Today’s Authoritarianism is Cloaked in the Language of Virtue

I n a recent essay “From the Editor’s Desk: I Defend Your Right to Be Racist”, the editor of the Westport Journal invites a response, saying: “come take a seat at the table and civilly, openly speak from your heart”. However, he does so while labeling anyone who disagrees with him a “racist,” “renegade” or “journalist-hating, jackboot-wearing oppositionist.” We suggest that this is not an effective way to encourage meaningful dialogue, which necessarily must be based in respect and civility. Thus, we will respond to his invitation through the lens that we seek to apply to all issues: data driven, clear-headed, rational and respectful, while declining to accept that the Westport Journal has a right to claim the high ground of a greater consciousness.

Our overriding concern in this “culture war” is that our country and many of our townspeople seem to be growing ever more authoritarian and willing to demonize those who do not support the views increasingly imposed upon us by our government and our corporate and social media.

Without understanding completely why these organs and institutions are coordinating to promulgate fear and division, it is obvious from the data that by so doing, they are causing Democrats to favor ever more government control of speech, and Republicans and Independents, who find themselves on the side of those whose speech is being infringed upon, to favor ever less control. Instead of encouraging debate, these institutions band together to label as Misinformation or Disinformation all evidence with which they disagree and then level charges of Racism against anyone who seeks to challenge their views.

The Democratic party used to stand for free speech, civil liberties and for the empowerment of the little guy. Today it stands for censorship enforced by Big Government and Big Business by labeling ideas with which it disagrees Misinformation. Without acknowledging where it is headed, it is adopting the tactics of Fascism by seeking greater power for state institutions such as the FBI and the CIA, which, unchecked, exert repressive controls on individuals.

During the period that Democrat support of the FBI increased, the ACLU wrote about the FBI’s unaccountable power in an article titled, “Unleashed and Unaccountable: the unaccountable power of the FBI”, warning that this abuse of power by the FBI amounted to that “of a secret domestic intelligence agency” used against our own citizens and supported by Congress, attorney generals and the executive branch. Our fellow townspeople, emboldened by social media and the main stream press take advantage of this institutional bias and under its cover persist on mischaracterizing our views and refusing to engage in debate that would reveal the shallowness of their claims.

In conclusion, let’s try to debate issues based on the facts, and refrain from labeling those with whom we disagree as Racists, especially when such accusations are born of ignorance.