There is no freedom in the West

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose

For several weeks, protests against Israel's campaign in Gaza have been ongoing at several American universities and a few European ones. It's basically the same crowd of leftist students that protested for Black Lives Matters, for abortion or for other popular causes (but not against Covid lockdowns).

But while those protests were accepted and even cheered by the establishment, and hardly anyone was arrested, now the police is coming in full force against the students. Some are being expelled from the university. Other have lost their jobs. A few were gassed or beaten up.

It must have been quite a rude awakening.

These are people who were brainwashed from childhood that the world is divided between “oppressors” and “oppressed", so when they see unarmed women and children being bombed by a superior army, they naturally respond with indignation.

But now they find out that, in this case, things are not so simple anymore.

It is clear right now that are things you're allowed to protest against — “white supremacy", “patriarchy", the Church — and things that you are not — vaccines, immigration, Israel.

The protesters are being accused of being “anti-semitic", but I doubt that they really are. Most of them support most Jewish causes and I am sure there are a few Jewish students among the protesters too (although a large part is likely of Arab origin).

Politicians keep telling us that we have “freedom” in the West. In a way, it's true.

For instance, a man in Canada recently was free to ask a doctor to amputate two of his healthy fingers because of “body dysphoria". He thought he was an amputee, so, using modern language, this was an “amputee-affirming” event.

Amputation is now a “highly satisfying curative treatment", according to doctors.

Another man was also free to declare himself as “non-binary” and to create an artificial “vagina”, but he also wanted to keep his penis just in case, because he wasn't sure which “gender” he belonged to. So he obtained that right. And he even got the government, I mean, the Canadian taxpayers, to pay for the surgery.

Meanwhile, also in Canada — one of the countries closest to being a modern liberal utopia — a physically healthy 27-year old autistic woman was also free to take part in the government's “MAID” program — a cute acronym for “Medical Assistance in Dying” — against the wishes of her own parents, because, otherwise, according to the authorities, she would suffer “irreparable harm.”

Death can prevent “irreparable harm", it seems.

So you're “free” to do any of those things in the modern Western world. Also to abort, smoke marihuana, and get married to your pet.

But try to protest or even post something against verboten topics, and see where that takes you.

Digital Slaves

A few days ago, Amazon terminated my Kindle Direct Publishing account, where I self-published a few books, with no reason or warning. They just sent me an email informing that they believe I violated their “Terms of Service”, although they did not specify in which way. They cancelled my account, deleted all my titles from Amazon, forbade me to ever opening a new Kindle account, and are not even going to pay for the unpaid royalties that they owe me. I can't even access my previous sales reports.

I wrote several emails asking for more information as to why I was “canceled”, but got no answer. There is no way to contact them by phone either.

Since I didn't publish anything particularly divisive, and all titles were either under my own copyright or works in the public domain, it is unclear what I did wrong.

I never made more than 30-50 dollars a month from those books, so it's not a big deal. But it sobering to find out that they can just delete all your work in a matter of seconds, under any excuse.

I never liked Amazon very much for the way they destroyed first local bookstores and now all kinds of local shops, but when you see how little they care for publishers who use their platform, it's quite a shock.

The poor get poorer…

…and the rich get richer.

For the moment, I will be moving the books to Barnes & Noble and Apple Books.

However, the same is true of any other digital platform. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple. They can just close your account at any time for any reason. In the digital world, nothing belongs to you.

And that’s just the start.

You might remember that during the anti-lockdown protests in Canada, Justin Trudeau froze the bank accounts of several protesters. So they already can do that. But as the world moves to a digital currency, things are going to get worse. They will be able to just take away all your money with the push of a button, for any reason, just like Amazon did with my KDP account.

The European Union is already moving into the direction of banning cash. There's already a law being considered that would ban all individual cash transactions over 3,000 euros. The excuse is “terrorism", but we all know the score.

But hey, at least you are free to amputate any body part you want.

Freedom's just another word…