A suggestion for future letters of this sort: do not use "democracy" to describe what we are defending. Democracy is a method of choosing a government or making laws in which the people vote. What we are defending here is freedom, particularly freedom of speech. What Brazil (and so many others) are doing would be equally objectionable even if the list of the censored did not include political opponents of the current government. Much of the censorship of recent years has involved ideas that are not even political, even though they impact politics. The censorship of various dissenting views on the COVID-19 virus and pandemic is the classic example.
We have come to use the term "democracy" to mean "our form of government," and in recent years perverted it into "the government I prefer." As a conservative retired lawyer who spent most of his adult life bemoaning the role of the judiciary in overturning the results of the democratic process, I cringe when conservatives criticize Congressional Democrats as being "anti-democratic" for trying to reign in the Supreme Court. What the Democrats are doing would make our system more democratic, not less, although that doesn't necessarily make it right. It would probably make our society less free. I have the same reaction when liberals argue that the Israeli government's initiatives to reign in its out-of-control Supreme Court are "anti-democratic." Those initiatives are pro-democratic using the dictionary definition of democracy. They are only "anti-democratic" using the current distorted definition we have taken to using in recent years (i.e., "the government I prefer").
Language matters. One of the "superpowers" that has enabled Progressives to dominate our culture and politics is their ability to manipulate the meaning of words to advance their agenda. To fight back effectively, conservatives need to use words correctly, and point out when progressives try to manipulate their meaning. The issue in Brazil (and more generally with censorship in Western society) is freedom.
Well put. I completely missed that. I think we're back to my 95% agreement. :-) If I get input into such letters in the future (and I occasionally do), I will do my best to make sure we don't make that mistake.
The short sightedness of Acemoglu and Piketty is rather curious. At some point, they might be censored in an authoritarian regime as well. Ellsworth Toohey acolytes?
A suggestion for future letters of this sort: do not use "democracy" to describe what we are defending. Democracy is a method of choosing a government or making laws in which the people vote. What we are defending here is freedom, particularly freedom of speech. What Brazil (and so many others) are doing would be equally objectionable even if the list of the censored did not include political opponents of the current government. Much of the censorship of recent years has involved ideas that are not even political, even though they impact politics. The censorship of various dissenting views on the COVID-19 virus and pandemic is the classic example.
We have come to use the term "democracy" to mean "our form of government," and in recent years perverted it into "the government I prefer." As a conservative retired lawyer who spent most of his adult life bemoaning the role of the judiciary in overturning the results of the democratic process, I cringe when conservatives criticize Congressional Democrats as being "anti-democratic" for trying to reign in the Supreme Court. What the Democrats are doing would make our system more democratic, not less, although that doesn't necessarily make it right. It would probably make our society less free. I have the same reaction when liberals argue that the Israeli government's initiatives to reign in its out-of-control Supreme Court are "anti-democratic." Those initiatives are pro-democratic using the dictionary definition of democracy. They are only "anti-democratic" using the current distorted definition we have taken to using in recent years (i.e., "the government I prefer").
Language matters. One of the "superpowers" that has enabled Progressives to dominate our culture and politics is their ability to manipulate the meaning of words to advance their agenda. To fight back effectively, conservatives need to use words correctly, and point out when progressives try to manipulate their meaning. The issue in Brazil (and more generally with censorship in Western society) is freedom.
Well put. I completely missed that. I think we're back to my 95% agreement. :-) If I get input into such letters in the future (and I occasionally do), I will do my best to make sure we don't make that mistake.
The short sightedness of Acemoglu and Piketty is rather curious. At some point, they might be censored in an authoritarian regime as well. Ellsworth Toohey acolytes?