This past Sunday, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal posted an article titled, “The Progressive Purge Begins. Tech’s stampede against the right will lead to more populist anger.”
White House press secretary Ari Fleisher also warned,
“This is a slippery slope that leads all of us into a worse place. Censorship never works. Censorship doesn’t get rid of the ideas. It creates a dangerous underground. That’s what we’re seeing. It won’t end well.”
World leaders are also weighing on this purge, focusing in particular on the banning of President Trump. As reported by Al Jazeera news a spokesman for Germany’s Angela Merkel called the ban “problematic,” adding that the freedom of opinion is of “elementary significance.”
Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said, “I don’t like anybody being censored or taking away from the right to post a message on Twitter or Facebook. I don’t agree with that, I don’t accept that.”
In addition, “The son of Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s far-right president, Eduardo Bolsonaro called Twitter ‘authoritarian’ and tweeted: ‘A world where Maduro is on social media, but Trump is suspended cannot be normal.’”
England’s Boris Johnson called for an even-handed enforcing of the rules, while Kremlin critic and Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny called the ban “unacceptable” censorship. (He also acknowledged that “during his time in the office, Trump has been writing and saying very irresponsible things. And paid for it by not getting re-elected for a second term.”)
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo affirmed these sentiments in his Monday speech to Voice of America, saying, “Censorship, wokeness, political correctness. It all points in one direction — authoritarianism cloaked as moral righteousness.”
America, Be Warned: Revolution in France and America
Don Boys
Voltaire and Rousseau would have been horrified if they had lived to see the Reign of Terror—heads rolling hour after hour in the middle of Paris; thousands of innocent people killed, usually without trial; climaxing in the dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte. Voltaire was known for freedom, independence, and defense of the little guy as expressed in his alleged comment, “I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” He would not have approved of the revolution that became a repulsive river of blood emanating from the guillotine in the center of Paris.
Rousseau famously wrote, “Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains,” so he would have vetoed the revolution. Both men would have been aghast, even ashamed with the destruction, deception, and death. However, their humanism, secularism, and distrust, distaste, and disdain for the crown, the church, and the cottage set the stage for what followed decades after their initial attack.
But they started it and are stuck with it. That’s what happens when a nation rejects heavenly revelation and snuggles up to human reasoning.
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