"Censorship"

 

As for this essay, its importance cannot be overstated. Without the preservation of our past – both good and bad – and without the free-flowing of ideas we will cease to be that “city on the hill.” 

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

https://swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Censorship”

July 21, 2023

 

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has

only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it

becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”

                                                                Harry S, Truman (1884-1972)

                                                                Special Message to Congress on the Internal Security of the United States

                                                                August 8, 1950

 

When President Truman spoke to Congress in August 1950, the United States was in the early stages of what became known as the Red Scare. A year earlier (August 29, 1949), the Soviets had tested their first atomic bomb. On February 2, 1950 Klaus Fuchs, a German physicist working at Los Alamos, was arrested for passing atomic secrets to the Soviets. Speaking in Wheeling, West Virginia, later that month, Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) accused some in the U.S. government of harboring Communist-sympathizers.. 

 

Do political leaders in Washington today have that same courage as did President Truman, and in his belief in the rights of citizens to offer opposing opinions? Do school boards and do teachers’ unions? Do colleges and universities? Does the media? Does Disney? Do large banks and big tech? The shutting down of opinions that are at odds with conventional thinking, whether about climate, the origins of COVID, affirmative action, the biology of the sexes, the rights of school parents – they all suggest the answer is no.

 

Much of this objection to free speech is happening in schools and universities. In February of this year, FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression) found university faculty support for “investigating faculty for controversial expression and applying social and professional pressure to get professors to take mandatory training they oppose.” The consequence is a “chilling effect which disproportionately strikes political minorities: principally, but not exclusively, faculty with more moderate or conservative viewpoints.”  Leftists were censured in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s; today it is the Right. 

 

Polls suggest this is a concern for the majority of Americans and has been for several years. Six years ago the Cato Institute, in a poll of 2,300 U. S. adults, found “that 71% of Americans believe that political correctness has silenced important discussions our society needs to have…58% of Americans believe the political climate prevents them from sharing their own political beliefs.” The poll showed that Republicans and Independents were particularly affected. Five years later, on March 18, 2022, the editorial board of The New York Times wrote of similar concerns: “For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.” They went on to note that surveys from the Pew Research Center and Knight Foundation revealed a crisis of confidence in one of America’s most basic values – freedom of speech and expression.

 

Free speech has become politicized, with both sides blaming the other. The Left accuses the Right of hate speech and banning books, while the Right blames the Left for removing hateful language from books and the cancellation of ideas. In most cases, the Right does not want to ban books, but to move them to more age-appropriate areas, while accusations of hate speech are vague, as they can include anything at odds with conventional thought. Symptomatic of this debate is a local public library, which in a small town also serves as the schools’ library. A controversy arose over the inclusion of two books in the “Tween/Teen room:” You Know, Sex: Bodies, Gender, Puberty, and Other Things by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth and Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan. The books, which speak to masturbation, anal sex, and other such pleasures, may not meet Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of pornography, but neither do they meet traditional standards of good taste. However, as I do not believe in censorship, the library was right to make the books available. I only hope that parents, teachers, and the library staff promote, as well, such classics as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, and many others by authors whose stories are not only well written but through which readers can witness how we, as a people, have evolved over the years to meet new social standards. Even so, at least two of those books have either been banned or had their language altered by Leftists, thereby masking how values have changed over the decades.

 

Freedom of speech is fundamental to who we are, which includes the right to protest what we do not like. But it does not give universities the right to cancel what they term “hate speech.” It does not give public schools the right to ignore parents. It does not give big tech the right to censor what conservatives write or say. It does not mean one has the right to use violence or intimidation. It means listening, respectfully, to those with whom we disagree. Diversity is also a matter of ideas, philosophies, and values.

 

Censorship has no place in the U.S. The Constitution’s First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” These words have stood the test of time; they have been a magnet for millions of immigrants, and they should not be forgotten by those fortunate to be born here. President Truman understood them. But do today’s political leaders? Do today’s cultural, media, and educational leaders?