Liberals and censorship
Liberals and censorship
Libs love to talk about how freedom of press is a big differentiating factor in the west compare to say China where media is more actively state controlled. However, these same people will dismiss any source that falls out of state approved mainstream.
When alternative media exists, but it's dismissed, then the end result is no different from having explicit state censorship. The only difference is that people do the work of the censors themselves.
This is a really clever aspect of the western propaganda model in my opinion where just enough dissent is allowed to act as a pressure release valve, and to provide the veneer of freedom of expression.
As long as mainstream opinion is managed, it doesn't really matter that there are contrary ideas at the fringes. Most people will do self censorship and avoid examining these ideas because they're primed to see them as absurd.
I recently finished reading Losurdo - Liberalism, a counter-history, and it really illuminates a lot of the core hypocrisies of liberalism. Basically every single one of their ideas doesn't apply to those considered outside the "community of the free", and they explicitly state as much.
So the primary liberal philosphers (Locke, de Tocqueville, Bentham, Franklin, Jefferson) and the main liberal countries (england, netherlands, US), believed variously in mass-imprisonment for the poor (the panopticon), suppression of speech, imperialism, colonization, enslavement.
If I were to boil it down, Losurdo thinks that rather than "individualism" and the freedom of individuals being the primary tenet of liberalism, its rather the master/slave or owner/servile distinction that is the core tenet.
That's a very good insight into the liberal mind. I really should read more Losurdo.
The book was praised by the Financial Times the fucking irony
For those who don't know, Losurdo defended Stalin in some other books lol