On FB I have repeatedly posted on the need for free and robust speech. Often, someone will post a comment that I must be a conservative, that conservatives are full of shit, that only true ideas must be heard, that censorship is OK for the bad guys and “You seem to have fallen off the rails.” I try to respond to these comments, but it takes a lot of patience and some days my patience runs low. Bari Weiss definitely gets it. I support her writings at Substack and recommend that you check our her articles. Here’s an excerpt from her most recent article, “The Books Are Already Burning: The question is only: How long will decent people stand by quietly and watch it happen?”

You do not need to agree with [Abigail] Shrier about whether or not children should be able to medically transition genders without their parents’ permission (she is opposed), or for that matter with Weinstein and Heying’s bullishness about ivermectin (I had never heard of of the drug before they put it on my radar). That’s not the point. The point is that the questions they ask are not just legitimate, they are of critical importance. Meantime, some of the most powerful forces in our culture are conspiring to silence them.

That is precisely the reason it is so important to stand up and say: no. To say: progress comes only when we have the freedom to disagree. To say: It is outrageous that tech platforms are censoring such debates and that some journalists are cheering them on. To say, in public: enough. In my case, that means making sure to publish those voices who have been shut out of so many other channels that ought to be open to them.