{"id":2589,"date":"2021-05-10T14:45:45","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T14:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/05\/10\/to-speak-the-truth-one-must-be-free-to-speak\/"},"modified":"2021-05-10T14:45:45","modified_gmt":"2021-05-10T14:45:45","slug":"to-speak-the-truth-one-must-be-free-to-speak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/05\/10\/to-speak-the-truth-one-must-be-free-to-speak\/","title":{"rendered":"To speak the truth, one must be free to speak"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the two men who had joined us for the conversation shared an anecdote from a family member in America. The family member\u2019s little girl came home from school after receiving the standard antiracist indoctrination in whiteness and white supremacy. The child said, \u201cI don\u2019t understand this. Don\u2019t all lives matter?\u201d The child\u2019s mom told her not to ever say those words \u2014 \u201call lives matter\u201d \u2014 outside the home, because she could get in trouble.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bishop Istvan nodded. Those who grew up under Communism know exactly what\u2019s going on here. His interlocutor continued, saying that he is hearing that the phrase \u201cwhite silence is violence\u201d is a thing in America. He\u2019s right:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea is that your silence \u2014 that is, your failure to affirm the ideology \u2014 is evidence of your guilt. One thinks of the story Solzhenitsyn tells in The Gulag Archipelago<\/em>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone stood up (just as everyone had leaped to his feet during the conference at every mention of his name). \u2026 For three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, the stormy applause, rising to an ovation, continued. But palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching. And the older people were panting from exhaustion. It was becoming insufferably silly even to those who really adored Stalin.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, who would dare to be the first to stop? \u2026 After all, NKVD men were standing in the hall applauding and watching to see who would quit first! And in the obscure, small hall, unknown to the leader, the applause went on \u2013 six, seven, eight minutes! They were done for! Their goose was cooked! They couldn\u2019t stop now till they collapsed with heart attacks! At the rear of the hall, which was crowded, they could of course cheat a bit, clap less frequently, less vigorously, not so eagerly \u2013 but up there with the presidium where everyone could see them?<\/span><\/p>\n

The director of the local paper factory, an independent and strong-minded man, stood with the presidium. Aware of all the falsity and all the impossibility of the situation, he still kept on applauding! Nine minutes! Ten! In anguish he watched the secretary of the District Party Committee, but the latter dared not stop. Insanity! To the last man! With make-believe enthusiasm on their faces, looking at each other with faint hope, the district leaders were just going to go on and on applauding till they fell where they stood, till they were carried out of the hall on stretchers! And even then those who were left would not falter\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, after eleven minutes, the director of the paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat. And, oh, a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down. They had been saved!<\/span><\/p>\n

The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel. That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them. That same night the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years on him on the pretext of something quite different. But after he had signed Form 206, the final document of the interrogation, his interrogator reminded him:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t ever be the first to stop applauding.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

You begin to see why the Soviet-bloc emigres are so panicked about what\u2019s happening in America today, don\u2019t you?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here: One of the two men who had joined us for the conversation shared an anecdote from a family member in America. The family member\u2019s little girl came home from school after receiving the standard antiracist indoctrination in whiteness and white supremacy. The child said, \u201cI don\u2019t understand this. Don\u2019t all lives matter?\u201d The child\u2019s … Continue reading “To speak the truth, one must be free to speak”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[231],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-speech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}