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My first personal recollection of feeling censored was when a valued but left-leaning client corrected me in mid sentence. I had used the word Democrat instead of Democratic. After a few of these encounters I noticed myself, slowly falling in line, guarding my speech, in an attempt not to offend in my work place.

Fast forwarding a few years, Ive watched the divide between the news organizations grow. The information they choose to present reveals their bias as they echo the same talking points in unison. No matter if their information is true or not, they forge on, never apologizing for misinformation or actual lies.

The 2016 and 2020 presidential elections confirmed the great political divide between Americans. It was during these years more informed and engaged citizens started self censoring. Too many people associated with only those they agreed with politically. Partisans watched the news outlets that bolstered their political agenda and were content repeating talking points without sufficient research to substantiate their accuracy.

Today we have media outlets and big tech telling us what we can say and what we can see. The fact checkers successfully covered up the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 Presidential election. It is now being exposed by the New York Times as truth. Why now? Probably because it no longer stands in the way of their agenda or more likely, incriminating evidence is about to be revealed. The fact checkers have proven themselves to be partisan hacks.

Now lets explore the high gas prices with these facts in mind. When President Trump left office we were energy independent. President Biden on his first day in office shut down the construction of the Keystone Pipeline. He also stopped the extraction of oil on federal lands. Did that cause the price of gas to go up? Yes, it did. Biden was sending a message to the fossil fuel industry that he was starting the great shut down of Americas most valuable asset, fossil fuel. Does Ukraines war have a part in high gas prices? Yes, but prices were already heading upward before the war.

Since the invasion of Ukraine, Biden has imposed sanctions on Russian petroleum. Who will this impact more, the Russians or the US? I dont know. What I do know is I support exploration and development of all energy sources. Biden should abandon his quest to cripple the fossil fuel industry and get on the Drill Baby Drill bandwagon, ASAP.

Biden is begging Venezuela, Mexico and the Saudis to ramp up their drilling and send the US more oil. Begging other countries to potentially pollute their own environment so the US can claim the moral high ground of environmental purity, screams of hypocrisy.The green economy Biden envisions is being hoisted on the American people at a time when the technology is not sufficient to meet the demand. This is a suicidal act that will destroy our economy and crush the middle class in our country.

For years I have heard the drum beat of Russia, Russia, Russia. The media and the government have told us about all the misinformation Russia is spreading. My thoughts on this issue lead me to more questions than answers. Could Russia be feeding Europe and the US misinformation about climate change to curtail our production of fossil fuels? Could Russia be funding non-profits to produce bogus climate models to sway the public with fear? Is Putin using Europes dependency on Russian petroleum as leverage in his war in Ukraine? So many questions and so few answers.

In my childhood I remember how terrible I thought it was that Russia censored their newspapers. Back then it seemed unimaginable censorship would ever be used in the United States.

We are living in a time when Americans are accused daily, by fact checkers aka censors, of spreading misinformation. Whether its Hunter Bidens laptop, COVID, spying on a sitting president, etc., we are censored. When scoffed at stories are eventually proven to be factual, the media or the government never acknowledges it with an apology and seldom a correction. They just move on, not caring if you notice.

Though some of us do not recognize our own country these days, we are not living in a foreign land, we are simply living in foreign times. I conclude with a quote attributed to the 6th century Greek storyteller Aesop, United we stand, divided we fall.

Lorraine Christensen is a retired Oroville business owner.

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Censorship and misinformation what are we to think? | Editor For A Day - Chico Enterprise-Record