To save America, first, do no harm
Nearly any philosophy can seem plausible, if never challenged from without. Regular consideration of differing perspectives is necessary to accurate understanding.
Recently, a Democratic Socialists Facebook page shared this Twitter message:
"Someone I know blocked Fox News with parental controls at her parents' house and now her mom keeps asking why they can't watch their news program, and I truly believe this is how we can save America..."
"Save America" through skullduggery? Through information suppression?
By surreptitiously impeding other citizens' speech rights and political independence, and lying to one's own parents for the sake of ideology?
That's not a way to ensure intelligent citizenship. Citizens need open access to information necessary to chart our country's course.
It is, instead, a scheme for shunting a cattle-like populace obediently down a path where only a solitary voice enjoys audience.
Fox News operates as a counter to the pretty much ideologically homogeneous mainstream media. Machinations to silence it, and foil others' reception of it, promotes brainwashing just as did deceptive religious cult-rackets.
(And not insignificant is that the parents supposedly harmed may well have helped build the freedom their offspring today withholds from them.)
Innocent persons so harmed would not make informed voting decisions. Not knowing of other perspectives, they would at best endorse someone else's program.
But I don't suppose zealous partisans care why their ideology advances, legitimately or illegitimately. Only that it does.
This ardent championing of knowledge restriction represents a startling break from classical liberalism's valuing of free speech and rigorous defense of unpopular speakers. It is of a part with general left anti-free speech efforts like event shut-downs, boycotts of publishers and booksellers, and stifling of media voices through advertiser targetings.
Debate among citizens has traditionally been understood to be in democracy's best interest. The liberty to exchange ideas in the public square is a hallmark of free society.
But today, left forces denounce all who take exception to them as 'fascists,' and discourage conversation. Violence is often recommended.
That Twitter message received considerable applause, from persons who don't seem to grasp that they are the oppressors.
"Someone I know blocked Fox news in all the waiting rooms in a major hospital when his mom was in...when she had to go back for re-checks 3 months later, they were all still blocked. I am so proud of my friend," gushed one Facebook user.
"I'm doing this anytime I have a remote in a public place. I may even go as far as bringing a universal remote with me." said another.
No one cited a moral or legal source from which they imagined to have got editorial authority over everyone else's news and commentary intake. But later, one censorship advocate did give a clue.
When a contrary commentator observed "That's exactly how Nazis act! Censorship!," an early-twenty-something 'woke' cheerleader leapt to supply defense: "But in this case, it would be blocking Nazi like programs."
So, there you have it. Everything's situational.
Censorship and viewpoint discrimination, like judging people by skin color or sex, do not warrant condemnation in every instance. Only depending upon who is exercising them, against whom, and in the name of what ideology.
Left-wing censors are assured of their moral superiority, and see themselves as courageous opponents of historic evil. To their minds, they are not capable of being wrong.
Such partisans, overstuffed with self-righteousness, believe they enjoy moral authority to enforce message-regulation on the rest of the world. They know best.
And in the back-halls of social media, they giggle amongst themselves at their befouling of the Great Conversation.
In the 1980s, I studied religious cults. And I learned that to bend followers to their messages, they ensured no other voices could be heard.
Nearly any philosophy can seem plausible, if never challenged from without. Regular consideration of differing perspectives is necessary to accurate understanding.
Recently, a Democratic Socialists Facebook page shared this Twitter message:
"Someone I know blocked Fox News with parental controls at her parents' house and now her mom keeps asking why they can't watch their news program, and I truly believe this is how we can save America..."
"Save America" through skullduggery? Through information suppression?
By surreptitiously impeding other citizens' speech rights and political independence, and lying to one's own parents for the sake of ideology?
That's not a way to ensure intelligent citizenship. Citizens need open access to information necessary to chart our country's course.
It is, instead, a scheme for shunting a cattle-like populace obediently down a path where only a solitary voice enjoys audience.
Fox News operates as a counter to the pretty much ideologically homogeneous mainstream media. Machinations to silence it, and foil others' reception of it, promotes brainwashing just as did deceptive religious cult-rackets.
(And not insignificant is that the parents supposedly harmed may well have helped build the freedom their offspring today withholds from them.)
Innocent persons so harmed would not make informed voting decisions. Not knowing of other perspectives, they would at best endorse someone else's program.
But I don't suppose zealous partisans care why their ideology advances, legitimately or illegitimately. Only that it does.
This ardent championing of knowledge restriction represents a startling break from classical liberalism's valuing of free speech and rigorous defense of unpopular speakers. It is of a part with general left anti-free speech efforts like event shut-downs, boycotts of publishers and booksellers, and stifling of media voices through advertiser targetings.
Debate among citizens has traditionally been understood to be in democracy's best interest. The liberty to exchange ideas in the public square is a hallmark of free society.
But today, left forces denounce all who take exception to them as 'fascists,' and discourage conversation. Violence is often recommended.
That Twitter message received considerable applause, from persons who don't seem to grasp that they are the oppressors.
"Someone I know blocked Fox news in all the waiting rooms in a major hospital when his mom was in...when she had to go back for re-checks 3 months later, they were all still blocked. I am so proud of my friend," gushed one Facebook user.
"I'm doing this anytime I have a remote in a public place. I may even go as far as bringing a universal remote with me." said another.
No one cited a moral or legal source from which they imagined to have got editorial authority over everyone else's news and commentary intake. But later, one censorship advocate did give a clue.
When a contrary commentator observed "That's exactly how Nazis act! Censorship!," an early-twenty-something 'woke' cheerleader leapt to supply defense: "But in this case, it would be blocking Nazi like programs."
So, there you have it. Everything's situational.
Censorship and viewpoint discrimination, like judging people by skin color or sex, do not warrant condemnation in every instance. Only depending upon who is exercising them, against whom, and in the name of what ideology.
Left-wing censors are assured of their moral superiority, and see themselves as courageous opponents of historic evil. To their minds, they are not capable of being wrong.
Such partisans, overstuffed with self-righteousness, believe they enjoy moral authority to enforce message-regulation on the rest of the world. They know best.
And in the back-halls of social media, they giggle amongst themselves at their befouling of the Great Conversation.
Note: That early-twenty-something advocate of political censorship recalled the great Oscar Wilde line: "I'm not young enough to know everything."
posted by DC Larson at
July 18, 2019
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