Our Speech. Our Language. Our Thoughts. Our Freedom

 

The push to censor speech, change language and control thought is everywhere. We encounter it in government, schools, places of work, the media, and it threatens our freedom.

 

Thanks to the courage and determination of Elon Musk, we have begun to learn of the collusion of government agencies with Big Tech to censor American speech. Another government infraction recently surfaced. Rachel Levine, Assistant Secretary for Health in the Biden administration, addressing the Federation of State Medical Boards said, “The government needs to address health misinformation directly.”  The Secretary called on the medical community to apply collective pressure to Big Tech to censor “misinformation” about “gender affirming care” for kids and went on to say, “The positive value of gender affirming care for youth and adults is not in scientific or medical dispute.” A lie. Rachel Levine is a man who has chosen to live as a woman. His blatant denial of truth is freedom of expression in the extreme. It’s a strange irony that he is pretending to be a champion of truth by denying others freedom to express themselves. We cannot allow any government officials to interfere with what Americans can say and hear.

 

The US Marines are considering a ban on recruits addressing those of higher rank as “sir” or “ma’am.”  This is a recommendation in a $2 million report they commissioned from the University of Pittsburg. The report claims these words hold back “gender integration.” It goes on to say that “employing gender-neutral identifiers eliminates the possibility of misgendering drill instructors, which can unintentionally offend or cause discord.”  Authorities acknowledge they are in for a battle if they try to push this forward. One former Marine expressed it well, “We are warfighters; not politicians.”

 

Another egregious example is Stanford University’s “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative.”  It is described as a multi-year project to help individuals recognize and address harmful language they may be using. The website (https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/stanfordlanguage.pdf) is organized into 8 categories:  Ableist, Ageism, Culturally Appropriative, Gender-based, Imprecise Language, Institutionalized Racism, Person-first, and Violent. It contains 13 pages of “suggestions.” A small sample follows. (Website explanations are included where necessary to understanding why words are considered objectionable.)

 

• Instead of blind study, consider using anonymous study.

• Instead of tone deaf, consider using unenlightened.

• Instead of bury the hatchet, consider using call for peace.

• Instead of American, consider using US citizen. (Insinuates that the US is the most important country in the Americas.)

• Instead of cake walk, consider using easy. (Enslaved people covertly used exaggerated dance to mock their enslavers. This turned into "balls" that the White enslavers would hold for entertainment where the prize was a cake.)

• Instead of brown bag, consider using lunch and learn. (Historically associated with the "brown paper bag test” certain sororities and fraternities used to judge skin color. Those whose skin color was darker than the brown bag were not allowed to join.)

• Instead of peanut gallery, consider using audience. (This term refers to the cheapest and worst section in theaters where many Black people sat during the Vaudeville era.)

 

Those of us who have no intention of complying with attempts to censor our speech, change our language and control our thoughts may be tempted to find them amusing. But they are no joke; they are a dangerous threat. History teaches us that through the manipulation of language and thought, tyrants gain control. The parallels between how Hitler convinced the German people that Jews were to blame for their woes, the tactics used by the communist leaders of Soviet Russia, and the “progressive” liberal agenda at work in our country today, are a stark warning.

 

Today’s “progressives” are yesterday’s socialists. They use totalitarian tactics to get people to forget the past and accept their vision of contemporary society. They use the concepts of Marxism, including division and class struggle between wealthy “exploiters,” who care nothing about the “little guy,” and the victimized workers. They seek a socially engineered society that is obsessed with race and ethnicity, and its people reduced to accidents of birth – privileged or oppressed. Their idea of social progress is wealth redistribution and extensive government control. Those who push back are considered enemies of social justice.

 

Political correctness is thought control and those who control the language control the message.

As the dawn breaks on a new year, it’s time to reject all attempts to control us, and to stand strong together to do whatever is required to protect the freedoms our founders fought and died for.

 

Happy New Year!