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The Real Threat to Free Speech Is Coming From the Right
(www.newsweek.com)
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this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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In the U.S., yes, at this moment the major threats to free speech are coming from the so-called "right". Forbidding teaching black history, LGBT issues, etc. A few years ago, lest we forget, it was Obama cracking down on the OWS protests and trying to prosecute Julian Assange and Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning. Before that it was the GOP again pushing the PATRIOT Act and trying to ban Grand Theft Auto. They did it for a long time with the Red Scare. That of course, basically kicked off in response to Stalin, who was doing his own purges of opponents and censorship. Pre-war, it was Hitler, Mussolini and Franco worst of all, but was happening in the U.S. too. That all goes back even further to the Comstock laws, the Alien and Sedition Acts, you name it. There isn't some magical quality about the directions "left" and "right" by which bad people in power in government under that label don't want to silence their opponents. There is a tendency for what we call "the right" - this kind of more-or-less fascist, religious based, emotionally charged, etc. set of ideologies - to respond more eagerly to calls to silence or brutalize opponents, because they are by and large a good bit dumber at the end of the day.