How insane are you if you are willing to share a platform with officials from North Korea, the Taliban, Russia, China, and pretty much every evil regime on the planet, but not a former President of the United States?

The government of Iran just condemned 15,000 women to death–the parliament actually voted to kill them for protesting and not wearing hijabs–and they remain on Twitter. The Taliban are perhaps the most repressive regime in the world, and they are on Twitter.

Liberals are fine with that. Hunky dory. Not a problem in the world with sharing the platform with any of these folks. They have done so for nearly two decades.

But CBS News actually left Twitter when Trump was reinstated. Because Twitter had become unpredictable. Or something. It was an “abundance of caution.”

They returned, of course, because most Twitter users are addicted–and Twitter drives traffic. But they had to make that statement that Orange Man Bad; Orange Man worse than Putin, Xi, the Taliban, and the Iranian Mullahs.

CBS News says it’s halting posting to Twitter out of ‘abundance of caution’

pic.twitter.com/z0fGN2WPI0

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) November 19, 2022

Abundance of caution? What did they expect, a Twitter mob to assault their reporters with differing opinions all of a sudden?

There is absolutely no rational explanation of what the threat to CBS News is, was, or could possibly be by being on Twitter. This is performative–a signal of disapproval. Either they are spreading misinformation by lying to you about why they temporarily left Twitter or they are clearly insane and in need of hospitalization.

I choose to believe they are liars, not psychotics. This seems the more generous interpretation, and I see no third option.

Monitor what situations? What security concerns? https://t.co/aKvCWr9MnI

— David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) November 20, 2022

If anybody can explain to me what possible security concerns–rational security concerns–could be associated with posting to Twitter I would like to hear them. Clearly it has nothing to do with raising the profile of their reporters and staff in the public eye because these people are on TV–everybody already knows exactly who they are. What additional threats would posting on Twitter possibly create?

This is the behavior of deeply troubled, even mentally ill people, if they actually are telling the truth. My charitable interpretation is that they are liars.

CBS shared the platform with these people from the government of Iran with no security concerns:

Plus the Taliban, North Korean government officials, the Russian government and officials (whom every one of these people despise as war criminals), and countless other hateful people.

Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League–an organization that Elon Musk invited to participate in their board to set standards for conduct on Twitter, had a hissy fit:

Keep in mind that Farrakhan followers, the Ayatollah and a host of other Antisemites routinely post hateful things on social media. We need the @ADL and everyone else on Twitter to stand up to that hate, and avoid partisan politics in the fight against Antisemitism.

— Joel M. Petlin (@Joelmpetlin) November 20, 2022

I did something that few people apparently have done and went to Twitter’s official explanation for why Trump was suspended from Twitter, and took a screenshot to provide a simple summary. The accusation was that Trump incited violence through using Twitter, so I wanted to find out precisely how he did so and how they interpreted his tweets. Here is their summary:

I am having a difficult time finding a “glorification” of violence in those Tweets. Honestly, I cannot. In fact, if you look at the final two tweets on President Trump’s account prior to his being booted they are:

Now I suppose there could be a secret decoder ring that could unravel these tweets and turn them into “storm the capitol and kill Mike Pence,” but without that decoder ring it is difficult to see any incitement, or anything even close to that. “No violence!” must be code.

Putting things into greater perspective, here are some reactions to the Trump reinstatement from supposedly smart people:

I do not intend to share a platform with Donald Trump again—at least not more than I have to. I will not exit Twitter entirely, as I have Lawfare content to promote and Twitter is useful for many things. That said, I don’t plan to spend time here any more for purposes other

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) November 20, 2022

Wittes is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute with over 400000 followers on Twitter. He is fine sharing the platform with the Taliban and the Mullahs in Iran, but Trump is too far for his moral sense to bear. Is this the sign of a person with a functioning moral compass? Whatever you think of Trump, believing he is worse than the Taliban and Iran is deranged.

Literally deranged. As in insane.

Dude thinks that the first thing that Trump did now that he's back on Twitter is harass him from an anonymous account. pic.twitter.com/z7Xk1Tp12f

— Leftism (@LeftismForU) November 20, 2022

And who is Peter Gleik? A prominent think tanker and global warming scaremonger with 96,000 followers:

Could a rational person believe that the former President of the United States–who was reinstated on Twitter with his very own account–spent time to create an anonymous account to tweet “homo” at him? A PhD, hero to the Left, and he believes Trump returned to Twitter to tweet “homo” at him.

Yep. He thinks it might be so.

Ergo he too is deranged and belongs in an institution to find the appropriate set of psychiatric drugs. There are literally hundreds of prominent Leftists having hissy fits over Trump’s being allowed on Twitter. Some are demanding that Twitter be removed from the App stores of Apple and Google because Trump can be read on the platform.

Trump is a dangerous, far-right politician who has a history of inciting violence. 

He must not be allowed to use social media to preach hate and further fuel the politics of division. pic.twitter.com/YxEpppvaT4

— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) November 20, 2022

These are all supposedly serious people who have far more influence that people like you and me. These, in fact, are the people who deplatformed the President of the United States prior to Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. They have enormous influence over what you are allowed to see, to read, and even say.

And they believe in the moral superiority of Iran’s government to any Trump supporter, or at least to Trump. The have no problem with the Taliban celebrating kicking girls out of school, the murder of gays, and the torture of thousands. But Trump is a bridge too far. They apparently believe that literal misogynist killers of women, children, and gays are just fine to associate with, but deplorables are not.

At least they claim to. Not sure which is worse. Believing this, or pretending to for political points.

It clearly shows a sense of proportion that is broken. How broken? Hatred for Trump and Musk is so high now that a Lefty Warnock supporter with 200,000 loyal followers thinks that Elon Musk has decided to starve his employees to death by denying them free lunches. We are supposed to take these people seriously. Really. We are.

He fired 3/4 of the employees. Now he’s planning to starve the rest of them. He’s failure incarnate. pic.twitter.com/elL8N3D2CB

— Andrew Wortman (@AmoneyResists) November 12, 2022

Ironically, at the time that Trump was banned from Twitter most of the world leaders admired by the Left–few of whom had a moment’s time for Trump the person or leader, understood what the Left apparently did not: shutting down the speech of legitimate political leaders is a terrible idea. World leaders such as Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron pointed out the obvious: having a tech platform being able to silence political leaders they dislike is deeply damaging to democracy.

Yes: not allowing speech is anti-democratic. Silencing people is the real danger.

Beyond AMLO, numerous leaders who disliked Trump – including Germany's Anglea Merkel and France's Macron, along with EU officials – warned of the grave threats to democracy when Big Tech oligarchs can ban elected leaders like Trump from being heard:https://t.co/wk4HLo76J6

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 20, 2022

This used to be conventional wisdom, even obvious. Back the 1970s the Jewish lawyers at the ACLU fought to ensure that the Nazis could have their say. Not because they approved of Nazis, but because they rightly disapproved of using the tactics of fascism. The Nazis were allowed to march, and…somehow Americans didn’t embrace them.

What a shock: letting hateful people speak doesn’t make the rest of us hateful.

You cannot believe that democracy is a good form of government if you simultaneously believe that people are incapable of distinguishing between good and evil. If you believe democracy is threatened by freedom of speech, as apparently the Left believes, then one cannot believe democracy is a good form of government.

The Left, as much as they claim to love democracy, clearly believe that unless they are the only ones who can speak, democracy is actually a threat. Democracy without freedom is just another word for tyranny. Their tantrum demonstrates both their dangerous mental illness and their totalitarian impulses.

Unlike Lefties, I don’t support shutting people up because I dislike them. I even think that AOC, Maxine Waters, and Kathy Griffin–deeply unpleasant people who are allergic to the truth–should have their say. Even CBS News does, hard as that is to believe. Even MSNBC. Really. They do.

I don’t fear disagreement, or even disagreeableness. Planning or inciting violence are illegal and should be shut down, but short of that speech should be free.

The Left disagrees. They will go to almost any length to shut up people they dislike. Including lying and throwing temper tantrums.

Elon Musk, at least, has retained his sense of humor during the tantrum throwing. When CBS slunk back on Twitter after their hissy fit, he tweeted out:

Our love will never die pic.twitter.com/y5SldfAAt0

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 21, 2022