Respectfully, this is wrong. I’m afraid you are artificially constraining the argument to symptoms, not a cause. We’ve seen headlines on this site showing how

Respectfully, this is wrong. I’m afraid you are artificially constraining the argument to symptoms, not a cause. We’ve seen headlines on this site showing how we have access to more kinds of information than ever. Society HAD been pressured to toe the line even harder back in the day. Internet has no TV censors, though the most visible properties do. It’s ridiculous to suggest we’ve become more protective given book burnings, anti-Dungeons and Dragons, anti-comic book, Bible thumping paranoia that used to exist. What we’re seeing is American incompetence to comprehend more than just their speech is wrong. Their entire agency is wrong. When political forces beat us over the head with economic correctness, which has lead to decades of growing inequality, and the Fed relied on a policy of worker insecurity to keep people in their jobs, this has little to do with Main Street tolerance for alternative ideas (they’re everywhere) and everything to do with tried and true human nature to maintain economic power in the hands of a minority. Humans evolved quite a bit before language. What is language anyway except muscle agency emitting random sound forms? Then of course we normalize on them, effectively constraining our syntax systems organically. Even linguists agree. This has little to do with suppression of speech and everything to do with top down control of productive agency altogether. The undermining of agency for the masses, sequestered in the hands of a minority has nothing to do with speech. We say a lot of diverse shit. But spend our time securing the wealth of oligarchs.