How long until lockdown sceptics could be thrown into jail?
Pushing back against this tide of Maoist intolerance — in the West, not China — is the most important political battle of our time.
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When I set up the Free Speech Union a year ago, I thought we'd reached rock bottom as far as free speech was concerned. Since then, things have got worse by an order of magnitude.
The authoritarian woke cult has been given a huge boost by the Black Lives Matter movement, with anyone who dissents from the movement's central claims — even if they're blatantly false — being branded a racist. We have several members of the FSU who've lost their jobs or been kicked out of university because they've challenged BLM propaganda.
But the public shaming of scientists who dissent from COVID orthodoxy has been even more shocking.
Scientists are supposed to welcome vigorous debate — scientific progress depends upon scientists being allowed to question the prevailing orthodoxy in their field. But many of the scientists who've become intellectually committed to lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical interventions have become incredibly self-righteous about it and don't hesitate to smear anyone who opposes them as 'alt- Right' or 'neo-liberal'.
I now think there's a real risk that people who challenge passionately held beliefs, whether about racial inequality or the effectiveness of face masks, could face jail time in the near future. I mean in the West. In China, journalists who question the official narrative about SARS-CoV-2 are already thrown in jail. Pushing back against this tide of Maoist intolerance — in the West, not China — is the most important political battle of our time.
