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Notes -
This is too totalizing and bleak. It's a matter of degree of censorship, and approximation to liberal attitudes on speech. It hasn't been exactly like it is now since forever, otherwise we wouldn't all be talking about censorship in the current era as if something important really has changed in the last decade or so.
Tangentially, speaking in terms of "we shouldn't let that happen again, so let's censor harder," fails to grasp that there are a number of disagreements within one's own tribe or political camp.
Demonstrate that more moderate stances can solve or even significantly ameliorate the problem, and I'll happily concede.
What's different this time, in the main, comes down to tech centralization, mutual reinforcement of Blue-Tribe centers of power, and the unusual fervor generated by peculiarities of the Progressive worldview. Progressivism has been a serious contender since the founding of the nation, but the fight didn't have to go this way, and I think it evident that it did go this way in large part through naïve trust in "enlightenment principles" that were never, ever going to hold.
And sure, there are a great many disagreements within all tribes or political camps. Have faith in human nature, give it a little more time. The escalation spiral works its magic, and such disagreements resolve themselves.
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