You seem to be missing an opportunity to make a less political and much more poignant case.
1. Isn’t this “recession” now decades old? Whether 9/11 and resulting legislation serve as accelerants I’ll leave to so called experts but the actions since then, by all US admins and European govts and agencies (including UK) is disturbingly palpable.
This is a balanced and thorough article of authoritarian challenges we're seeing across West and also here at home from BOTH our political parties -- but you have to read the whole article to get that picture! The first seven paragraphs are only about Trump so I don't blame people for stopping early, but the article is long and the remaining 27 paragraphs are about Biden, the UK, Germany, and France. It's worth reading.
"...our ability to settle our differences through dialogue and the ballot box rather than dehumanization and the bullet..." Yes. Well said. This is crucial. This is irreplaceable.
The global far right has used bad faith arguments and unethical tactics to win over the public and the liberal establishment can’t win these arguments, so they have resorted to censorship out of desperation.
The far right does not believe in speech or debate, but sees words as means to an end. They have no intention of maintaining free speech when they are in power.
Concur with Chortl. I'm also am a free speech absolutist as Greg Lukianof would consider. Free speech is the bedrock upon which people build free and open societies, which in turn enables freedom of inquiry that generates knowledge and then the University provisioned institutional scaffolding for building knowledge generationally, the engine that propelled America from a backwater colony transformed into American today.
I recognize the peril other free and open societies around the world face, but none of them benefit from the American Constitutional Right as enshrined in the bedrock of American Law. And we have our hands full at home.
Our government response to Covid after imposing a nationwide emergency lockdown served stated initial purpose - stop or slow spread overwhelming our underprepared health care infrastructure - was deliberately managed into a year's long series of assaults our Constitutional Rights, Government censorship silenced dissenting voices often inflicting extradudicial punishment as well - a whole of government illegal exercise in wholesale use of force against American citizens.
The government also unlawfully wielded its economic force to deprive Americans of their ability to earn money - the tactics of destroying professional reputations to silence dissenting voices had the added benefits of rendering them unemployable in their fields so unable to earn a living and serving as an example to chill free speech of their peers and the economic coersion in largely shutting down the American economy deprived many Americans of their jobs, their livelihoods supporting them and their families. The government also experimented with debanking - directing banks to freeze the accounts of targeted Americans. Our courts long established under law that money is a form of political free speech - so there's a case to be made for depriving Americans of money or their ability to earn money constitutes violations of our rights to free speech.
Clearly free speech is under attack, I guess that literally everyone who regularly visits this site is already concerned if not alarmed as you are.
So I'll just have to wonder what inspired you to frame your article the way you did, the litany of examples you choose to site as examples, the others you choose to omit, and most critically what is to be done in defense of this existential threat to free societies?
You seem to be missing an opportunity to make a less political and much more poignant case.
1. Isn’t this “recession” now decades old? Whether 9/11 and resulting legislation serve as accelerants I’ll leave to so called experts but the actions since then, by all US admins and European govts and agencies (including UK) is disturbingly palpable.
2. And to reinforce #1 pls see reporting on this current (not good) event: A. https://www.public.news/p/exclusive-obama-linked-stanford-center?r=1tfpnw&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=audio-player B. https://www.public.news/p/house-judiciary-chairman-jim-jordan?r=1tfpnw&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=audio-player
This is a balanced and thorough article of authoritarian challenges we're seeing across West and also here at home from BOTH our political parties -- but you have to read the whole article to get that picture! The first seven paragraphs are only about Trump so I don't blame people for stopping early, but the article is long and the remaining 27 paragraphs are about Biden, the UK, Germany, and France. It's worth reading.
"...our ability to settle our differences through dialogue and the ballot box rather than dehumanization and the bullet..." Yes. Well said. This is crucial. This is irreplaceable.
The global far right has used bad faith arguments and unethical tactics to win over the public and the liberal establishment can’t win these arguments, so they have resorted to censorship out of desperation.
The far right does not believe in speech or debate, but sees words as means to an end. They have no intention of maintaining free speech when they are in power.
The far right, you say?
Concur with Chortl. I'm also am a free speech absolutist as Greg Lukianof would consider. Free speech is the bedrock upon which people build free and open societies, which in turn enables freedom of inquiry that generates knowledge and then the University provisioned institutional scaffolding for building knowledge generationally, the engine that propelled America from a backwater colony transformed into American today.
I recognize the peril other free and open societies around the world face, but none of them benefit from the American Constitutional Right as enshrined in the bedrock of American Law. And we have our hands full at home.
Our government response to Covid after imposing a nationwide emergency lockdown served stated initial purpose - stop or slow spread overwhelming our underprepared health care infrastructure - was deliberately managed into a year's long series of assaults our Constitutional Rights, Government censorship silenced dissenting voices often inflicting extradudicial punishment as well - a whole of government illegal exercise in wholesale use of force against American citizens.
The government also unlawfully wielded its economic force to deprive Americans of their ability to earn money - the tactics of destroying professional reputations to silence dissenting voices had the added benefits of rendering them unemployable in their fields so unable to earn a living and serving as an example to chill free speech of their peers and the economic coersion in largely shutting down the American economy deprived many Americans of their jobs, their livelihoods supporting them and their families. The government also experimented with debanking - directing banks to freeze the accounts of targeted Americans. Our courts long established under law that money is a form of political free speech - so there's a case to be made for depriving Americans of money or their ability to earn money constitutes violations of our rights to free speech.
Clearly free speech is under attack, I guess that literally everyone who regularly visits this site is already concerned if not alarmed as you are.
So I'll just have to wonder what inspired you to frame your article the way you did, the litany of examples you choose to site as examples, the others you choose to omit, and most critically what is to be done in defense of this existential threat to free societies?