The Sassy Trucker Saga
Some people have asked me if I’m the Sassy Trucker.
My answer is no.
The Sassy Trucker is a TikTok influencer who talks about what it’s like to be a woman in the trucking business.
She had recently traveled to Dubai where she got in a car accident in her rental car.
Apparently, she breaks glass ceilings and windshields.
While returning the car she got into an argument with one of the employees who then called the police.
The police arrested the Sassy Trucker because it’s illegal there to shout, curse, and be too sassy.
She was reportedly facing up to a 2-year prison sentence for shouting?!
Insane!
The US State Department and her representatives — Senator Cruz [R] & Congresswoman Lee [D] — did some talky-talk to help her get out, but what our federal government should’ve done decades ago is enact a Censorship Sanction (aka a tyranny tariff) where we tax nations 5% to 10% that prohibit free speech.
I much prefer my upfront systematic approach to foreign policy where we hold every nation to the same minimal standard rather than our ongoing reactive approach where we hold every nation to differing standards based upon monied interests.
If we coupled my sanction with MASSIVE energy production then this would pressure authoritarian regimes to lighten up.
After being barred from leaving the country for three months, she was then allowed to leave after paying a $1361 fine.
Some people think the US government shouldn’t have spent resources trying to get her out, but the fact is they aren’t just doing it for her, but for every American tourist thereafter because when any country in the world thinks about pressing frivolous charges against us they should have to think twice.
I think it’s disgraceful that the world runs so much on American dollars, defense, and digitalization yet there’s about 20 countries that have more powerful passports than us, which ironically, the UAE’s passport is considered to be the best.
Some people are also quick to assume Ms. Sassy Trucker was in the wrong, but we don’t know the full story because the UAE doesn’t have a free press so in such a situation I think the morally responsible thing to do is to err on the side of believing the victim of an authoritarian regime, which in this case she and her lawyers said the car rental place tried to scam her out of thousands of dollars by refusing to give her back her passport and credit cards, which if this is true then she did the right thing by standing up for herself no matter how sassy she might have been.
My fellow conservative Matt Walsh thinks she shouldn’t have gone there because they don’t offer the same “privileges,” but as Americans we shouldn’t ban ourselves from more than half of the world or even from more than half of our own country. Why is Mr. Walsh promoting cowardice? If anything we should say to our people to go forth and explore! Beware the dangers. Take precautions. Be respectful, but also don’t let people take advantage of you. And worst case, if sheik goes south then in between trying to protect the rest of the world America will within reason step forth to your rescue.
With that said, not all censorship is bad.
Political censorship is bad, i.e. the government makes it illegal to criticize itself, ideologies, groups, political parties, and individuals.
The freedom to critique power is essential to all other freedoms.
Cultural censorship on the other hand can be good.
The government has a role to play in shaping our culture to bring out “the better angels of our nature.”
This can be done via ADDITION where the government educates and entertains the population via public schools, publicly-funded media, libraries, museums, community events, parks, etc.
This can also be done via SUBTRACTION where the government bans obscenity. The Supreme Court established the Miller test [1973] to determine when speech can be labeled as obscene and therefore be limited…
“The average person” would find the work to appeal to the “prurient interest.”
The work depicts, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions.
The work lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
We all support obscenity laws, including the founding fathers. It’s just a matter of to what degree…
Public intercourse? Illegal.
Public defecation? Illegal.
Public nudity? Illegal.
Highly revealing clothing? Mixed.
Drunk and disorderly content? Mixed.
Curse words? Legal.
Personal insults? Legal.
Shouting? Legal.
Obviously, we shouldn’t be as strict as Muslim-majority countries, but as conservatives we’ve become too tolerant of moral degradation, especially as it pertains to letting kids be exposed to it.
Every red state should use its Department of Cultural Affairs more aggressively to protect them…
Tax: Raise sales taxes on M/R/X-rated video games, movies, songs, social media, and online retailers in order to lower sales taxes on sporting goods, brick-and-mortar stores, and necessities. If you’re okay with disproportionally taxing alcohol, cigarettes, and sugar then you should also support disproportionally taxing “digital sugar.”
ID age-verification for offline (already exists) and online content that is M/R/X-rated.
Better regulate social media: If a company regularly fails to take down obscene and pornographic content for the under-18 crowd then they should be fined. In other words, if you support your state banning certain businesses or effectively banning them via regulating away their existence — gambling, prostitution, compensated surrogacy, payday loans, cannabis, fracking, fireworks, automakers selling direct-to-customers, ride-sharing, etc. — then you should at least be open to the idea of the state… not banning… but simply better regulating “digital slot machines” for kids.
Jiggle test: If it jiggles then it must be covered. Police officers could test civilians by making them walk a straight line and/or do 25 slow-motion jumping jacks.
Okay, I’m kidding about the last one, but otherwise what I laid out here allows for a lot of wiggle room since I’m only suggesting these policies be implemented by some states, which all of them already use taxes, IDs, regulations, and penalties to discourage a whole host of behaviors, but perhaps you don’t like the idea of the state increasingly encroaching upon the digital domain.
To which I say… WAKE UP!
Digitalty will become evermore indistinguishable from reality.
If you support limiting obscenity in one then you must support it in the other.
Sitting on your hands and yelling, “Turn!” isn’t going to stop postmodernists from driving us into a wall. We must grab the wheel! Yes, this involves force, but if you aren’t willing to use force to protect our kids in the backseat then don’t be surprised when we all go brain first through the windshield.