Today's program will be interrupted for this important announcement.
Free speech is being attacked on all sides. Hong Kong was promised autonomy when it was repatriated from the U.K. However, as we can all see, it's independence is being crushed by the forces in Beijing who demand subservience to their rule. Myanmar suffered a military coup and its citizens are being shot in the street for raising their voices.
In the U.S. People are not yet being jailed or murdered for differing opinions but cancel culture is doing the same thing on a more insidious scale.
I remember a PBS broadcast some years back when young Germans said they were tired of being cast as Nazis. “We were not even born when the Reich was in power!” Now, even a microsecond of hesitation will cast any white person as a racist. In fact, not apologizing for the color of their skin is an admission of guilt according to the “woke”.
A political science teacher I once had said that it was impossible to make ideas safe for people, the only path forward was to make people safe for ideas. The only way for that was an education that openly debated concepts and the facts. In other words, Free Speech.
That seems to be what the new agenda fears most. Cancel culture seeks to silence any opposing views. Are there bad people with bad ideas? Of course there are, on both sides. Only open an open forum without fear of reprisal will expose them.
What the new progressives want is power by any means. By cloaking themselves in a mantle of righteousness and casting guilt upon any that oppose them they are no different than the ones they wish to depose. Socialism? Look to Venezuela for a shining example. Benevolent ruler? How about Che Guevara who was a blood thirsty megalomaniac. The thing that characterizes both regimes is the suppression of free speech. That and a population that wants to change the repression for freedom.
I was a member of Students for a Democratic Society for a short time when I was young. It didn't take me long to realize that most of the leaders were in it for their own ego trip. They assured themselves that only they could see clearly and that the ends justified the means. Anyone who didn't agree 100% was the enemy and must be silenced.
We can't turn back the clock and reverse the actions of our predecessors but we can avoid repeating them by open discussion and not silence.
The only thing for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
The Who said it best in 1971.
We'll
be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And
the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred
us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun
sings the song
I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take
a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all
around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then
I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
The
change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated
from the fold, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And
history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they are flown in the
last war
I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow
for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all
around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then
I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No,
no!
I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be
left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
Oh
I know that the hypnotized never lie
Do ya?
There's nothing
in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are
replaced, by the bye
And a parting on the left
Is now a parting
on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight
I'll
tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new
revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my
guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees
and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No,
no!
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
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