Who's Your Daddy?

The Risks of Entangling your Bank Account with your Free Speech

I watch a few YouTube prepper channels, but not as often as I used to. Lately, a lot of them spend more time talking about their “suspensions” and “flagged videos” than they do prepping. They use code words and hand gestures to talk about vaccines and gun control and Russia. They’re brave warriors when it comes to fighting the future onslaught of hungry hordes that will, one day, come for their gardens but they’re complete wimps when it comes to using words.

Apparently, the “bad words” they all avoid are triggers for the AI super-bots that run YouTube. Using these words, apparently, could result in weeks of virtual penalty-box time, or worse - deplatforming!

Oh, my! The horror.

I’m losing patience with these channels.

While they speak in code, railing against the systems of control, they remain simultaneously suckled to the teat of the very beast they rage against.

Why do they do this? I think the answer is simple: Monetization.

The need and desire for money has the ability to make slaves of us all.

If we let it.

Image from learningmind.com

I got an email this morning from a blog I follow stating that they had decided to put up pay-walls, thereby dividing the paid subscriber from the free subscriber. “Another one bites the dust,” I said to John upon reading the email. At least 3 blogs I follow have gone paid this week and I can’t help but feel disappointed.

I’m not disappointed in the writers, personally. We all have bills to pay; we all want our writing to be appreciated and valued. We all need to eat. I get it. But I also see the risks involved in tying your free speech to your bank account. YouTube is just an example: Say the wrong thing, get punished. And the most effective punishment is usually financial.

This kind of smack-down is becoming increasingly common.

Maybe you see it, too, or maybe you don’t. So many of us are stumbling blindly into the digital age where everything is tied and linked to everything else. While the majority of people interpret this trend as “convenience”, inside the rest of us, alarms are raging against a dark future of total control.

Let’s take a look at some events of late and see if we can connect the dots. We’ll look into my crystal ball together. I promise you, this trend of monetization isn’t leading anywhere good. We need to stop and examine it before we, unwittingly, exchange our sovereignty for a few pieces of silver.

Let’s go.

If you were around when YouTube began, you probably remember how you could search anything and spend hours down a deep rabbit-hole of truly fascinating information: aliens, the Federal Reserve, WWII revisionist history, lizard-people, CIA involvement in the 60’s counter-culture movement, whether Rosa Parks was a plant from NAACP, flat earth… anything. Some information you found was completely ludicrous and other information, although surprising, wasn’t.

Maybe your world view shifted or expanded; maybe it was completely shattered. Either way, it changed you.

Because you’re an adult with a functioning brain and the power of discernment, you investigated these topics with keen interest and an open mind, seeking to establish a personal plumb-line of truth. You weighed the information against logic, reason and intuition. Sometimes you talked to others about what you found; sometimes you kept it to yourself. The point is, the world was yours to explore and you did.

Well, not anymore. My, how things have changed.

As we found out with Covid (yep, I said it C O V I D!!!!!), information that did not align with the official CDC guidelines was deemed harmful and dangerous. No longer were you, an adult, trusted to weigh all the information and make an informed choice. In fact, you were discouraged from even looking at alternative information (watch as Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand PM, says the government should be your sole source of information). Likewise, Forbes agrees: You Must Not ‘Do Your Own Research’ When It Comes To Science, Forbes, 7/30/20

Turns out research is dangerous! Amazing, we survived this long…

In fact, we were inundated with the same narrative from every main stream source of information for three years (and still are). Their method of pushing the narrative was to repeat, repeat, repeat and drown out or outright suppress alternative views. And they did it with gusto!

First, they used the carrot and stick method. The carrot came in the form of free donuts, hamburgers and “Joints for jabs” - because they care about your health, remember?

The stick came in the form of being banned from travel and going to certain places and events. Lastly, it came in the form of employer mandates: Jabs for jobs.

And, with that, your pay became tied with your compliance. At least ours did.

John and I experienced this first-hand. At the time, he worked for an airport (Federally regulated) and I was a contractor for a company that had Federal contracts. Fortunately, we saw the writing on the wall and jumped before we could be pushed out. Of course, we could have filed for religious exemptions, but our protest wasn’t religious. It was about freedom of choice - the freedom to use our minds and freewill. The freedom to possess our own bodies.

Since when do we need our employers’ permission for this?

We examined the available information - both sides - and made responsible decisions that were right for us. In the end, we refused to go along with the lie we saw unfolding before us and, to petition an exemption based on “religious reasons” would have been yet another lie. In essence, we’d need to lie in order to get an exemption not to participate in a bigger lie!

Kinda makes your head spin, right?

Instead, we decided to retire early. Our decision to “retire early” wasn’t easy. We’re not loaded and we hadn’t planned on retiring almost 10 years earlier than is typical. Frankly, it hurt - financially and otherwise. But we’re still luckier than some. And it was a lesson - a warning of what’s to come.

Let’s look at some other examples…

Do you remember, not so long ago, the Canadian Freedom Trucker Convoy that took place back in 2022?

If you don’t remember (where have you been??) it was a movement initiated in response to Trudeau’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates for truckers.

This movement garnered support for truckers and their families internationally, as news spread across online platforms. Images of shouting crowds holding banners on overpasses as honking convoys of trucks rolled beneath them flooded the internet. The movement was passionate; it was earthy and organic - supposedly (I’m a cynic, remember?) But even I found myself getting teary-eyed watching the videos.

Supporters donated millions to the Truckers’ Go-Fund Me page, which was eventually taken down as Go-Fund Me refused to pay out. I won’t go into the details here - it was complex and it was a long time ago (in internet years), so I don’t remember exactly how it unfolded. You can research it, if you’re interested. But here’s what I do remember… the bank accounts of people who donated money to the movement were frozen.

Yep. The supporters’ accounts were frozen.

That should scare you.

Trudeau enacted the Emergencies Act in response to the protests. “The powers granted by the act would allow banks to target the accounts of people who have donated to crowdfunding platforms, like the fundraising campaigns on GoFundMe and GiveSendGo, that have fueled the ongoing protests…”. Banks Have Begun Freezing Accounts Linked to Trucker Protest , Newsweek 2/18/22

The Act froze the bank accounts and credit cards of the supportive “offenders”. Basically, it shut them out of the financial system. It didn’t warn them or ask permission.

The system had their account information and punished them for wrong-think.

Hopefully, you see the escalation here. While the Jabs for Jobs mandates said, “Participate in our BS-of-the-day or else”, the Emergencies Act took it a step further by declaring it a subversive act to support anyone not participating in the BS-of-the-day.

That same year, PayPal caused a stir when someone noticed a line in its policy stating that spreading misinformation on the platform would be subject to a $2,500 fine. After PayPal Revokes Controversial Misinformation Policy, Major Concerns Remain Over $2,500 Fine Forbes, 10/22/22

Yet another source: PayPal pulls plan to fine customers $2.5K for promoting ‘misinformation’ NY Post, 10/09/22

PayPal tried to backpedal when vast numbers of customers began closing their accounts (myself included). The so-called Fact-checkers came out in force to defend PayPal as they claimed the policy was “still under review” and was “accidentally published” and other such nonsense. The policy was there, though, in black and white, just waiting to be enacted.

Further, PayPal is now partnered with the Anti-Defamation League:

"This innovative partnership between ADL and PayPal encourages us to think outside the box when fighting evil," said Sindy Benavides, CEO, LULAC. "We hope to see more private and public partnerships such as these to help raise the social awareness of the public to the dangers that exist in plain sight. Attacking these hateful groups' revenue sources weakens their reach and exposes just how unstable they truly are. The data and research collected from experts will help organizations, like LULAC, inform their strategy to combat evil. We congratulate these organizations and will continue to stand alongside them against hate." PayPal Partners with ADL to Fight Extremism and Protect Marginalized Communities, ADL Press Release 7/26/21

Hate and Evil. More often than not, I’m seeing these words used to describe those not in line with main-stream thought. This is a dangerous precedent that even David Sacks, Co-founder of PayPal warns about:

“I have no desire to defend genuinely hateful or extremist groups. Indeed, when I was COO at PayPal, we regularly worked with law enforcement to restrict illegal activity on our platform. But we are talking about something very different here: shutting down people and organizations that express views that are entirely lawful, even if they are unpopular in Silicon Valley.” Get Ready for the No Buy List by David Sacks.

As you can see, the stick method works, unless enough people refuse to participate. Unfortunately, most people usually go along.

On an international scale, the US Government demonstrated the stick method when they issued financial sanctions against Russia. Germany and other Western allies banned Russia from using the SWIFT system to facilitate cross-border money transfers. Germany and Western allies agree cutting Russia out of SWIFT, Reuters, 2/26/22

Basically, they were able to put Russia in the penalty box because they held the purse.

I believe we’re watching this overreach of power backfire, as more nations clamor to be a part of BRICS and drop the US dollar like a hot potato. But that’s another crystal ball…

As the US dollar declines, emphasis is turning to the implementation of CBDCs as “the solution”. Yet, with CBDCs, everyone becomes a self-censoring YouTuber.

CBDCs will be tied to a Social Credit system that tracks your purchases and approves or disapproves them according to your personal activities. It has no concern whatsoever for freewill or Constitutional Law.

Here’s Agustín Carstens, general manager of the Bank for International Settlements, explaining what can be accomplished with CBDC technology:

This is where we’re headed. Every one of us.

Every step we agree to take along this road toward merging our freewill with our finances makes it easier for the eventual implementation of CBDCs. Once we’re there, there is no turning back.

I hope you pause to consider the ramifications of entangling your finances with your free speech. Even on Substack. For now, I appreciate platforms like this because I can say all of this to you, freely.

But YouTube used to be that way, too.

Until it became monetized. That’s the carrot. That’s the hook.

The carrot always seems beneficial - it’s “good for you”. The carrot is Universal Basic Income; it’s a stimulus check - it takes many appealing forms. But the carrot always morphs into the stick.

And the stick is there to assure that you keep jumping through the hoops - even the flaming ones - because, now, you’re dependent on that carrot.

In my experience, Substack is full of folks who speak from the heart and aren’t afraid to think, but what happens when all that pesky, habitual thinking starts to impact your pocketbook? Will you still say the words that get you flagged? Will you write the words that get you put in the penalty box? Or will you limit your voice to what has been deemed acceptable and profitable?

I suppose for those who never say anything controversial anyway, this isn’t even a relevant topic. For those of us who see the train coming, however, and are shouting at others to steer clear of the tracks, it’s a real consideration. Or it should be.

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb

When you allow yourself to become dependent on a thing, you allow that thing control over you.

Be careful.