re: "Reading Orwell for the Fourth of July" (The New York Times, July 4, 2020)
A useful litmus test of your commitment to free speech, the founding principle of democracy, is the length of the list of vile, disgusting, worthless, false, fake and generally abhorrent speech even unto the outright hateful whose expression you insist be protected by the law from suppression either by the state or by ostensibly well-intended social consensus. The longer this list, the more genuine the commitment to the liberal principle of free speech essential to honest thinking as to a healthy democratic state.
Too many who think themselves liberal have a zero-length list that fails utterly to demonstrate the progressive liberality that they piously claim for themselves.
Orwell, who managed to consistently offend the leftist progressives and rightist regressives of his own day, yet has much to teach us.
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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to the The New York Times article.
It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/opinion/orwell-fourth-of-july.html#commentsContainer&permid=107946429:107946429
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