When Censorship Is Crowdsourced
14th September 2018
Notwithstanding the nature of Mr. Trump’s treatment of Mr. Brennan, the gravest threats to free speech in democratic countries now have little or nothing to do with government action (which is what Constitutions serve to restrain). And with few exceptions, public officials now sit as bystanders to the fight over who can say what.
Communists and other totalitarians (such as Muslims) have long recognized that the most secure form of imprisonment is when the prisoner imprisons himself, what Orwell characterized as the avoidance of CrimeThink. Modern technology has allowed political actors to cut free from formal government and work their will through socialization structures. This is why the ‘long march through the institutions’ that Marxists have pursued so successfully.