After over a month of back and forth with Facebook, excuses, different messages, error messages (like the one above) and being told “It’s A Wonderful Life” commentary violates community standards, I can (which means YOU can) once again share Ethics Alarms posts on Facebook, at least today.

And believe me, I’m going to share the hell out of them.

Just thought I should let you know.

ADDENDUM: I just got back from walking Rugby…

…in the melting snow, and had a chance to muse further. This episode has angered me, and I will not trust Facebook (though I never have), and more importantly Facebook users, including my alleged friends. Someone tried to silence me online, and that was just an escalation of what I have witnessed from Facebook’s majority for more than two years. They have used their “likes” and “angry face” emojis to try to indoctrinate the public into ideological conformity, weaponizing what was once a friendly platform for civil conversation and the exchange of information into a hostile environment for anyone not inclined to toe the partisan line. In this new and oppressive echo chamber, the response to good faith efforts to correct media misrepresentation and civic or historical ignorance is to gang-swarm the intruder, and, as the old Chinese saying has it, beat down the nail that dares to stick out. For the most part, it works.

Well, not with me. I had the honor and luck to be raised by a man, the best, bravest most honest I have ever known, who was a lifelong iconoclast, rebel and contrarian, though he was also always pleasant about it and never blamed people for being less perspicacious than he was. (I’m working on it, Dad…) I saw him pay the price with a frequently interrupted employment record, few close friends, and a loss of some lucrative opportunities that would have required him to compromise his principles, which were never for sale. I also say him live his life without ever regretting his intellectual independence and courage under fire for a second.

I’m not forgetting what they tried to do to me and Ethic Alarms over the past two months. The gloves are off.