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Twitter has permanently suspended Dr. T.S. Murphy-Sullivan for his inflammatory speech during the Brownsville Independent School District board races in which his reckless rhetoric led to the death of several political careers.

Forgive the hyperbole. I don't have a Twitter account, but I do have Google and Facebook accounts. I know something about censorship as I have experienced it on several occasions and suffered stiff penalties as part of their editorial decisions.

The conservative media, going to extraordinary lengths to distract the public from focusing on Donald Trump's diatribe delivered in front of The White House to the delight of thousands of redneck followers and religious bigots that resulted in the death of five Americans when Trump urged them to take their grievances down Pennsylvania Avenue to the U.S. Capitol Building and demand a reckoning, have succumbed to hysteria because Twitter pulled Trump's account.

"After a careful study of recent tweets from Donald Trump's account and their context--including how they are understood and interpreted on and off Twitter--we have permanently suspended the account due to risk of further incitement to violence," stated the company. 

Trump has been out-of-control since he first assumed the presidency. The Washington Post estimates that he has used Twitter to tell more than 20,000 lies. With the unprecedented incident four days ago in which he urged his fanatics to fight for him while he took refuge in The White House, Twitter decided it had had enough of his incendiary language and silenced him

This is not the end of free speech as the Right weeps its crocodile tears. Twitter, Facebook and all the social media outlets are private companies. The president isn't the victim of Giant Tech who have become the next scapegoat for Trump's ignorant adherents. They only have purpose when Trump presents them with a convenient enemy because only hate courses through their veins.

Let me tell you my story with Giant Tech. Google warned me about my content when I moved El Rocinante from a newspaper form to the internet. When I didn't heed the admonition, Google closed down El Rocinante. The company accompanied this decision with an explanation that I didn't have a right to use Google nor did Google owe me any reason for its decision.

This last year Facebook suspended me five different times for engaging in bullying, harassment and hate speech. There was no record of the previous years and the previous suspensions. I was not in agreement and voiced my displeasure, but Facebook countered that I was not in compliance with its community standards.

With Trump's defenders making a public show about the death of the First Amendment to divert our attention from the reprehensible show Trump led last Wednesday, they have no standing as the courts like to say. Twitter, Facebook and the rest are private companies who enforce rules. If I appear before the school district board to articulate my criticisms in a free speech exercise, the BISD stipulates which subjects are debatable and which subjects aren't debatable. 

I have worked for several newspapers in which my commentary has led to the firing on various individuals. I started my own newspaper publishing my own opinions which led the school board to vote 4-3 not to fire me because I had accused the superintendent and athletic director of being racists. They sought justice with TEA in Austin and twice I journeyed to the capital with my teaching certificate on the table. I escaped censorship.

Invoking free speech, I have had my life threatened. I can't count the number of times from football coaches and beaten politicians I was going to get my ass kicked. My enemies have stopped at nothing as they have invaded my personal life and family relations to sow discord for my commentaries.

I am a nobody but scrutinize the price I paid for free speech. I would be teaching today, but in my 39th year in the BISD then Superintendent Dr. Esperanza Zendejas commanded me to stop writing fiction--fiction!!!--because in my novels, short stories and poems administrators and parents found my literature disturbing. I retired with my good name. Zendejas, another victim of karma, was eventually fired for all intents and purposes. And to think that she is a writer who would not back a fellow author!!!

I have said this many times: Freedom is not given; it is taken. And free speech? It comes at a high price for which you pay an extraordinary steep fee. Twitter banning Trump has nothing to do with free speech. I have abused Google and Facebook despite their reprimands and served my time in quietude. Trump has never stopped yelling "Fire! Fire! Fire!" in a crowded theatre. Now that the stampede of those running for their lives has led to death of five Americans, insidious Trump wants to play the victim because Twitter will no longer print any more of his lies that lead to death.

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