“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”. (George Orwell)
How true.
In fact, the essence of mental health is accepting what you don’t wish to hear — especially when it’s objectively true.
From a rational point-of-view, morality means adhering to reality. And any mental health professional with a brain will tell you (1) there is such a thing as objective reality, and (2) accepting the truth is a core component of mental health. Why do you think psychologists are always talking about denial? Denial of WHAT? Of reality, of course. The more you deny reality, the worse off you will be.
Since a society is made up of human beings, the same principle applies on a social scale. If we lose our liberty to speak, then we lose our sanity — as a society. You start to see people emerge who are quite obviously insane. I’m talking about AOC, Beto and the like — the whole freak show on the Democratic side.
We haven’t yet lost our freedom of speech, not fully or technically. But in practice it’s eroding badly. For various reasons, we have turned to means of communication provided by companies who are overwhelmingly left-wing in their bias. That’s dangerous. Nobody is forcing us to do that, but it’s what has happened. It has to change. Otherwise freedom of speech will soon be gone without the government lifting a hand.
The greatest threat to free speech? The notion of “hate speech”. That’s what Orwell’s quote is getting at. The moment either you or I can say, “That’s hateful. I don’t like what you’re saying. It should be against the law” is the moment free speech is over. Psychologically, we are there. All that’s left is the legislation. But the social and psychological climate necessary for government censorship is there. It’s up to the people to fight it. Just like back in 1776.
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