The Censorship Revolution

Lately there has been a huge movement that many are calling the new “woke society” and the “counter-culture revolution.” I’m not exactly sure what any of that means but I do know that there has been an attempt to silence some voices that disagree with the preferred establishment decisions. Nothing has displayed this more than the COVID pandemic. 

You’ve probably been hearing about the controversy surrounding Joe Rogan. I must  say, I didn’t know who he was until this latest brouhaha started. I think the attempt to silence him might have backfired. I never listened to him before but I just had to go hear what the hype was all about. He was very interesting. I might continue to tune in to his podcast.

We’ve seen sports stars and other famous people besmirched and ridiculed because they had the nerve to question some of the “science” that has been published. Never mind that many scientists themselves have questioned this and others have changed “science” on a regular basis. Those that made the decision not to take the vaccine are treated like second class citizens.

I am not a scientist so I will leave that for others to argue. I do know that disagreement should invite more debate, not less. Give me your facts and data and let me decide but let me also hear all the others’ facts and data. I want to hear all the information available and then I can make my own decisions. 

We saw how social media shut down accounts that did not conform to the orthodoxy put forth by Dr. Fauci and others.  There are also medical professionals who are being threatened and silenced because they are not towing the line of these “scientists.” 

I have met with a number of these medical providers and, believe me, it’s not a joke. They have been investigated and threatened for daring to treat patients with Covid protocols that do not follow the establishment. These providers were treating their patients, when most were doing nothing but providing oxygen and saying there was no treatment. I have no idea what proper treatment is, but I do know that patients and doctors should make those decisions. Neither should be forced to follow any established protocol and voices should not be silenced because they disagree. By the way, after treating thousands of Covid patients, these doctors lost none to the disease. That’s a powerful fact and shouldn’t be silenced. One of the investigations pending is because these doctors dared to post their recommended protocol on their website. By the way, it was only for their own patients.

In 1945, George Orwell said this and it rings true today:

The chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of … any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face … The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary.

Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban … the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films, and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is “not done” to say it … Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.

In Orwell’s famous novel “1984”, Winston Smith lives in Oceania and he is governed by constant surveillance. There are no governing laws but there is a police force, the “Thought Police.” There are posters everywhere that say, “Big Brother is Watching You.”

Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth and his job is to rewrite reports in newspapers of the past to conform to present reality. In other words, he rewrites history to the way some want it to be.

In fear of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I hesitate to point out that many of us see our history being rewritten daily. Most of you have probably noticed the changes of the meanings of words. Words that had certain meanings now mean something else entirely. 

History lessons that we learned in school are now sometimes taught as fictional and an entirely new narrative has taken its place. History is what it is, the good, the bad and the ugly. It should be taught and remembered as it was. It should be as accurate as possible. 

That’s exactly why I still like the written word. Computers are fantastic and they make writing so much easier. They also make it easier to change things.

I still have an old set of encyclopedias. They are a thing of the past and I can’t remember the last time anyone used one of those books. I intend to keep them though. Someday, others can look back and see what true definitions were before they were changed to a more modern politically correct meaning. 

Don’t be silenced because you have a differing opinion than others. Even if it’s not popular, your opinion and your facts matter too. But do be careful, BIG BROTHER MAY BE WATCHING YOU.