What Kind of Society Do We Want to Engender?

A while ago, Obama’s “senior adviser”, the unelected Valerie Jarrett, spoke out (on Obama’s behalf, and apparently with his blessing) against therapies intended to change sexual orientation. Obama wants to ban these therapies, arguing that they’re psychologically harmful. My immediate reactions were: Where and when did he get his psychiatric degree? And, what about freedom of choice?

If the patient wants the therapy, why should the government BAN the therapy? Isn’t the psychological well-being of the individual more important than political correctness or the ideology of a small subset of the population?

Guess not. But I digress …

The Spiral of Silence and the Enforcers of Right Think

In our last post, we learned that researchers have found that people tend to self-censor their speech, both in person and on social media, if they believe that their opinions are unpopular or in the minority. Researchers call this phenomenon the spiral of silence. The tendency to self-censor is one that others, particularly progressives, use to political advantage, when they seek to punish or destroy those with whom they disagree. Depending upon how politically incorrect their points of view are perceived to be by others, speakers quickly learn to self-censor their speech lest they find themselves singled out, investigated, and punished by the enforcers of right think. Let’s look at some recent examples of this type of punishment that goes far beyond ridicule or ostracism.