe’ elements and Trump. http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a49057/pepe-frog-creator-voting-hillary/
It’s all ridiculous, but also very dangerous. Hillary and her leftist ilk already control the media. They get to decide what’s a hate symbol and what’s not—not We The People. They want to decide what reality is. They run Barter Town. They tell us how it’s gonna be.
Hillary pulled a similar stunt regarding Obama’s fraudulent birth certificate. It was proven to be 100 percent bogus. Facts don’t seem to matter, though. Apparently, facts are now racist, too. The left quickly smeared anyone speaking the truth as ‘birthers.’ Birthers were then held up as ‘racists.’ We saw Hillary doing her finest virtue signaling during the debate. She loudly denounced Trump as a birther and racist. It's racist to hurt Obama’s feelings!
We’ve now reached a new and contemptible low level. Our First Amendment faces great peril from these tyrants. They are setting precedents about what hate speech is and their pronouncements can’t easily be ignored even though hate speech is legal in the U.S. That doesn't matter. There are Facebook bans. Google could pull the plug, too--my blog could disappear suddenly. They've already done that to others such as Milo Yiannopoulos. He was recently banned from Twitter because someone's feelings were hurt.
Soon, one might wake up and find that PayPal has pulled their plug—they will no longer be able to use it because something they blogged was deemed hateful. Think it can’t happen? It already has. It happened to Andrew Anglin. I despise that trolling manlet, but PayPal should not have banned him simply because he was using his free speech. Increasingly Twitter is also shutting down the voices who call out the left for their police state tactics.
If we keep going in this direction—and we will if Hillary is elected—expect more Americans to lose their jobs over perceived ‘hateful’ comments and symbols. The 1st Amendment may still be there, but too many will be rendered quiescent by fear. Hillary is willing to silence others by breaking their rice bowls. Why? More money, power and control for her, of course. Yes, she’s that evil.
Ben Garrison
