Tending Our Roses

Hello, dear reader. Your arrival here is actually very timely. I’ve got some thoughts I’d love to share with you right now…

But I can’t. Really, I can’t.

I can’t because I’m seriously afraid. I’m fearful of what your response will be, because for the first time in my life I feel that writing a piece on “freedom of speech” could actually get me in real trouble.

Our world stays in a perpetual state of high alert now, with violence ready to explode around us with the slightest provocation. We are told the violence is understandable, perhaps even justified. We’re told to stand by and watch, no matter what the cost to life and property. 

And while we’re watching, we’d better keep our mouths shut.

Our societal house is on fire – the “dumpster fire” is now our national meme – but we’re told that’s a good thing. It’s just society righting itself after so many years of wrongs. So as western civilization starts to go up in flames, our neighbors get out the hot dogs and make s’mores. 

But it’s fine, really, just as long as you keep quiet. Nothing to see here. Keep moving along…

At some unknown point along this journey we began weaponizing our opinions. Both sides accuse the other of having started it, but the truth is they both have done similar damage. The accepted response to disagreement is no longer debate, but unbridled aggression. 

We shout down any party who dares to dissent by exposing their home addresses (“doxing”).

We shame them on their social media addresses (“cancelling”). 

The message is clear: disagree and we will come after you. And this statement is not figurative – they mean “come after you” quite literally.

We will boycott your business.

We will ban your speech.

Eventually, we’ll be just outside your bedroom window, because we will be coming to your home. There is nowhere for you to hide from the consequences of holding an opposing view. You will be destroyed, not for a crime, but merely for what you believe to be right.

So what is the end result of this? 

Silence.

More people are becoming afraid to speak out. Unless they whole-heartedly agree with the loudest narrative now in the culture, they are learning quickly to keep quiet.

We are beginning to see some of the atrocities of history rear their ugly heads once again. The ones I’m watching were born on the streets of Berlin about a century ago.

That was when a movement of hate grew to power by intimidating people from speaking out in opposition to them. Any dissent was met with ridicule at first. Then threats. Then open attacks. Eventually people realized speaking up would lose them their jobs, businesses, and eventually their lives.

In the great film Judgment at Nuremberg, Burt Lancaster played Ernst Janning, a high-ranking judge during the rise of Nazism. When cross-examined as to why he sided with Hitler and allowed rights to be abused and millions to be exterminated, he responded simply:

“I was content to tend my roses…”

Screenwriter Abby Mann, who was admittedly left-leaning in his politics, spoke through the character to warn us about how rights were stripped away by the Nazis. In the script, Janning admitted to admiring the renewed vigor he saw in the German people in the late 1930s. He thought Hitler was bringing a sense of pride and self-respect back to the country after the devastation of WWI. So the simplest thing to do every time one of their liberties were taken was to look the other way. 

When finally his neighbors were hauled away to the camps, he focused his gaze on the beauty of his own front yard. As long as the nation was getting stronger, as long as there was a semblance of “peace”, and as long as the soldiers weren’t coming for him, what did it matter if some other voices were silenced? The ends justified the means.

I’m afraid many of us are now following in the footsteps of Ernst Janning. We are becoming a nation comfortable with turning away from the muffled cries next door and are content to “tend our roses”. As long as our “side” is winning, we’re ok with the carnage.

We may fein ignorance, but we can never again honestly wonder how good German people let such evil overtake their land. The footsteps are quiet, but their rhythmic stride is unmistakable – they march in strict unison.

I believe we have begun the march back to August 19, 1934. That was the day history pivoted and the unimaginable happened: a maniac took over complete control of Germany. More amazing is that it all happened without a bloody coup. Likewise, today the clock is turning backward to a time when evil was given free rein and dissent was silenced. 

It was once said that speech was only truly free if we defended the rights of those who we hated as well as those we loved. No more. Now “Free speech” is good only as long as it’s not “fake news”. A growing number believe some speech shouldn’t be allowed, especially if it’s speech that contradicts them. We will continue to bless the silencing of opposition, all in the name of “fairness”.

We’re desensitized to censorship. Surely Facebook and Twitter have only the best motives.

In the past, Silence was said to be golden. But in our day, the sound of silence may eventually prove deadly. That silence is something that should frighten both progressive and conservative alike. Because it is not truly about political ideology. It is about tyranny.

All these are all things I desperately want to say, but dare not. 

Should I oppose the accepted meta-narratives of our time, I know too well what is coming. In attacking me, my position will be misrepresented and shoved as far as possible to the extreme. I will then be branded with a name meant to incite revulsion. The truth of the matter will not matter. Only the accusation will be remembered.

It’s only a small leap and a matter of time until that name I’ve been branded with becomes a patch to be worn on the arm.

So instead, we will chose to remain silent. We will hold our families close and huddle in our homes, hoping no one will notice us. We will tend our own roses, I never allow our gaze to divert toward our neighbors who erred and spoke out. 

That is how it will soon be, just as it was a mere 93 years ago.

The spirit of 08/19/34 is coming around again, but not just in Germany this time. Even now it is enveloping the entire world, leaving no place to hide. 

If left unchecked, this gag placed over our mouths will eventually euthanize the patient with a pillow of silence, held firmly over the face of freedom. And at that moment, no one will be able to hear the screams emanating from our own gardens.