Silence Those Who Disagree and Lose Your Liberty

The far left and the far right of political, religious, and cultural movements both attempt to suppress dissent.

Those in power fall into the trap of believing that silencing  minority opinions is somehow beneficial.

But silence those who disagree and it's only a matter of time before citizens of a country, members of a church, or inhabitants of a culture lose their liberty.

Let me give you an example.

In 1950, Immanuel Velikovsky, a polymath student and friend of both Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein, wrote a book called Worlds in Collision.

Velikovsky used documentation from the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and Hebrews to explain how volcanoes formed mountain ranges, massive meteoric showers destroyed entire civilizations, and oceanic tidal waves flooded areas of the earth on a regular basis in relatively recent human history (e.g. 2200 BC, 1500 BC, 650 BC).

Velikovsky wrote that all the ancient Greek and Roman legends have their heroes revolve around Jupiter (Greek: Zeus), the god of  "sky and thunder," as well as Saturn, Venus, and Mars, because these planets passed close to earth during early recorded human history on their way to their current planetary orbits. Velikovsky called these near celestial collisions Worlds in Collision.

According to Velikovsky, the ancient cataclysms are  described by religions and people groups across the globe, including the Hebrews in their Scriptures.

An evolutionist himself, Velikovsky believed that mankind is in amnesia about these cataclysms. He writes:

"The agitation and trepidation preceding global upheavals, the destruction and despair that accompanied them and the horror of possible repetition all caused a variety of reactions, at the base of which was the need to forget, but also the urge to emulate."-                                                                                                          Immanuel Velikovsky

When MacMillan Company first published Worlds in Collision in 1950, the radical left of the scientific and academic communities went ballistic. They organized boycotts of university textbooks published by McMillan, forcing the company to transfer publishing rights of Worlds in Collision to another company. The academic intelligentsia personally blackballed Velikovsky, calling him a pseudo-scientist at best, and a quack at worst.

Velikovsky's belief that the earth has been through massive upheavals in mankind's recent past is directly contradictory to steady-state evolutionist theories of academia.

As a result of these intimidating tactics against Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky by the radical left, there has been a loss of true open and frank dialogue with dissenting scholars in our higher education system in America.

In other words, American universities are no longer free.

Faculty, students, and researchers must hold to the leftist party line of those in power.

However, the left has no monopoly on silencing dissent.

Charlemagne (AD 748-814), a "Christian" king and first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, massacred thousands who refused to be "baptized" as a Christian.

Adolph Hitler, following the example of Charlemagne, purged Germany of anyone not Christian and not German. Hitler desired a Third Reich (Empire) of German rule. In the 1930s, the Nazis held official book burning ceremonies to eradicate any publication that offered an alternative view to the principle of blood purity, nationalism, and German colonial expansion.

Radical Muslims today are killing infidels, silencing anyone who opposes their attempt to establish a world-wide caliphate.

But listen carefully. There are some liberty-loving, kind and caring Muslims who oppose the far right radicalism of Islamic fundamentalism.

Read for yourself what these peace-loving Muslims say.

I have many friends who are Muslim. I don't agree with their religion, but I support them in their attempts to publish their dissenting opinions. What no lover of liberty can accept, and my Muslim friends agree, are the intimidation tactics against those who disagree.

Rachelle in the Christmas Market of Nuremberg (white hat)

Rachelle and I were standing this past week in the Christmas Market in the historic downtown square of Nuremberg, Germany, drinking coffee by a warm fire, when a nice German woman asked my wife what she thought of Donald Trump.

I noticed a young German man standing next to the fire, warming his hands, watching my wife very intently as she told the woman that she liked Donald Trump as President, particularly his economic business policies, and she would vote for him again. She also said she wished our President wouldn't do and say some of the stupid things that he has said and done, but she feels he's been good for the economy of the United States.

As the young man listened to my wife, he didn't blink. He stared. You could tell he was angry. Then, in a very intimidating voice, he said something to my wife that made our spirits grow as cold as our hands.

We left the center of Nuremberg and realized that our world is filled with radicals, both left and right, who wish to silence those who disagree with them.

The young German man who rebuked my wife was a radical political liberal. He couldn't stand the thought of my wife's opinion being expressed out loud. He attempted to silence through intimidation someone with whom he disagreed.

The radicals on the right do it. The radicals on the left do it.

I left Nuremberg with a renewed resolved to defend everyone's freedom to speak, write, and believe whatever they wish.

Velikovsky, a close friend of Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, became the target of a coordinated campaign to blackball him and his writings from the leftist intelligentsia in power.

The Velikovsky Affair is something that I've studied for over a decade, and it's given to me three insights into today's political, religious, and cultural conflicts:

1. If either the right or the left uses bullying tactics to intentionally silence dissenting  opinions, it's incumbent on me to resist those in power and defend the minority's right to speak, even if I don't hold to the minority opinion. 

2. University scholars, religious clergy, and national party leaders must be regularly reminded how fragile any institution is unless free and open discussion takes place, which includes the toleration and protection of those who espouse dissenting viewpoints.  

3. Any authoritative demand for absolute  conformity ends in the loss of liberty for all individuals and the eventual collapse of the institutions themselves.

Let freedom ring!