We are traversing challenging times. In part, this is due to a direct assault on the concepts that underlie the First Amendment assurance of freedom of speech.

We can continue to utilize the Socratic method or abandon it. We can continue to play the devil’s advocate or abandon it. But if we choose abandonment, we are worse off for that decision.

The benefit of freely, and without fear of retaliation, expressing our viewpoint is to make both the speaker and the listener better informed. How do I know that my opinion or fact assumptions are flawed, absent carefully listening to opposing views? And, perchance, my contrarian opinion might persuade others.

Unfortunately, we are living in a era in which conflicting views are enforced by shaming, threat of boycott, personal injury and worse. It brings to mind the brown shirts of Nazi Germany.

We need to return to free exchange of thoughts, facts and beliefs to salvage the freedom that our Founders held dear to a functioning republic.

Thomas Triplett

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