When the media are muzzled, the people become subject to mind control
Blatant and unambiguous attacks on speech remain an unavoidable aspect of human existence (“After Kirk, free speech is tested,” Page A1, Sept. 19). Is there anyone out there who has not felt muzzled at one time or another by a parent, a boss, or a partner?
What makes the current environment so dangerous is that when muzzling occurs in the media, we’re forced into a universe in which the voicing of opinions and the flow of factual information are restricted. When you limit information and opinion, you begin to seize control over what people think. And when you control how people think, you begin to have power over their choices.
Our vulnerability to President Trump and MAGA is real. But the roots of our vulnerability to eroding free speech are rooted in the human craving for certainty and a world without ambiguity. In a black-and-white world where, for example, the leader is always right, anyone who disagrees with him is wrong.
The country was tragically ripe for this kind of magical thinking and surrender. One can only hope for a growing disillusionment with the current environment and, in the not too distant future, a yearning to return to democracy.
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Elaine Mintzer
Merrimack, N.H.
R.I. district succumbs to repression in placing teacher on leave
The ill-considered decision by Christopher Ashley, acting superintendent of the Barrington School District, to suspend and investigate a high school social studies teacher for a post on TikTok that criticized Charlie Kirk will have a chilling effect on free speech (“Teachers face fallout over comments about Kirk,” Metro, Sept. 13).
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Ashley has put Barrington on the shameful list of places around the country where employees have been fired, suspended, or otherwise punished for exercising their constitutional right to free speech by pointing out Kirk’s deplorable, bigoted views. That this would happen in South Dakota, Texas, or Florida did not surprise us, but we certainly didn’t expect it in our town, in a school district supported by our taxes.
Murder is wrong, and political violence on both right and left is intolerable, but our schools must defend and preserve our constitutional values, including first and foremost the right to free speech. The teacher’s post criticized Kirk’s views that many people have found repugnant, but he did not advocate violence. His post is speech protected by the First Amendment.
Our country is now in a dark time reminiscent of the McCarthy era where citizens were blacklisted and otherwise persecuted for their political beliefs. Kirk contributed to this climate of fear and retribution by establishing a “professor watchlist” to identify faculty he accused of spreading “leftist propaganda.”
Our schools must resist this repressive regime and not succumb to it. Placing a teacher on leave and investigating him for a TikTok post contributes to the noxious atmosphere of fear, intimidation, and retribution that endangers our democracy.
Paul Armstrong
Beverly Haviland
Barrington, R.I.