With the events of the past week concerning the capitol and the president that we've all seen to some degree or another, what I'm about to say is already obvious. But since I had already planned to write this article, I'll go ahead and say it anyway. Content warning: I'll be speaking much more bluntly than I normally do regarding both the gospel and the country. Given the topic and the times, this is no time to mince words.

No doubt your first question is what does the title refer to? Two items: the 2020 presidential election was stolen, and since you're not allowed to say that (on social media anyway), free Speech is dead in America. Or if not completely dead, it's hanging by a thread, and corporate America and silicon valley are awaiting the next pretext to snip the fraying thread. How did I come to this conclusion about free speech?  It became apparent when Twitter locked my Rational Faith account for speaking the part of the gospel no one - particularly pagans - want to hear.

It started with a twitter troll trolling my account. Based on his profile page he likes trolling accounts of Christians - insulting them and blaspheming God - to see if he can get the accosted person to block him. He boasts a number of accounts he annoyed enough to block him:

So I said, okay, I'll play. For every insult or blasphemy you send, I'll send a scripture verse. We'll see who tires of this first. He'd send stuff like "Your God is Fake" and I'd send stuff like Acts 13:10 "You're a child of the devil..."

Now as I stated in Evidence is for believers, Not Mockers, like Jesus, I don't bother trying to present evidence to mockers. (The "why not?" is explained in the article). I go straight to preaching the gospel - including heaven and hell, repent or burn. Twitter was fine when I said (based on John 3.18 and John 3.36) "Those who reject Jesus, the son of God will not see life. You will burn in the fires of eternal damnation. Repent!" (As you can see that tweet is still available). They were also fine with (based on Matt 23.33 ) "How are you going to avoid being condemned to Hell? Unless you repent you won't. Repent!" Also still available. This went on for awhile back and forth, but I'll spare you further details. The point is the Twitter censors had no problem with these statements.

The problem came when I said, an equivalent statement. Big Tweet had a twit fit. Based on Ps 14.1 I called him a fool. I followed that up with a very clear description of hell - eternal damnation. Based on Dan 12.2 I told him:

"God calls you a fool. If you don't repent, one day you'll wake up to everlasting condemnation. Then you'll realize not only are you a fool, you're a damned fool. Serious words. Words Christians don't use often, but will apply to you unless you repent."

So apparently in the Twitter book for censors, telling someone you will burn in the fires of eternal condemnation of hell is okay, but telling them "you'll (future tense) be a damned fool" who will wake to "everlasting condemnation" is not okay. So as Twitter did with the Washington Post and the Biden laptop story, and then with President Trump (for "repeated and severe violations" namely saying things they don't agree with), they have effectively locked me out of the account. They hid the tweets and are refusing to let me back into the account unless I myself delete the "offending" tweets.

That's an interesting tactic. Remember, the tweets are no longer available. You can't see them if you go to the account If you check, you'll see a number of missing tweets with the message: "This Tweet is no longer available." But not being happy with that, they want me personally to delete the tweet. (Here's the demand.) Now why do you suppose, having already deleted the tweet from public view, that Twitter wants me to personally delete the tweet? Could it be that like the grand inquisitor in Scorsese's anti-Christian film "Silence" (which I review here) that they're trying to extract a denial of the faith?

I, along with other conservative thinkers, believe Twitter is trying to control not only what you say, but what you think and do. They want you to be an obedient peasant and do what the tech overlords demand. Former mayor and attorney to the president Rudy Giuliani says:

"They're going to try to take away our right to discuss God."

Conservative commenter Dinesh D'Souza takes it further:

"What Jack Dorsey is doing is manipulating conversation"

Both are correct. Like Big Brother, Twitter wants to control what you say and what you think. Because that determines what you do. No one is exempt. Not even the president of the United States. Certainly you 've heard of all the social media platforms that are either outright banning him or severely restricting his access:

As they're doing with President Trump and many other conservatives (who are having followers removed by the thousands), they're increasingly doing to Christians what Dinesh has pointed out: trying to control the conversation. They're trying to determine what you can say and what you can't say. Apparently Twitter is fine with blasphemy, but has a problem with stating the condemnation coming to unbelievers clearly taught in scripture, or the fact that scripture calls them a fool, so they want me to delete it.

Which of course I refuse. I will not delete a proclamation of the truth because it offends the Twitter censors. So that account: @rationalupdates, is effectively locked out.

Which brings me back to my initial point: What's more obvious than the fact that evolution is false? The fact that social media companies are censoring Christians, conservatives, and anyone else who doesn't agree with them.

Not satisfied with controlling speech on their platform, they want to control it everywhere - on other platforms as well. The tech oligarchs are trying to shut down free speech on the alternative platform Parler. Apple has removed their app from their store, and Amazon their current server host (as of this writing) is trying to force them to use the same draconian censorship rules they follow or will shut down their servers (which they probably will have done by the time you read this) - forcing Parler to find another host - which they say will take a week or so.

The writing is on the wall folks. Free speech is dead. If you preach the gospel, you must do so in prescribed terms. And don't you dare talk about stolen elections or voter fraud. (Even if you don't support the president, as a Christian, scripture requires you to support what's fair and right - which includes elections. (Lev 19.15, Prov 1.3, et. al.)) We, your tech overlords, don't care about the massive evidence [1]. We determine U.S. policy regarding speech now, not congress, not presidents. No doubt the overlords will find fairy tales like evolution, the Easter bunny and Santa unobjectionable. Truth is quite another matter. So our concern: what comes next?

So what does come next? First it would be good to recognize that we should have believed Biden when he claimed that they've put together "...the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in history of American politics". Given that, it is appropriate that we believe them with regards to how election thieves, beneficiaries and those who support them say they want to move forward. We should believe them when they say they're coming after those who oppose them. They've talked about making lists - yes back to the days of the black list. And a Truth Ministry, and "cleansing"  the country (where have we heard that term before?) of the president and his movement. And they've already started discussing what you must "confess" during your public humiliation if you supported the president and want to be acceptable in society.

In case you haven't noticed - the tech giants have become tech tyrants. They're doing the same types of things that caused the Pilgrims to flee England all those years ago: denying free speech, next up is freedom of religion, and other rights right on down the line. Do I sound alarmist? If so ask yourself - would you ever have believed even five years ago, that American corporations (American! mind you) would have colluded to silence the sitting president? And that they are now colluding to silence any opposition? Mene, Mene Tekel and Parsin (Dan 5.25).[2] Again I'll say it: the writing is on the walls folks. Even if the president manages to fix the mess of the stolen election, our stolen free speech will likely be an issue we'll be dealing with for some time to come.

So what to do next? History tells us after they take free speech, they start looking to silence dissenters. (Thus the Truth ministry.) Well, no need to allow them to use your own media accounts for their witch hunts. On my part, I already cannot say what I want online. I will be deleting my personal accounts from Twitter and Facebook (I never liked Facebook anyway) shortly. If you stand for free speech, and the right to preach the gospel in the manner in which you see fit, and don't want to be subject to the whims of media giant tyrants after they finish their current purge, I recommend you do the same. Along with one other thing:

Make up your mind what you will do if challenged to go against your firmly held beliefs ahead of time. Now would be a good time if you haven't already. Consider the prophet Daniel and his friends. In addition to their strong faith, I believe one thing that allowed Daniel and his friends to stand up to Nebuchadnezzar was they made up their minds ahead of time.  They "resolved" (Dan 1.8 NIV) before they were challenged, what they were going to do to stay obedient to God. They didn't leave it to the last minute. They made a firm resolution; which helped motivate them, and kept them from shrinking back, allowing them to live honorably before God. The example is also in Joshua: Choose ye this day whom you will serve. (Josh 24.15) My advice: don't leave the choice as to whether you will always stand for the truth, to be decided at the last minute. Decide ahead of time what you'll do when they ask you to deny the gospel - or any other truth.

In passing, the @rational_faith_ account below is a new one created so tweets could continue to be shown on the website. Follow it if you'd like. I likely won't create another on if this one gets locked. (In case it goes silent.) You can find us on Parler at RationalUpdates

Duane Caldwell | Jan 11, 2021
Follow @rational_faith_
(Note the new Twitter account)
 

Notes

1. Peter Navarro, The Navarro Report: The Immaculate Deception: Six Key Dimensions of Election Irregularities, https://navarroreport.com/ 12/15/2020
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2. I could do an entire series on this chapter, but that would be going off on a tangent. Let me suffice it to say, and to remind people one of the clearest points that comes through in this chapter of scripture. That:

   "...that the Most High God is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and sets over them anyone he wishes."  Dan 5.21

God will put whom he pleases in the highest office of this, and every country. That does not mean, however, that we do not need to seek justice and fairness in the land in which we live.
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