Around the world, very much including the Western world, real power is measured by the ability to silence criticism.

The highest reaches of power are measured by the ability to force people to speak in politically-approved ways.

Every modern effort to crush free speech begins as a crusade against "disinformation." China's massive Internet censorship apparatus was initially justified as an effort to control the spread of false information, and the Chinese state still describes it that way.

Censors begin by claiming that they only want to control the spread of deliberate falsehoods and push back against propaganda campaigns. They always begin by saying their primary concern is disinformation spread by hostile foreign powers. China constantly says that to this day.

The definition of "disinformation" begins to expand as the censors seek more power. Soon they aren't just going after DELIBERATE falsehoods pushed by malevolent conspiracies - they're suppressing everything from honest mistakes to predictions and "wrong" opinions.

It soon becomes clear that the censorship rules - like all other rules in totalitarian societies - are not applied evenly. The ruling party and its friends are judged much less harshly than dissidents. They get far more latitude to make unfounded statements or outright lies.

The censors move on, suppressing not just "disinformation" or demonstrably false statements, but even completely true statements that lack some vital "context." The censors declare that even pure truth is deceptive when it's not packaged and delivered "correctly."

Ever since 9/11, we've been instructed that tiny minorities of extremists are solely responsible for their reprehensible actions. There was no greater sin than blaming law-abiding people who share some of their beliefs.

That's how we got the "lone wolf terrorist" cliche. A great herd of lone wolves swept across the world, each completely isolated from anything but the most direct support for their heinous deeds. "Tiny minorities of extremists" were blamed for "hijacking" the beliefs of millions.

The Western world did backflips to completely firewall the actions of terrorists from the larger bodies of people they claimed to represent. We hired a legion of consultants to show us exactly where the line between extremism and legitimate belief was drawn.

We wouldn't even name the adversaries of civilization. We declared a "global war" on their methods, to avoid criticizing their beliefs. The Obama administration launched a huge, expensive "Countering Violent Extremism" initiative that pointedly treated extremism as generic.

The greatest of pains were taken to draw very sharp and bright lines between violent extremism and even the most provocative and incendiary acts of legitimate speech and political organization. This was true of the race riots in the Obama years, as well as terrorism.

Every crisis becomes a religion if it lasts long enough.

One factor in that transformation is the Beautiful Theory phenomenon: the power elite insists its remedies are logical and politically correct so they MUST work, even if the actual evidence shows they obviously don't.

In the space of half a year, a new class division was ripped through American society: those who can live normally through pandemic lockdowns and restrictions versus those who can't. The two sides have a great deal of difficulty communicating across that chasm.

Of course, media and political elites are, at worst, inconvenienced by lockdowns, so news coverage is heavily slanted against the people who are really suffering from these policies. They're already as forgotten as the designated losers of globalist trade policy.

Spend a day watching mainstream media pandemic coverage, then spend the evening with people whose livelihoods have been utterly ruined by pandemic restrictions. It's like traveling from the Earth to Mars. Completely different worlds, totally different outlooks.

It's exactly like the divide between "free trade" winners and losers, people living in comfortable financial and media bubbles vs. people living in hollowed-out ghost towns with skyrocketing mortality rates. The Wuhan virus gave us a new, even bigger class of Designated Losers.

The new class divide cracked open along some economic and social fault lines that were already present and deepening, such as the growing number of people who preferred minimizing human contact while socializing online. It really is the social schism of the new century.

The liberty and mobility granted to average people by cheap gasoline and home energy is absolutely infuriating to socialist central planners. They need you people to stop moving around so much. You keep scuttling their glorious five-year plans.

How do you explain the Trinity in Chinese? If you're a Christian in Tang China, there's a few ways!

I'm @ChenHuailun, back for my last #Twittistorian thread, this time on translating the names of God in Chinese Christian documents. ~ahc #jingjiao 1/

There are two main writers/translators credited in the extant documents of the Christian (called 'Jingjiao' 景教 in Chinese) corpus of Tang China: Aluoben and Jingjing. ~ahc #jingjiao /2

Aluoben (阿蘿本) was said to have been the Persian missionary responsible for bringing Christianity to China, arriving in Chang'an in 635 and building a church there with 21 monks. ~ahc #jingjiao /3

'Observing the azure clouds, he [Aluoben] bore the true sacred books; beholding the direction of the winds, he braved difficulties and dangers.' - Xi'an stele ~ahc #jingjiao /4

Let's pause on this name, Aluoben (阿蘿本). Some translate it as 'Olopen.' Is it a Syriac name, perhaps a rendering of Yahballaha or Abraham? Or perhaps a Middle Persian name Anōš-ruwān (meaning immortal soul)? ~ahc #jingjiao /5

BRITSH ARMY HEADCOUNT REDUCTION (Thread)
Looking back at personnel cuts made in 2010, a reduced Army of 82,000 didn’t help Britain regain its financial strength, it simply signified a hollowing-out of our ability to defend ourselves.
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It destroyed the credibility of David Cameron’s Coalition Government then and even more so in hindsight. It was military illiteracy on a grand scale. The problem wasn’t so much the reduction itself, but the fact that there was no real strategy behind it, no future plan.
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Back in 2010, the UK's involvement Iraq and Afghanistan didn’t really serve our national interests (See Ben Barry’s book). If these conflicts were sub-optimal uses of the Army, they raised the important question of what the Army’s underlying raison d’être should be.
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We hope the Integrated Review will provide a concrete response to this. In the meantime, the Integrated Operating Concept has been much talked about, but we have been left in the dark about what it signifies in terms of strategic priorities and a reconfigured force.
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The resulting strategy will obviously be threat-driven with Russia, China, North Korea and Iran representing near-peer threats and Islamic terror groups in Africa and the Middle East posing an asymmetric threat. This suggests a mix of high-end and light forces.
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Happening now: President Cyril Ramaphosa has taken to the podium to deliver the #SONA2021 before a hybrid sitting.

#SONA2021 | Ramaphosa briefly commemorates the release of the late former president Nelson Mandela from the Victor Verster Prison in Cape Town in 1990.

'It was clear that freedom was tangible.'

#SONA2021 | Ramaphosa likens the country's resilience to that of the fynboos.

"We have risen time and time again from the depths of darkness to herald a new day."

#SONA2021 | Ramaphosa hails the efforts of front liners and essential workers amid the raging coronavirus pandemic. We have made mistakes but we have also stood together.

"It is a story of solidarity and compassion."

#SONA2021 | Ramaphosa: This year is about change, progress and rebirth.