I believe if you take for yourself the right to neutralize or silence an opponent, he gets to do the same in kind. State authority is mostly based on show and r

I believe if you take for yourself the right to neutralize or silence an opponent, he gets to do the same in kind. State authority is mostly based on show and relies on people complying, even in autocracies. So you should be very sure about it if you do silence people and about the costs. There was never a point in the recent pandemic or would you disagree? It is also difficult to come up with an example where it was warranted to suppress information. Can you name one? Educated and intelligent people are often very distrustful, especially of authority. Society is not a boot camp of grunts.