I wrote this last week before the previous posts/observations about this thread.
As I read over from the beginning of the thread “Customary Use Will Destroy Our 30A Legacy” I’m struck by how unverified opinions and beliefs in online forums, not-so social media, social media “influencers”, and partisan “news” influences people’s behavior and actions. We can all have an opinion but you are not entitled to your own facts as the old saying goes.
When it comes to important matters I “believe” in critical thinking, an empirical scientific method approach and fact based evidence rule of law as a bases of making decisions, forming conclusions based on facts. Political Science is “a social science which deals with systems of governance, and the analysis of political activities, political thoughts, and political behavior.” One thing about the Scientific Method is results are not based on human emotion and is >self correcting<. If the evidence does not support your hypothesis or results can not be repeated; you make a different conclusion or make a different hypothesis. Politics are beliefs how we all should act or behave, which laws are right or best for the governed as a Nation. Democracy or Communism, Capitalism or Socialism, are political beliefs and laws result from these political beliefs. The Declaration of Independence and US Constitution are laws of America based on political beliefs that Americans were willing to fight a physical war of independence because they rejected the imperial rule and laws of an ancient English king and aristocracy in a land smaller than the state of Alabama!
What struck me as I read this thread was how in other parts of the world more extreme beliefs based on unverified opinions as facts in not-so social media have had tragic results. Let me make clear that I’m not comparing or implying that anyone who does not support private property rights would behave like some have in the largest democratic country in the world, India, or other parts of the world but are examples of how misuse of not-so social media can go.
Huffington Post.
Fake Videos, Photos And Messages Circulate On Social Media Amid India Pakistan Tensions
Forbes.
WhatsApp India Tip Line Latest Salvo In Facebook's Fake News Offensive
AP News.
Report: Russia still using social media to roil US politics
Is the blurring of opinion and belief as fact in anti-social media helpful? Or should we teach and use “critical thinking” skills and look at legal records and verifiable facts? Or do the Ends Justify the Means? If you believe it and influence enough people to follow along, majority rules over minority rights, because it is expedient and beneficial to the majority regardless of the facts and law?
Is social media misinformation just personal “beliefs” or dirty politics or both? Are these social media beliefs and property rights misinformation helping anyone locally? Or will partisan social media beliefs and old school “news” media baseless misinformation result in; destruction of private property, staged unlawful protests, hoaxes for media attention, voodoo economic Dead Zones predictions, bizarre active shooter video on the beach, baseless police reports, nude beach protests? This is while the courts are in session to hear the facts of public recreational customary use of private property on 1,200 private property parcels and 4,600+ property owners.
Public customary use of private property is an old English common law doctrine. Not a political doctrine or economic doctrine. Those two doctrines are the political Why to litigate public customary use of private property. The courts will/should rule only on the law and the legal ancient English, not American, many custom criteria, that many property owners feel is “repugnant”, to use an old English legal customary use term, to the US Constitution or at least we will soon find out. Hopefully we can think critically and learn from the rest of the world’s use of social media in making decisions and forming beliefs and behave civilly. What if private property rights prevail in court? What’s next in the internet public square?