I am what only a decade or so used to be called a social liberal. I believe in free speech, the right of anyone to express any opinion – whether I agree with it or not. I believe in the fundamental principle of Anglo-Saxon law – people are presumed innocent until PROVEN guilty. I believe in tolerance – living in peace and harmony with people who hold different beliefs. I believe in teaching children critical thinking – not only the freedom but the obligation to question everything.
These are apparently not things that are believed anymore by those who call themselves liberals, especially in the media or in politics. Nowadays among many so-called liberals it can be dangerous to express an opinion that disagrees with the current orthodoxy – it can get you fired from your job or lynched on social media, and it will certainly get you automatically condemned as racist, sexist and/or homophobic. Nowadays a college student can be “convicted” of rape without a trial or even the opportunity to offer a defense. Nowadays it can be career-limiting to dare to question the reigning orthodoxy.
When did liberals become so illiberal? Yes, the political right has gone crazy, but the political left has gone dangerously authoritarian. A North Korean defector, Yeonmi Park, took some college courses at Columbia University last year and reported, in print, that the crackdown on free speech at Columbia was more than she ever experienced in North Korea.
The columnist Andrew Sullivan, a staunch liberal and Obama supporter, who was forced to resign last year from the New York Magazine for daring to question some prevailing beliefs, wrote an article this week entitled What Happened to You: The Radicalization of the American elite against liberalism that seems to me to the point.
I am old, so I won’t have to live with this that much longer. But the younger folks, including my children and grandchildren, are heading into a repressive regime that may eventually resemble Stalinist Russia or present-day Iran or China, in which it is physically dangerous to dissent from or even question the party line and free speech is a principle long forgotten.
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