Dear Uncle Sam,
I’m deeply touched that you care about my well-being enough to deprive over 170 million of my fellow citizens their right to freedom of speech, over seven million small businesses owners their inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, and a handful of political contenders a means of using a messaging platform to reach potential voters, all in the name of national security. I mean, seriously, I’m quite flattered that my favorite colors and birthday are considered sacred, that my purchase history deserves to be sanctified, and that you really don’t want people to be able to read about my latest spelunking adventure down at my local Y, while I ate all the clams I could stomach in one sitting upon the slippery slopes of Poonani.
And while I realize that already in the late afternoon of the nineteenth during the month of January, already there has been some declaration that my beloved TikTok may once again be seated upon my phone for my endless scrolling pleasure. But I must say, was all the drama really, truly worth this amount of spectacle? Was it necessary to being a revolution by shooting first, banning an innocent application, which caused the tsunami of TikTok refugees to embrace a truly Chinese application, Red Note?
After spending less than two days on this Red Note app, I’ve learned so much about Chinese culture. The wonderful foods, beautiful cities and spectacular countrysides views. I’ve been welcomed by an entire community of people, and despite the language barrier, we’re able to communicate—ya gotta love Google Translate! I’ve seen amazing technology in cars, household objects, and personal electronics. The Chinese people are not these evil, villains who are hellbent on propagating some Communist agenda— although, to be fair, I’m already as far left as one can possibly travel. That’s right, I’m an Anarchist. Rather, the country that claims 1.4 billion souls, has a people who are compassionate, friendly, and curious! And much to our surprise, these people aren’t working 16 hour days in factories, then training in some rigorous military after-work program, just foaming at the mouth for Americans to fuck up so they may strike us while we’re goofing off. No, these people have pets, they have social lives, they travel, create music, dance, and believe it or not, they have families too! But by far, I think the most interesting thing I’ve witnessed by using Red Note, is the fact that the Chinese people make roughly the same amount of income as an average American citizen. Yet seemingly EVERYTHING over there is much more affordable. I think you’ve got some explaining to do. I won’t even mention the two-hour lunch breaks that many people have during their normal business hours long day. Oops, too late!
But let’s be frank for a moment. Banning TikTok was never about anything related to National Security, was it? In fact, flying anything under the banner of national security is nothing more than a scapegoat, isn’t it? No, your true fear is us, the common, poor, and working class people, who power The United States of America just by going to work everyday, your fear is us learning the truth, the knowledge that we’re not special. We’re ordinary, in fact, we’re lagging behind the rest of the world! And now that we know some of the truth, we’re angry. We’re interested to learn more, uncovering all the lies that you’ve fed us since we were all little children. And don’t give us that “You can’t handle the truth!”, bullshit. I assure you, we certainly can. In fact, I believe that the truth really is that, your time is up. You shall no longer be the Man in charge, no longer the big cheese, top dog, head honcho. No. You’re a disgrace, the boil on the ass of humanity.
So, that basically give you two options. The first one, Uncle Sammy, is that you calm down, and get down off that pedestal that you’ve erected for yourself. Voluntarily and generously give the power back to the people, where it belongs in the first place. Or, we can do this the hard way, and trust me, nobody wants go the hard way. It probably involves bullets. Lots and lots of bullets. And probably shiny things that stand tall in the center square. There might even be some big boom-boom sauce flying into the air. More to the point, lots of destruction, collateral damage, and death all around. And nobody wants that. Right? So, be a good sport, and come down off that high chair, and maybe we’ll get you a nice cold glass of milk and a cookie before we send you to take a nappy nap? Alright?
And I seriously advise that you consider the voluntary route, because if you begin to attack, imprison, and give We The People a hard time, then we’ll come at you with everything we got. And we got lotza friends.