The ever evil power of the media preceding the Jan. 6, 2021

A democratic system heavily relied on the free speech to communicate and to allow all points of view to be heard. Censored media will put death to the democratic system, no matter how you try to justify it.

To make point for the above statement, we need to start with a look into the human nature. Even though there are this philosophical arguments as if human is born as angel or born as evil. But that is not as matter as how a human can be turned into one.

Let's begin with the question of "How moral a people can be, before the power and fortune?". How many people can resist the temptation? In the past, due to various reasons, to a large extend, Americans have less been enticed to corruption. However, with the world now getting tightly connected, more and more American have been lured and enticed to corrupt. To a large extent, this can apply to a large part of western civilizations.

Just on the surface, we already saw many Western companies, bent to various pressures and requests just to be able to enter the mainland Chinese's business market. Many of those pressures and requests were considered outrageous and unethical in the western culture and companies wouldn't have tolerated them if they were in the western countries. However, many accepted them and entered the Chinese market.

This is of no small matters. This demonstrated that how moral a person can be when facing temptations. The very important point here is how would you know a person have been compromised? What if, the person been compromised has great power? Person of great power can cover things up easier and can also corrupt or defame other people with ease.

The bottom line, however, is that no people or media on the earth can be trusted. Because they are all prone to corruption!

Why shouldn't media or social media involved in censorship?

One thing a lot of us are familiar with is the idea that under 'working' democratic system, no one should take laws into their own hand. Why? BECAUSE NO ONE CAN BE TRUSTED! If we think carefully about this, labeling and bullying people is basically the same thing: You use your single judgment on people. Social media when censored, is accounted the same as labeling and bullying but at a much more forceful level. It applied its own judgment on people. Who gave them that rights? People can easily labeling other people as destroying the democracy but who define the democracy and who gave them the rights to define it.

Blocking posts on forum is a censorship. So is closing and terminating accounts on social media. The other form of censorship is the biased reporting by news media including intentional ignoring.

How would censored media put death to the democracy, you may ask?

Many scenario can lead to the destroyed of the democracy. But if we just look at what happened in the China, it can show you just how bad it can be. When the Chinese government did something bad, citizens will not heard about it because all media are censored and not many people will know about it and the critical mass of protesting will never be reached. What's worse is the crash of the protest will also go un-heard. The people of power would now have nothing to fear and they are going to abuse their power.

Why the riots in China or other places?

Many people may not realize that many riots are occurring in mainland China everyday. The only things is that these will never be real 'riots' since there never have enough people get involved. But there are riots nonetheless. Why there are riots in China?

When people encountered obstacles or problems, the civilized way is to report them and, may be go trough the court/government to resolve the problems. At least in China, of cause, anything that tied to the powerful officials will not be resolved in this way. When the courts do not work, people will, no doubt, try to get their side of the story heard, which, with censored media, is not likely to happen. It is these despairing situation that lead to the riots. We all know, when people feeling hopeless, life is no longer a concern and desperate strikes will occur.

The wisdom of the right to bear arms!

Why on the earth, as a great constitutional country in the world, the Constitution explicitly allowed the bearing of arms? Because, the Founders of the Nation knew the system is not perfect and there are chances the system could be breached. At that point, the Founders trusted the people will prevail the justice.

Holding to a arm doesn't do few people any good. In fact, even if a gang of people holding guns will not do them much good. Besides, why will you bear an arm in a democratic system when the system suppose to provide ways to resolve problems. The things matters, however, When a lot of people can not resolve their issues through the system. This is reaching to the point of hopeless and desperate of the massive.

What media, and social media can or should do to be more fair and provide channels for sharing issues, solicit ideas, and forming consensuses and work groups.

First of all, democracy allows and encourages work groups, for whatever it worth - be it a good or a bad - As we have known, the bad at a time can be a good at a later time. Look back at the era of segregation, the bad idea of Claudette Colvin can be a good later. That is the strength of the 'free speech' and democracy.

Here are just few idea of mine, which, I think, can and should be implemented for media, forum, and social media - I am sure, people can and will come up with more and better ones.,

1. Media should provide comment areas that allow 'all people' to express their opinions.
2. For now, like and dislike voting should be implemented for each comments and the article itself.
3. For now, provide filtering for user to find the most like, the most dislike, ...etc.

The idea behind these suggestions are the following. Democratic system encourage communication as a way of resolve conflicts and, therefore, provides a stable society. Resolving issues via communication requires people to express to their heart's content without reservation. A censorship would prohibit that. The stability of the solution comes from the the consensus of mass. Through the process, people engages in reasoning, fact finding, and persuading. An unpopular idea in the beginning can have the chance to survive in the end. The like-dislike voting only server to classify the idea at the minimum level. More sophisticated classification can be sought, e.g. tagging. The filter mechanism allows user to read about the opposite idea and has a chance to be persuaded. A major implication of this approach is that there is no blocking or censoring.

The Jan. 6, 2021

Looking back at Jan. 6, 2021, this is the fail of the democratic system when people turn out in mass feeling desperate. In a 'working' democratic system, these grieves should have been channeled through various media, social media and court systems. Instead, Facebook, Twitter, and major media censored the contents and courts joint in denying the present of evidence. All of these caused the massive grievance desperate for resolution and a the point it reached the state of bearing arms. When this point is reached, it is the failed of the democratic system, the one to blame is not those who gathered in front of the capital, but the media, the social media, and the courts that have failed the system. Don't say the Constitution has been broken, it specifically allowed bearing arms. Do not blame Mr. Trump. He is not my hero. But if he can persuaded that many people, he have good enough reasons. Don't mis-judge our citizen, they are not that easy be persuaded without enough evidence.