Earlier today, I got sucked into this wormhole:
Which led to this article of mine that was sorely missing context:
Later on, reporter Greg Price helpfully provided a longer clip for context:
The Daily Caller notes:
Survivors of the Club Q shooting, activists and others testified Wednesday about anti-LGBTQ violence before the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
Porter said the phrase "groomer" is a "lie" used to position members of the LGBTQ community as a "threat."
"It denies them access to public spaces," Porter said, before asking one witness whether Twitter allows posts calling people "groomers."
That claim right there is ridiculous on its face. Even though the Club Q shooter identifies as non-binary, she's trying to make it seem like conservative Christian Americans are looking to lynch the first gay couple that steps into their restaurants.
Don't just take her word for it: Biden was out there this week trying to push that narrative too.
Rep. Porter is making some underlying logic claims that run something like this:
- Evil people are trying to stop peaceful LGBT individuals from expressing their "identity."
- They do this by calling LGBT individuals involved in things like, you know, secretly teaching kids about gay sex in classrooms, "groomers."
- These labels make the public think that all LGBT individuals are criminal pedophiles and leads to the mass murder of transgender women of color everywhere.
The focus, of course, is on Twitter's policies because leftists in Congress desperately want their information-laundering and censorship hub back online.
Human Rights Campaign (HRC) president Kelley Robinson said Twitter does not allow users to call people "groomers" but claimed Twitter doesn't enforce the ban. Robinson then said phrases like "groomers and pedophiles" are used "to describe people … that are mothers and fathers … It is dangerous."
Just a note that everyone in the hUmAn riGhTs Campaign are raging wokies who want to use political power to force people to follow their cult.
Robinson then argued the phrases are meant to "dehumanize."
"You know, this allegation of ‘groomer' and ‘pedophile,' it is alleging that a person is criminal somehow and engaged in criminal acts merely because of their gender identity, their sexual orientation, their gender identity."
There we have the quote in question.
Here's the full clip so there's no misunderstanding:
With a little bit more due diligence, I wouldn't have been sucked into the misinformation wormhole that tricked a bevy of conservative voices.
So in the end, I jumped the gun along with many others.
(I guess this gunslinging outlaw is only human.)
That said, this followup analysis is not just to rectify my error – it's to note how misinformation on the Right actually works, and it's a great example of why everything Katie Porter says is wrong.
See, the conspiracy theorists of BlueAnon – you know, those people who want to censor you for election denial when they are still raging about Hillary's big win in 2016 – think that conservatives adopt the same mob mentality the Left has when presented with a story.
They think that people like Libs of TikTok are fanning the flames on purpose so that conservatives will go out and kill a bunch of LGBT people in a mass riot that burns, say, $20 billion of homes and businesses in cities around America.
This is why Rep. Porter is so concerned that conservative "misinformation" about LGBT agendas in school and society reached "72 million people." She's making the case that if this wrongthink isn't censored, that LGBT people are going to be literally shot up in public spaces.
The problem is, that's only how misinformation works on the Left. When, say, a black criminal high on enough drugs to kill a horse has his heart give out resisting arrest... but there's a favorable camera angle that makes it look like a cop lynching, the Left will use that narrative as a tool to destroy their enemies and take power.
Because the Left, by the core of its Marxist ideology, sees the world through intersecting categories of power struggle, it assumes that conservatives will use the power of narrative in the same way.
They assume that all the Ultra MAGA types are breaking out their ARs to shoot up anyone with a rainbow flag as we speak, because that is what they would do if they were in our position.
In other words, they are deflecting.
In reality, what happened was that I – and, judging by some emails I got, a fair number of you – realized the context proved the original story to be sensational. You then thought critically about the wider context and the argument that was made, and probably came to a similar conclusion that this woman is using a nightclub shooting to justify censorship of her political opponents.
After this, you are now more informed – heck, you might even talk about it with other people [GASP!] and freely discuss ideas [DOUBLE GASP!].
This is because conservatives believe in objective truth and accountability to a higher power, not in might-makes-right methodology meant to enact perpetual revolution.
Respect for truth and fear of God gives you the tools you need to navigate these information wars reasonably and rationally.
