The New York Times, or The Failing New York Times, if you prefer is like a blind squirrel today. The paper’s editorial board published a nut of truth today on censorship. The title of the article is cheerworthy, “Censorship Under Military Dictators Was Bad. It May Be Worse Under Democrats”. Hallelujah and Amen, brother.

Mohammed Hanif, British/Pakistani writer and novelist, graduate of the Pakistan Air Force Academy and former pilot. Photo credit: GoodReads.com

The author of this article Mohammed Hanif writes a monthly op/ed for the paper. Mr. Hanif begins this op/ed with the tale of Dawn (the Pakistan version of the New York Times) and writer Cyril Almeida. Rather than printing the government line, Mr. Almeida, through Dawn, poked the bear that is the Pakistan “Deep State”. For this, Cyril Almeida has been charged with “connivance”. That is willing to be used for wrong doing or collusion.

The crime of “connivance” apparently stems from Almeda’s reporting that former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif didn’t think Pakistan should be a staging ground for terrorist attacks. From the article:

Media competitors have called Almeida an enemy agent and a Sharif lackey. The newspaper stood by him, and he continued to write his column with occasional references to “the muzzle and the leash.” Then, during the last election campaign this spring, Sharif — who was removed from office for corruption last year — gave Almeida that interview confirming his differences with the generals. And now Almeida faces criminal and possibly treason charges simply for writing that a three-time prime minister said that Pakistan shouldn’t be a staging ground for terrorist attacks on another country.

Mr. Hanif then goes on to cite the murder of other Pakistani journalists. There is a clampdown on free reporting. Mohammed Hanif claims Urdu journalists write in parables to avoid the censorship police.

As Pakistan threads the difficult navigation from dictatorship to democracy, it is helpful to remember that Pakistan is only 71 years from colonial rule. As a sovereign nation, Pakistan isn’t even a toddler. Censorship is something we must all always be wary of falling into.

Criminalizing speech and thought is not just the purview dictators. Our own Antifa, pussy hat hags, and our humorless, inflexible media titans are just as capable of shutting down free thought as any dictator. Think about trials of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the visit by Kanye West to the Oval Office of our own White House, or the fascist mobs chasing those to the right of Brosef Stalin out of public places. Although Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao handled the fascist mob pretty darn fine, if you remember. Let’s stroll down memory lane for a moment.

Turns out Elaine Chao knows how to take care of her man.

It’s easy to make light of these assaults on our Constitutional Republic. Well, it used to be. The censorship of the fascist mob is getting more violent and dangerous every day. There is a reason we don’t have a pure democracy. We have a Constitutional Republic. Mob rule is ugly and deadly. Just ask those who met Madame La Guillotine during the French Revolution.

Justice Louis Brandeis had it all too right with this quote:

If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom.

We cannot let the mob shout us down. Let’s listen to Mohammed Hanif in the New York Times today and be bold and brave in the face of the fascist mob.

Feature photo credit: Pixabay