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In many ways, freedom of speech is vanishing in America, with "equity" demands, "pronoun" orders and requirements for not just political, but gender, racial and other correctness.
Freedom of religion, too, has been attacked under the Joe Biden administration, with multiple legal fights by groups that simply want to worship in their faith traditions. After all, It was Biden's administration that spied on traditional Catholics.
Now the bull's-eye is being put by the Biden administration on freedom of association.
The warning comes from Stella Morabito at The Federalist.
She has authored, "The Weaponization of Loneliness: How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation to Silence, Divide, and Conquer," and her work has appeared at the Washington Examiner, American Greatness, Townhall, Public Discourse, and The Human Life Review.
She cites a recent "advisory" from Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called "Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation," that claims social isolation is a public health issue and suggests "government" actions to respond.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy (Video screenshot)
"On the surface, these six directives may look innocuous, but they present a clear and present danger to the autonomy of our private lives and relationships. The project is potentially so massive in scope that it’s not an overstatement to say it threatens to regulate our freedom of association in ways we never could have imagined," she wrote.
For instance, she said, one of the government projects would be to "strengthen social infrastructure in local communities."
On that topic, the Biden administration wants the government to define "infrastructure," and then fund various groups and "direct how they're structured."
Which, Morabito warned, would mean that "all local communities must answer to the federal bureaucracy ... ."
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One component, she warned, could be new and dense housing projects and "the eventual dismantling of single-family housing."
The plan would "provide authority and justification for changes supported by radical environmentalists, all of which diminish our freedoms," she said.
"We end up with a massive federal infrastructure that can monitor the levels of social connection and disconnection in every nook and cranny of society. As described in the report, this would mean every institution, every governmental department, every volunteer association, every locality, every church, every faith community, every organization, every club, every service club, every sports league, and so on, would likely be assessed and 'strengthened' to promote social connection," she said.
Then there are Murthy's ideas to attack "policies, products and services that drive social disconnection."
"In other words, some people are more socially connected than others, and that’s not fair. They enjoy benefits — as in 'unearned privileges' — that put others at a disadvantage. So the government needs to intervene for the sake of equity to 'spread the wealth' of social connections" she said.
This includes incorporating the leftist "diversity, equity, inclusion" agenda, she said, a plan that "serves to erase human individuality and replace it with demographic identity markers that label people as either oppressors or victims, thus cultivating more resentments and hostilities in society."
The Biden plan also would "mobilize the health sector," a scheme to expand "public health surveillance," or, in other words, "tracking your social connections and intervening when the bureaucracy deems it necessary. Big Brother sitting in on your doctor visits and therapy sessions?"
Other steps would involve centralized government control over tech development that involve human interactions, with Murthy's agenda stating, "We must learn more by requiring data transparency from technology companies."
"The advisory also backs the 'development of pro-connection technologies' with the goal of creating 'safe' environments and 'safeguarding the well-being of users.' Such phrasing has been used in recent years to justify censorship under the guise of protecting certain demographics," she warned.
Then there's a planned "research agenda" but that simply would "reflect the outlook offered by the advisory."
And, too, the government would work to "direct out social interactions and behaviors."
For example, "Not dating a transgender person is now labeled unkind and 'transphobic.' 'Gender affirming care' — i.e., castration and mutilation of children — is the only 'respectful' way of treating gender dysphoria. Your 'responsibility' is to comply without question."
But she warned the government has the solution reversed.
"Never mind that the proven prescription for loneliness is the opposite: a private sphere of life where intact families raise their children with a sense of virtue; where institutions of faith give people a sense of order and purpose in life; and where friends can confide in one another without meddlers eavesdropping on their conversations. This sphere of life — the private sphere — is the fount of freedom, love, and trust that nurtures social connections. It can only thrive in privacy."
"No one can say for sure where this 'Ministry of Loneliness' proposal will end up. History — particularly recent history — has warned us about such projects. The goals of this advisory may seem unobjectionable, but the concern is about who decides how we connect socially. When the 'who' is the federal government, we should remember that the pattern of the mass state is always to induce loyalty to the mass state."
IMPORTANT NOTE: “Election denier!” “Science denier!” “Climate-change denier!” “Conspiracy theorist!” And then there’s “hate speech,” “fake news,” “disinformation,” “misinformation,” even something called “MALinformation.” A bizarre new lexicon has been conjured up by America’s elites, the SOLE PURPOSE of which is to discredit and ridicule – and if at all possible, CENSOR ENTIRELY – speech that doesn’t support their increasingly dark and deranged agenda. Tucker Carlson is just the latest.
In the greatest imaginable irony, the nation once boasting the most robust culture of freedom of speech and the press – undergirded by the strongest constitutional protections for those rights – is now ground zero for a total war on free expression.
How could this possibly happen in the United States of America? It’s all explained as never before in the sensational new issue of WND’s critically acclaimed WHISTLEBLOWER magazine, titled “THE ELITES’ ALL-OUT WAR ON FREE SPEECH.” WHISTLEBLOWER is available in both the popular print edition and a state-of-the-art digital version, either single issues or discounted annual subscriptions.
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