Dakota Beacon

A while back I wrote an article in which I observed that even a broken clock - in this case, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - could be right once in a while.  At that time she was right about the city of New York making deals with Amazon, bargaining for jobs in the city.  She was right then and, much as I hate to say it now, she is right again.  She said something about the bill to ban TikTok didn’t “feel right”.  Last time I agreed with her I got permanently banned from American Thinker because, as they told me, “their audience” (apparently whom they think incapable of critical thought), would not tolerate anyone finding anything Ocasio-Cortez said having merit.

This time I have to agree again, American Thinker’s audience notwithstanding.  Indeed, something about the TikTok ban bill doesn’t “feel right” to me, either.  Maybe part of it is who is sponsoring the bill - “Mr. Warner, Mr. Thune, Ms. Baldwin, Mrs. Fischer, Mr. Manchin, Mr. Moran, Mr. Bennet, Mr. Sullivan, Mrs. Gillibrand, Ms. Collins, Mr. Heinrich, Mr. Romney, and Mrs. Capito” , as well as, among others, Kevin Cramer - inspires skepticism automatically, together with general misgivings about the government in Washington having the power to control anything more in our lives.  

I am, for the record, not a fan of TikTok.  I think it is worse than a waster of people’s (especially young people’s) lives and a place where everyone can plant the seeds of his own humiliation later on.  It is undoubtedly gathering data for the CCP.  This I do not want to see either.  But this bill, like so many others, including those inspirations of misguided and/or treacherous Republicans, such as George W’s “Patriot Act” also plants seeds of destruction of our freedoms.

While we are being told that this is a great idea to save our kids and promote national security, the price is unacceptable.  Built into this bill is outlawing VPNs, spying on us by our own government and this is all under the control of, well right now, Joe Biden’s government.  Which makes you feel more threatened - being spied on by the CCP or being spied on by your own government?  I would take the former for now.  Your own government can throw you in jail in the blink of an eye and we have learned by now, if nothing else, that there is no longer such a thing in America as due process.  Not that this would help you under S.686, because your right to any kind of privacy on your phone would be dissolved.  

So, once again, the usually wrong Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is right.  I hope that there will be a strong push-back against this horrible bill.  And once again, I would have to say, “look who’s promoting this”.  No one I would want in my neighborhood.  This is a draconian mess of a bill.  It MUST BE STOPPED.  

Please take a moment to call your senators (202-224-3121) - including "Democrat-lite" Kevin Cramer (who has been wrong about nearly everything since we put him in office) - and urge them under threat of losing forever your support at the polls to vote against this bill.  

We need to look at ways to deal with our problem with the Chinese, but we need to beware lest we become China.  Too often we find that what is going on in China today is introduced here tomorrow.  Let’s not go down this route.  

When exercising our right to privacy turns us into criminals it’s time to put on the brakes.