By Truth & Liberty Staff on Apr 29, 2022 03:46 pm
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Since when is free speech the enemy of truth? When a government decides it has a monopoly on truth, anything other than the party line can be deemed false and dangerous.
The recent purchase of Twitter by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, sent shockwaves through the culture. A social libertarian and successful entrepreneur, Musk was troubled by longstanding and widespread censorship on the social media platform. Leftist operatives within the company appeared to be targeting conservatives in particular.
Musk set his plan in motion after Babylon Bee – a Christian-themed satirical media outlet – was banned from Twitter for correctly calling Joe Biden’s transgender Assistant Secretary of Health Richard “Rachel” Levine a man.
Almost immediately after the sale to Musk was announced, some previously suspended conservative Twitter accounts were restored and many others have seen a dramatic boost in followers (showing evidence of a long-suspected strategy of “shadow banning” certain users).
Radical leftists are panicking at the prospect of unrestricted free speech. Within days, the Biden administration launched plans for a Disinformation Governance Board as part of the Department of Homeland Security.
If Biden’s new panel seems familiar, there is good reason. Presumably backed by law enforcement power, the Disinformation Governance Board sounds frightfully similar to the Ministry of Truth – the oppressive censorship board featured in George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984.
Big Tech and Big Brother
According to Larry P. Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, some themes of 1984 may sound familiar to modern social media users, including government intrusions on personal liberty, the ubiquitous nature of technology, and the abuse of power by a ruling elite class:
In Orwell’s 1984, there are telescreens everywhere, as well as hidden cameras and microphones. Nearly everything you do is watched and heard. It even emerges that the watchers have become expert at reading people’s faces. The organization that oversees all this is called the Thought Police.
When 1984 was first published in the 1940s, all of this sounded like science fiction, though it was based in the reality of Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union. But all modern readers have to do is reach in a pocket or bag to find a device that has a screen, camera, and microphone built into it, and which is constantly gathering personal information, monitoring communications and tracking movements.
Big Tech has built a cozy relationship with governments around the globe and seems willing to censor information at the direction of government agencies – the modern Thought Police. The Disinformation Governance Board is the latest development in the marriage of woke corporations and the leftists currently in control of the U.S. government.
In the weeks leading up to the November 2020 presidential vote, Twitter suspended the New York Post’s account for reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop computer. The machine, left behind at a Delaware repair shop, reportedly contained evidence implicating the younger Biden and potentially his father in a number of suspicious business deals in foreign countries including the Ukraine and China. Twitter and leftist news outlets claimed there was no truth to the New York Post story, but recent revelations have shown otherwise.
Joe Biden, then a candidate for president, clearly benefited from Twitter’s politically motivated suppression of the New York Post’s report. A recent report showed 16 percent of voters surveyed said they would not have voted for Biden had they known about the evidence found in Hunter Biden’s files.
According to Musk, “Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate.”
The Ministry of Truth
With the potential of more evidence being widely shared on a freer and more accessible Twitter, it was only a matter of time before the ruling elites put a true party loyalist on the case. Enter “internationally recognized expert in disinformation” and amateur musical comedian Nina Jankowicz.
Jankowicz has been widely mocked by conservative critics for her reactionary and conflicting takes on “disinformation” over the years. In October 2020, she was one of many Democrat operatives who called the Biden laptop story “Russian” disinformation.
The multi-layered irony of her claims to be an expert in Russian “disinformation” tactics has not gone unnoticed. Despite Jankowicz’s seeming lack of gravitas, the new law enforcement agency she leads should be taken very seriously.
Federal agents in service to a thoroughly leftist bureaucracy have shown the depths to which they will sink to create political enemies for propaganda’s sake. It should shock no one, then, that the newly freed Twitter would be the flashpoint for increased government scrutiny.
In 1984, the embodiment of totalitarian control is the all-seeing, all-knowing Big Brother (modeled in part on Stalin) – a ruthless dictator who rules Oceania (a socialist super-nation that swallowed the United Kingdom) by surveillance and intimidation.
The lead character, Winston Smith, works for the Ministry of Truth to rewrite history, changing news, documents, and other records to fit the ever-changing narratives of Ingsoc (which is the ruling party and “newspeak” name for English Socialism). When Smith tries to resist the total control of thought by keeping a personal diary, he commits the “thoughtcrime” of writing “Down with Big Brother.” Smith is arrested, tortured, and re-educated by party agents.
A party enforcer, O’Brien, leads the sessions that attempt to cure Smith of his “insanity.” At one point, O’Brien says, “Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party.”
A Biblical Worldview
Everyone has a worldview—a lens or set of eyes through which a person sees the world. It is based on a person’s own perspective and experiences. Whether Stalinist Russia, Orwell’s 1984, or 2022 America – the ruling elites want the world to be seen through the “the eyes of the Party.” As Christians, we have only one true way through which to see life – a biblical worldview.
A solid biblical worldview begins with believing the Bible is the inspired, accurate Word of God. Jesus said that we could weather any storm if we build our lives on the firm foundation of His Word (Matt. 7:24-27).
This nation has survived wars, economic depressions, and many other serious challenges because it was founded on biblical values. No matter what has come America’s way, our foundational principles have held true.
A biblical worldview also includes believing that God is the Creator of mankind and that He has a purpose for us. God made mankind, male and female, and delegated authority to us as stewards over all He created (Gen. 1:26-28). As LGBTQ activists relentlessly attack God’s design for gender and marriage, Christians need to be able to respond from God’s Word and uphold the traditional values that made this nation great.
It would be serendipitous indeed if the very thing to have finally broken woke culture’s grip on social media – and free speech – was the observation by Babylon Bee that a man pretending to be a woman is actually a man, just the way God created him.
For America to be free, speech must be free. The fundamental role of government is to protect the God-given rights of the people – not restrict them. Now is the time for those who believe in constitutional ideals and biblical values to take a stand for freedom of speech, declare truth in the public square, and resist government censorship.
