The other day I commented that everyone should read George Orwell's 1984. The crushing thought control that oppresses the citizens of Oceana in Orwell's depressing vision of a future dystopia is not just a boogeyman of paranoid conservatives, it's a real and present danger, especially in a world in which technology is so far advanced and liberal assumptions are so blithely accepted.
Lest you think I exaggerate please take fifteen minutes to watch this video that appeared at Hot Air, and ask yourself how many universities across the country have similar indoctrination programs for incoming freshmen and how discordant such programs are with the traditional concept of free speech and free minds:
Liberalism in the 19th century was a noble pursuit of individual freedom. Classical liberals prized freedom of thought, speech, and religion. They would have been horrified to see the transmogrification of their views that has taken place in the latter part of the 20th century and into the 21st. Contemporary liberalism stands almost diametrically opposite its predecessor. Today, so far from valuing the rights of the individual, liberalism values the collective and lists toward the totalitarian and tyrannical. It employs coercion, particularly in academia, to enjoin conformity of thought and speech. It resorts to public humiliation of ordinary students and other citizens to ensure they don't stray from the approved point of view. It punishes "thought crime" and seeks to homogenize thinking until everyone holds the same opinions, i.e. those acceptable to the liberal elite. In short, liberalism is gradually morphing into fascism.
This disturbing "orientation" program would still be in place at Delaware were it not for organizations like FIRE, but not even the vigilance of these organizations will be enough to stanch the totalitarian impulse unless more people recognize the oppressive tendencies of contemporary liberalism/progressivism and wean themselves from it.
RLC