1198 The New Terror

The stereotypical fate of a Communist dissident was to be awakened out of bed at 4 am and hauled away to a re-education camp for decades of hard labor: think Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who famously refused to repeat lies for personal gain or to even save himself from internment. He also wouldn’t allow repetition of propaganda. Those are laudable goals and worth mimicking; however, in an online environment where no one is held accountable for lying, and even if they are proven wrong, won’t rescind their statements but instead constantly repeat misinformation over-and-over, obliterating the truth. There is no defense except to Block them and delete their messages, citing Solzhenitsyn. Unfortunately, others will disagree, and by way of denigrating the intention, instead scoff at the specter of concentration camps and the old days of terror, not recognizing that there’s a new terror: now dissidents get #metooed, Trust Womened, gas-lighted, declared Right Wing, called racist, get discriminated against because they’re male or white; and ultimately, get Cancelled. The penalties may have changed but the intentions of the propagandists has not. Only public gun ownership has prevented the New Terror from morphing into the old Terror.