Michiel van Lierop
Sep 9, 2018 · 1 min read
  1. McCarthyism existed before the internet. Free speech wasn’t very free then.
  2. In the actual Dark Ages, nobody in the Americas spoke English yet. They didn’t have free speech there, but then again, neither had anyone in Europe who spoke (the forerunner of) English at that point.
  3. In between the actual Dark Ages and McCarthy, Europe had a war that killed almost 1/3 of the population, over which kind of Christians they wanted the other side to be. Free speech wasn’t very recommended then.
  4. During the actual Era of Enlightenment, saying you were an atheist was still a pretty surefire way to lose your career and possibly your freedom or even life.
  5. If you refer to American Red and American Blue, then American Purple probably isn’t going to help you much. I’d say try green, but I hear American Green comes with a few quirks of its own.

Drowning in romanticised nostalgia won’t help you, and neither will thinking the truth lies somewhere in the blending of two corrupted colors. Speech has never been more free than it is now. Protect it.

Michiel van Lierop

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Social Geographer | Conflicts, geopolitics, social inequality and climate change

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