When I was a lot younger appeals for bringing in experts to resolve or manage problems seemed entirely reasonable. Some readers might even recall advertisements featuring an actor dressed up as a physician urging us to use some product or another. Nowadays, appeals to authority seem to lack the punch they used to have: folks are getting a lot more skeptical.
Today's political climate finds major news media engaged in a nonstop effort to destroy the President. All too often a negative story is presented, only to be sheepishly retracted when proven false. This is "fake news."
There has been discussion of restricting dissemination of fake news -- try Googling on "censoring fake news" to see some examples.
Related to that are other efforts afoot to to have media providers ban Internet items that various "victim" groups claim to be offensive. And over in Europe, governments might be beginning to take steps to ban political speech by certain parties that established parties consider unworthy.
Who would be brought in to judge what tweets, blog posts, etc. are worthy of being banned? Why, some supposed experts ... who themselves surely have biases.
What we would have is a form of thought control, no matter what part of the political spectrum is in charge of the operation. Open, unfettered speech, no matter how politically offensive it might be to certain people, is the best way to avoid dictatorship.
None of the above is original thinking on my part. Nevertheless, the ideas are worth repeating in these confused, troubled times.
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