....in America
1. When America was the 'shining city on the hill,' prior to the ascendancy of Liberalism, people were encouraged to say and think whatever they cared to, whatever they believed.
But when Liberals became the majority, whatever they claimed to believe become the only allowed expressions of speech and of thought.
One of the old kind of Liberals, Kirsten Powers, penned a best-seller called
"The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech"
2. As has often been reported in these threads, and denied by the Liberal acolytes, modern Liberalism is simply a permutation of every earlier totalitarian view.
Let's review the progression.
a. During the French Revolution, the provenance of the Bolsheviks and the Nazis, and the Fascists, the elites claimed to be infused with the 'will of the people," the "general will."
“We must reason about all things,” and anyone who ‘refuses to seek out the truth’ thereby renounces his human nature and “should be treated by the rest of his species as a wild beast.” So, once ‘truth’ is determined, anyone who doesn’t accept it was “either insane or wicked and morally evil.” It is not the individual who has the “ right to decide about the nature of right and wrong,” but only “the human race,” expressed as the general will. Himmelfarb, “The Roads to Modernity,” p. 167-68
b. "The actual insurrection--the Bolshevik Revolution--began on the morning of November 6 (October 24) 1917, ....
The Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union Union
In November/December, the penal system was re-written to include the Bolshevik version of the 'general will'....naming those who do not subscribe to the government's doctrines as "enemy of the people."
...and, ex-post facto, the Bolsheviks arrested and exterminated all those 'enemies of the people.'
"The Soviet Union made extensive use of the term (Russian language:враг народа,"vrag naroda"), as it fitted well with the idea that the people were in control. The term was used by Vladimir Lenin after coming to power, as early as in the decree of 28 November 1917:
"all leaders of the Constitutional Democratic Party, a party filled with enemies of the people, are hereby to be considered outlaws, and are to be arrested immediately and brought before the revolutionary court."
Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski,Stéphane Courtois, "The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression"
But....
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”― George Orwell
And so it was....once upon a time.
1. When America was the 'shining city on the hill,' prior to the ascendancy of Liberalism, people were encouraged to say and think whatever they cared to, whatever they believed.
But when Liberals became the majority, whatever they claimed to believe become the only allowed expressions of speech and of thought.
One of the old kind of Liberals, Kirsten Powers, penned a best-seller called
"The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech"
2. As has often been reported in these threads, and denied by the Liberal acolytes, modern Liberalism is simply a permutation of every earlier totalitarian view.
Let's review the progression.
a. During the French Revolution, the provenance of the Bolsheviks and the Nazis, and the Fascists, the elites claimed to be infused with the 'will of the people," the "general will."
“We must reason about all things,” and anyone who ‘refuses to seek out the truth’ thereby renounces his human nature and “should be treated by the rest of his species as a wild beast.” So, once ‘truth’ is determined, anyone who doesn’t accept it was “either insane or wicked and morally evil.” It is not the individual who has the “ right to decide about the nature of right and wrong,” but only “the human race,” expressed as the general will. Himmelfarb, “The Roads to Modernity,” p. 167-68
b. "The actual insurrection--the Bolshevik Revolution--began on the morning of November 6 (October 24) 1917, ....
The Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union Union
In November/December, the penal system was re-written to include the Bolshevik version of the 'general will'....naming those who do not subscribe to the government's doctrines as "enemy of the people."
...and, ex-post facto, the Bolsheviks arrested and exterminated all those 'enemies of the people.'
"The Soviet Union made extensive use of the term (Russian language:враг народа,"vrag naroda"), as it fitted well with the idea that the people were in control. The term was used by Vladimir Lenin after coming to power, as early as in the decree of 28 November 1917:
"all leaders of the Constitutional Democratic Party, a party filled with enemies of the people, are hereby to be considered outlaws, and are to be arrested immediately and brought before the revolutionary court."
Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski,Stéphane Courtois, "The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression"
But....
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”― George Orwell
And so it was....once upon a time.
