Thanks. Holy crap, that whole scene in the crosscut.com story sounds so crazy, so glad I don't live in the US! Anyway..I don't know anything about these issues, just curious.

So..these are all things you think happened because the people doing the suppressing were afraid the ideas involved might be true?

(Hmm now I notice there was mention of causality in your initial claim)

I think the best answer is to look at the history of violent suppression of ideas. Those ideas tended to turn out to be more correct than the suppressors' ideas, and turned out to be not so good for the suppressors' fortunes.

Thanks for those. Well, I'm in Australia. We have some of our own small crazy moments too..One that comes to mind was the 2012 story that "Alan Jones did not breach the radio industry's code of conduct or his broadcaster's licence conditions when he said five times that Julia Gillard should be “put in a chaff bag” and dumped at sea, the broadcasting regulator has found" - she was at the time Australia's first female Prime Minister (i.e. leader). Jones had a popular right-wing radio talk show.

edit: OMG, I just read that Ebert page. Are you kidding, that made you like Ebert less?! Can't follow you on that one. He hardly just 'said' it, it was the very start of Ebert's open letter to Limbaugh, it seems. "You should be horse-whipped for the insult you have paid to the highest office of our nation." In context, it sounds a fair enough remark to me.

Ebert goes on, disgusted Limbaugh and caller agree "that Obama might steal money intended for the Red Cross to help the wretched of Haiti. .. This conversation came 48 hours after many of us had seen pitiful sights from Port au Prince. Tens of thousands are believed still alive beneath the rubble. You twisted their suffering into an opportunity to demean the character of the President of the United States." etc Well, I didn't hear about that, maybe Obama did steal the money, in which case I apologize. But I kinda doubt it.

So how does that fit into "suppression because they fear it's true"? I don't see any part of it fits that. But anyway. :-) Thanks for this exchange, it was enlightening.

Roger Ebert said Rush Limbaugh should be "horsewhipped" for insulting the President:

https://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/a-letter-to-rush-l...

Ebert was a prominent liberal, and I liked him a lot. But I was shocked at that article of his. I hope liberals today, given how fashionable it is to insult the President, are glad that Ebert's wish was not granted.

Isn't it grand that we (still) live in a country where one can insult the President and not get horsewhipped? That's a precious right.