{"id":2442223,"date":"2019-03-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=302623"},"modified":"2019-03-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T06:00:00","slug":"strike-up-the-banned-you-cant-say-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/strike-up-the-banned-you-cant-say-that\/","title":{"rendered":"Strike up the banned: You can\u2019t say that"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I had just come off my third Xbox Live ban \u2014 this one for two weeks \u2014 after some Twitch streamer goaded me into saying a naughty word while I was getting beat by 30 in \u201cNBA2K19.\u201d<\/p>\n

If I had put as many hours into learning a new language as I have the \u201c2K\u201d franchise, I would be starring in a pig latin adaptation of \u201cSons of Anarchy.\u201d This is, of course, not to include the language that spawns the rainbow of insults you spontaneously generate at the television before you punch it, like \u201cs\u2014 on my \u2014-,\u201d and \u201cwhy don\u2019t you go \u2014- a f\u2014?\u201d I\u2019d like to buy a vowel, Pat.<\/p>\n

And like many conservative personalities my ability to broadcast or send smack talk messages to randos at halftime was silenced. Xbox party chat is the only way I communicate with most of my old friends anymore, because teaming up in \u201cRocket League\u201d is more masculine than ringing them up after four months and yelling, \u201cHey bro, whatcha doing?\u201d A few of them have even hit the house-wife-baby trifecta; good luck ever seeing that guy again. And now a service that I\u2019m paying premium rates for is taking this away from me? From us?<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s when my cellphone started blowing up, which in today\u2019s nomenclature means buzzing and beeping at the same time \u2014 signaling that a random person on the internet had provided me with a quantum of gratification.<\/p>\n

In this instance, my response to a \u201cBlue\u2019s Clues\u201d meme was racking up the likes and retweets, driving everyone around me crazy for the next 24 hours as my phone chirped and shuddered nonstop while I basked in the virality of a dirty punchline made at the expense of a children\u2019s TV show where a doofus in a mismatched outfit pretends to run in place and talk to a cartoon dog.<\/p>\n

I use my Twitter account mostly as joke storage for when I inevitably overcome my lethargy long enough to craft a stand-up routine for open mic night at Red Onion. Being that I only have 22 followers, I\u2019m not too worried about anyone stealing my content or judging me if I decide to recycle a one-liner in real life. I\u2019ve been trying to post bits to Facebook recently, but either I\u2019m shadowbanned or being throttled by Facebook\u2019s \u201cFake News\u201d feed algorithm, because I get little engagement despite being completely certain that I\u2019m very funny.<\/p>\n

I tried using online notepad apps to record my thoughts and prayers but they keep getting hacked. I\u2019m no Geek Squad nerd, but I suspect @SeanBeckwith. Except I know he\u2019s a very honest man because all his social handles are his exact name, and you wouldn\u2019t risk doing anything overtly offensive with that kind of flex.<\/p>\n

Which is why I save the spiciest tweets for my burner account (no, I\u2019m not Steve Cahn), but regardless, I would have thought including my handle in the tagline of Writing Switch enough times would have gotten me real human followers instead of just anime and Spotify bots (@bwelch1990). I\u2019m a local celebrity, OK? You should follow me. Ben at Local Spirits somehow manages to remember my name.<\/p>\n

In this hyper-sensitive age of peppering every sentence with \u201csorry\u201d and ending all emails with an enthusiastic \u201cthanks!\u201d it\u2019s important not to trigger the mob that will either try to deplatform you or take away your livelihood. When you consider that innocuous phrases like \u201clearn to code\u201d are now bannable offenses online, it makes life easier to just use a throwaway account instead of offering limp-wristed apologies for every \u201cmean\u201d thing you utter. I say \u201csorry\u201d about as often as \u201cLet\u2019s watch \u2018The Avengers\u2019\u201d and \u201cI love you\u201d \u2014 in other words, never.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world will be difficult, and we do nobody any favors when we coddle them to the point that they never hear criticism or hear a harsh word or have to face any adversity,\u201d Scott Van Pelt said on ESPN\u2019s \u201cSportscenter\u201d ironically the night I was writing this. Freedom of speech is more than smug comments that \u201cthe First Amendment only applies to government\u201d; it\u2019s a moral imperative. The concept is that speech we as a society find abhorrent will filter through and be judged by the marketplace of ideas, as Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote about in Abrams v. United States. It\u2019s not Twitter feminists insisting everyone they disagree with is a \u201cNazi\u201d and that \u201cyour rights end where mine begin,\u201d as if the self-evident truths the Constitution holds includes a pair of government-issued earmuffs.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a weird guilty-by-association movement en vogue. \u201cHitler was a great admirer of George Washington,\u201d the thought police will say, as if Mount Vernon held swastikas instead of keys to the Bastille. Elmer Fudd also was a fan of No. 1, what\u2019s your point?<\/p>\n

Sillicon Valley has taken it upon themselves to enforce this PG-rated culture of mandatory kindness with heavy enforcement on loose definitions such as \u201charassment.\u201d Many countries \u2014 and I\u2019m not even talking about China and North Korea \u2014 have banned entire websites, stifling speech that the overlords have deemed \u201churtful\u201d or not \u201cprogressive\u201d enough.<\/p>\n

Even here in the United States, some citizens are completely insensible by the liberties we\u2019re afforded in terms of what we\u2019re legally allowed to say. \u201cHate speech isn\u2019t protected by the First Amendment\u201d is my favorite assertion that pseudo-smart people insist; nevermind that they\u2019re 100 percent wrong.<\/p>\n

My so-called friend, who went to an actual second-rate law school, called me \u201cso f\u2014ing dumb\u201d during an argument in which I attempted to convince him there were no U.S. regulations on the books against hate speech. He even tried to evoke the eleventh commandment: Thou shalt not yell \u201cfire\u201d in a crowded theater. Do you even have any idea where that\u2019s from? Hint: It\u2019s closer to a Buster Keaton movie than the Declaration of Indepedence.<\/p>\n

Another good one is \u201cFreedom of speech doesn\u2019t mean freedom from consequences.\u201d Yes it does! That\u2019s the very essence of freedom!<\/p>\n

In a startling Gallup survey of 3,000 college students last year, respondents answered that diversity is more important than free speech by a 53 to 46 percent margin. As if diversity can even be achieved when everyone\u2019s opinions are sieved through the zipper of your Big Brother-imposed gimp bodysuit.<\/p>\n

All right, that\u2019s enough of this gobbledygook. Have I reached my word count yet? I miss Sean yelling \u201ctrash!\u201d every other sentence but this week he just had to attend the \u201cDiners, Drive-Ins and Dives\u201d Cosplayers Convention. Check back next week as we return to normal unhinged programming.<\/p>\n

Benjamin Welch is banned again on Xbox Live until April 6. After that, send him party invites by searching gamertag PoseidonzKiss.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had just come off my third Xbox Live ban \u2014 this one for two weeks \u2014 after some Twitch streamer goaded me into saying a naughty word while I was getting beat by 30 in \u201cNBA2K19.\u201d If I had put as many hours into learning a new language as I have the \u201c2K\u201d franchise, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2442223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 21:52:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2442223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2442223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2442223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2442223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}