The Silencing and Censorship of Opinions

sharylattkisson.com ^ | June 14, 2015 | Sharyl Attkisson

[KC_Lion]

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing liberal Kirsten Powers for C-SPAN about her new book, The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech, which takes on what she calls the “illiberal left” for using bullying, intimidation and political correctness to silence opinions that differ with their own.

Really, she is criticizing the unAmerican and unconstitutional trend–whether by liberals or conservatives–to censor all opinions with which they disagree.

She has amazing stories of the happenings on college campuses with kids being given “trigger” warnings on books and articles that might offend their sensitivities or give them PTSD by evoking an offensive image, and with college professors going berserk (and even physically attacking) when they see kids making perfectly legal demonstrations on campus but are delivering a message with which the professors disagree.

Watch C-SPAN Interview With Kirsten Powers

[KC_Lion]

A Fantastic Interview, I just got Kirsten's Book today I can't wait to read it.

Sharyl Attkisson's Stonewalled is a MUST read for all informed Patriots.

[KC_Lion]

Ping to Sharyl's List Upchuck!

I will say this to Kirsten though.

The Illiberal Left are okay with Suppression of Free Speech as long as they are the ones doing the Supressing of opposing ides.

East Germany wasn't a Warning.

It's a Goal.

They want to be the ones on top.

German historian Hubertus Knabe-

…the Stasi often used a method which was really diabolic. It was called Zersetzung, and it's described in another guideline. The word is difficult to translate because it means originally "biodegradation". But actually, it's a quite accurate description. The goal was to destroy secretly the self-confidence of people, for example by damaging their reputation, by organizing failures in their work, and by destroying their personal relationships. Considering this, East Germany was a very modern dictatorship. The Stasi didn't try to arrest every dissident. It preferred to paralyze them, and it could do so because it had access to so much personal information and to so many institutions.

http://www.ted.com/talks/hubertus_knabe_the_dark_secrets_of_a_surveillance_state/transcript

[Basket_of_Deplorables]

Good post. And now china has the secret personell files of every federal employee.

[geistklempner]

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid

Very related - a professor is “scared” of contradicting/correcting his students when what he teaches goes against their feelings, because “Emotional discomfort is [now] regarded as equivalent to material injury, and all injuries have to be remediated.”

Tumblr has invaded the classroom, what will happen when it invades the workplace?

[Titus-Maximus]

Great quote, excellent post. Stasi - an ugly resemblance to the Obama, Climate, PC Left apparatus.

Destroy reputations, publicize their mistakes, pull up divorce decrees on non-compliant climate researchers. It is all there, because they can never win on facts.

[upchuck]

Thanks for the ping KC.

Sharyl
Attkisson
Ping!

Want on or off this ping list? Just drop me a FReep mail.

Amazon link to Sharyl's latest book.

Good news! Sharyl will be hosting a 30 minute Sunday morning talk show on the Sinclair network this fall. Info.

[Senator_Blutarski]

My Dad used to say there are always at least two sides to any story. He was a cop and heard lots of stories...

However, I have since learned there are stories where only one viewpoint is allowed.

Diversity hates non-conformity.

[SgtHooper]

“...whether by liberals or conservatives...”

Ah, the typical libidiot tactic of trying to garner agreement by blaming both sides, when only the liberals are the problem.

[Terry L Smith]

College kids are being so ‘protected’, that when the corrective purge, catastrophe, or ‘special event’ happens, there are so many of them that will die, due to their sheep-like nature, in the face of survival.

The day they find out that all they have been indoctrinated to believe is wrong, fiind a seat, get the popcorn, and just watch.

Me? I’ve already got the jiffy-pop, just in case I have to use my sterno stove to heat it to popping temperature.

[rockrr]

Also a favorite of bill O. I wonder if he thinks it buys him any regard or credibility with the left.

I sat through Kirsten’s interview just to see if she would relate an anecdote - even one - of the right engaging in “censorship of ideas or opinions)” (let’s forget the whole stumbling block that censorship is defined as an act of government). Not a one (I have to admit that I started to drift off a time or three).

I constantly see this on the open discussion sites. A post or posts by a leftie will get deleted for profanity or gratuitousness insults and the poster whines about “censorship” as though offering the opportunity to comment automatically gives license to be a jerk.

I wish that people like Attkisson and O’Reilly would wise up about the soft-slander of broad-brushing (but I’m not holding my breath).

[Lumper20]

She is an idiot.

[Republicanprofessor]

Such an “offensive” complaint was made against me this year. I had used the word “disgusting” in a question to see if students understood why the Venus of Willendorf was so heavy, and few used the word “disgusting,” but one student was still offended. (She is a 4” tall, very curvaceous statue of a goddess from 15,000 B.C. showing the forms that led to survival back then, unlike our much thinner preferences today.)

It wasn’t even in a political context. She leveled two even more minor complaints, and the administration was too weak to judge nonsense from real problems. Yet it was terrifying to be told that I had to meet with HR about “discriminatory” comments made in class. I worried for days until we finally met. It’s enough to think about early retirement.