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A history of the transformation of American liberalism over the past half-century could well be told with just a focus on free speech and censorship. But this story of changed attitudes toward censorship yields lessons far beyond just the liberal attitude toward free speech.

Aside from the inevitability of death and taxes, there is another immutable rule: history repeats itself. Its repetitions may come in different ways, but history seems inevitably prone to recycle itself.

The censorship impulse reflects one such way in which history repeats itself.

In the 1950s and 1960s, censorship campaigns arose in response to the Cold War and the danger of communist infiltration and influence. These high-profile campaigns were followed in the 1970s and 1980s by efforts to control the burgeoning flood of violent and sexually explicit media speech available to children. Generally speaking, these censorship efforts were acquiesced in or supported by conservatives. Behind the banner of the Free Speech Movement that began in California in the 1960s, liberals stood as staunch allies of free speech, regardless of how repulsive or destructive that speech.

Liberals continued that solid free speech defense through the 1990s and 2000s, although with cracks beginning to appear as they began succumbing to political correctness. It was liberals who strongly resisted a congressional attempt to regulate Internet pornography accessed by children, as well as state attempts to protect children from graphically violent video games. This probably marked the apex of the liberal defense of speech. For at least the past decade or two, the liberal position on free speech has eroded considerably, to the point where the political left has become the primary advocate for censorship across an array of speech issues.

Censorship, in fact, is really no longer a speech issue. It has become a tool within the political weaponry arsenal.

The instances of political speech censorship appear across the spectrum of contemporary life. A belief in election fraud can disqualify you from a job. A position on pro-life can subject you to FBI harassment. A skepticism on lockdowns or mandated vaccines can brand you as a social outcast. An adherence to certain religious views can subject you to innumerable sanctions.

The recent release of the Twitter files reveals an astonishing attempt by the federal government to control the speech content of Twitter users. And most recently, because of a fear that a public panic might threaten the banking industry, there have been liberal calls to censor social media reports of bank failures. Censorship has become a forefront tool for the achievement of political objectives, much like tax cuts or spending promises.

A history of the transformation of American liberalism over the past half-century could well be told with just a focus on free speech and censorship. But this story of changed attitudes toward censorship yields lessons far beyond just the liberal attitude toward free speech.

To the left, the purpose of government is no longer the protection of liberty. The lefts indifference toward freedom of speech is but one example. Another appears in how quickly the left has turned away from religious liberty. Indeed, freedom has disappeared from the list of principles and values believed in by the left. In the place of freedom now comes the amorphous term equity. But equity is not a natural right or individual liberty; it is instead a label for a political agenda.

The prevalence of censorship advocacy also demonstrates how the left continually sponsors the growth of government in all areas of life. Twenty-five years ago, liberals vehemently opposed any content regulation of the Internet, warning that government interference could stunt the growth of the Internet. Since then, and true to prediction, the Internet has grown, to the point of becoming a mainstay of the American economy. The way in which American business has converted the Internet into a growth engine that has reshaped culture and society should be cause for celebration. Instead, the left sees this triumph in private entrepreneurship as a prompt for greater government control and activism. Indeed, now that the Internet has prospered, the left seeks to use it to further promote the reach of government into our lives.

An age-old justification for free speech, even speech that is unwanted, holds that if a democratic people want to address unwanted conduct in society it must certainly protect the speech concerning that unwanted conduct. Because only through that speech will a democracy be able to know the existence and extent of the underlying unwanted conduct. In this context, speech is always the tip of the iceberg. And if the iceberg is to be avoided, the tip needs to be seen.

Likewise, censorship has become the tip of the lefts political iceberg.

The Imaginative Conservativeapplies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics as we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please considerdonating now.

The featured image is courtesy of Pixabay.

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Censorship: The Tip of the Iceberg - The Imaginative Conservative