Today the First Amendment to the constitution of the once freest nation in the world is moribund. Its enemies are not Klansmen in hoods seeking to intimidate blacks. And its enemies are not right-wing conspiracy theorists rooting out communists.
This time the enemies of the First Amendment are progressives and leftist elites.
They are in publishing, the media, Silicon Valley, academia, entertainment, and government. They are so arrogant as to think only their views are fit to communicate. These effete snobs lack confidence in the logic and persuasiveness of their own arguments. So much so they increasingly try to ban whatever bothers them. Such is the level of fear and paranoia gripping them.
Do you think this is just hyperbole? The classic “To Kill a Mockingbird” and other books about racial issues were banned from the curriculum in the Burbank Unified School District last month. That’s nuts. Who is hiding what, from whom? The left did not just oppose the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. It sought to destroy his career and reputation through smears and innuendo. They know their dogma cannot not stand challenge.
Professors at Stanford University hound Hoover Institution fellow and public health expert Dr. Scott Atlas. His crime? He is guilty of advising President Trump. He counselled lockdowns and quarantines might ultimately cause more damage than COVID-19 itself. Atlas resigned from his role as Trump’s coronavirus adviser.
Today efforts to censor, cancel, discredit, or destroy the work of anyone expressing contrasting viewpoints are lauded, funded, even canonized by the wealthy, powerful leftist elites and their institutions.
In Orwellian fashion these effete snobs have redefined being illiberal and vindictive as being woke. That is a virtue signal for enlightened, progressive and Leftists. If things are deemed Leftist they are anointed as good. Unquestionably they must be for the public good, rather than their own interests.
It is deeply disturbing the kindred spirits of today’s Leftists, progressives are the Athenian mob, Joseph McCarthy, and the Taliban. Past and present these zealots and character assassins cloak their intolerance in the pretense they are advancing truth by destroying it. Guess what? You do not advance the truth by killing it or hiding it or destroying it.