Re:The Westminster Declaration
by api on Tuesday October 31, 2023 @05:17PM
(#38091494)
There is a valid point here about COVID, but I also have to point out how free we are today vs previous eras.
In the America of Eisenhower and J Edgar Hoover antivax propaganda would have been illegal (and probably linked to communism) and if people started refusing the vaccine the National Guard would go door to door and administrate it. There would have been no patience for that kind of noncompliance during an emergency. No true Scotsman (err patriotic American) would have opposed this.
I’m not saying we should go back there. I’m saying that we have more freedom of speech today than we did back then.
If you listen to the crowd signing this petition, they sound like this is some unprecedented era of repression which is ridiculous. In the US at least you can say almost anything and the worst that will happen is hate mail and getting booted off a private social platform. But you can just go elsewhere or host your own site and there’s not a lot people can do to stop you.
In the America of Eisenhower and J Edgar Hoover antivax propaganda would have been illegal (and probably linked to communism) and if people started refusing the vaccine the National Guard would go door to door and administrate it. There would have been no patience for that kind of noncompliance during an emergency. No true Scotsman (err patriotic American) would have opposed this.
I’m not saying we should go back there. I’m saying that we have more freedom of speech today than we did back then.
If you listen to the crowd signing this petition, they sound like this is some unprecedented era of repression which is ridiculous. In the US at least you can say almost anything and the worst that will happen is hate mail and getting booted off a private social platform. But you can just go elsewhere or host your own site and there’s not a lot people can do to stop you.