Category: Communication

Posted in Communication

Defend the Freedom to Read

Posted on by simplebender

Freedom to Read is an inalienable right. A right inherent and integral to the freedom of the press. Freedom to read allows all citizens access to the marketplace of ideas. The freedom of expression and the press falls mute when freedom to receive the material is repressed.

This right is under attack by those who want to control what is available for us to read. They endeavor to protect their comfort and their right to choose while sacrificing everyone else’s. Everyone’s liberty to choose, to seek knowledge and information, as well as the investigation of ideas should be respected. Those who believe contrary ideas should be banned are dangerous people. They are those who cannot deal with controversy and the whole truth. Information is power. Writings are torches in the darkness.

Those who choose to ban and censor books and print are destined for disappointment. You cannot ban and censor ideas forever. Ideas have a fire unto themselves which is uncontrollable and inextinguishable. They will emerge. They will grow. The victors write history, not the vanquished. The story of the conquered eventually is told and the victors held accountable when the whole truth is known. Those who choose to try to control, ban, and censor today should be prepared for the inevitable reversal of fate. This is a sad vicious cycle which should never have started. But it is a cycle which we can resist and one which must be stopped. It is contradictory to profess support of Freedom of the Press and simultaneously restrict and ban publications.

Stand up; defend and exercise your freedom to read, your freedom to write, your freedom to express individual thoughts and ideas. Encourage open publication and distribution without fear of the censor’s blade. Only when citizens explore the full range of human thought and emotion, weighing all perspectives in the balance, can we truly govern ourselves and claim our democratic birthright. Let’s openly, respectfully, grapple with challenging ideas and controversial subject matter. Push yourself to be uncomfortable, very uncomfortable. Then draw your own conclusions. Conclusions based on broad thoughts, not narrow ones. Information wants to be free. It cannot forever be restrained or repressed. Be brave, be willing to defend expression of ideas, regardless of how much you disagree with them. Resist those in power who want to try to extinguish this flame by censorship and banning. Support the authors who persist. Those who write the truth to, and in spite, of power. Those who present ideas and options to the masses, and let them think it all through. Read for pleasure, adventure, insight, and intrigue, but always fiercely defend the Freedom to Read. #NeverFearTheDream

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Posted in Communication

Censorship Kills….Be respectful, listen and learn

Posted on by simplebender

Censorship kills…. freedom, liberty, democracy, ideas, dialog, and souls.  We pride ourselves in our First Amendment Rights, yet often fail to recognize, as we shout down others, they too have those same rights.  Ironically, real cancel culture isn’t asking questions to probe for the truth.  It is the obstruction and restriction of asking those questions.  Censoring by yelling down those who have a different opinion.  Censorship, in the hands of the critical race, is a uniquely powerful form of cancel culture.

The Truth is an amalgamation of everyone’s perspectives of facts.  Truth, the real whole truth, is forged by the relentless pounding of facts between the unyielding anvil of history and the merciless, endless swings of the hammer of investigation.

And History; History isn’t supposed to tell you what you want to hear.  History is supposed to be challenging.  True history is unearthed by wrestling with and confronting difficult topics.  Not shying away from uncovering what is uncomfortable but embracing the opportunity to really know.

Like looking at a diamond, each facet gives a unique view, each is right from the perspective of the viewer but not from any other.  Only by taking time and expending the energy to focus and look at each facet and merging their images can we see the whole Truth the Full History.  But we don’t have the time or patience to do the hard work, to do what’s right.  It’s just easier to yell someone down, ban a book, and censor authors, artists, activists, and ideas.  People aren’t wrong just because they disagree with you.

Most people, and news outlets, don’t intentionally lie.  Most just knowingly highlight their ‘facts’ without mention of, and may be intentionally ignoring, the ‘facts’ of others.  Most don’t purposefully lie; but some do, and you must be informed to know the truth.  (Yes, Biden won; No, the election wasn’t rigged; Yes, the climate is changing; No, COVID isn’t a hoax; and Yes, Black Lives DO Matter.)

Rarely is it a matter of you being right or them being wrong.  It’s about finding and exploiting the areas in which we agree and being respectful where we disagree.  We live in what should be a civil society.  As such, diversity breeds disagreement as much as it does agreement.  None of us own the whole truth just our little part of it.

America has been a world model for many things.  A shining beacon of freedom and representative government to some.  A sought-after sanctuary for the oppressed.  Juxtapose this with our Jim Crow, citizenship and miscegenation laws being used as the basis for Nazi Germany’s antisemitic and racist Nuremberg Laws. (Hitler’s American Model, J.Q. Whitman).  History is messy and we are viewed from all angles.  Great nations and people don’t take, overthrow, or seduce for control.  They subdue and control their voice and lead by example.

You see, it isn’t treasonous to challenge the accepted view of history or the truth.  In fact, it’s essential.  Healthy societies like, healthy ecosystems, are diverse and contrasting not uniform and inbreed.  We should be embracing the hard messy chore of unearthing our full history and the truth.  We are destined to repeat ‘history’ because we refuse to fully understand the whole history.  We only have ‘our’ history without regard to ‘their’ history, which won’t play out well in the long run.  #NeverFeartheDream