With silencing of speech, is America entering Orwellian territory?

What’s alarming is how quickly the cancel culture has taken root throughout society with conservative thought its first casualty, but not likely its last — a fact not lost on a group of mostly liberal writers and academics who sent an open letter to Harper’s on “Justice and Open Debate.”

After the usual bashing of conservative opinion, the progressive activists wrote, “The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away.” Elsewhere they wrote, “We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought.”

If “On Liberty” was a milestone in the intellectual journey toward freedom and enlightenment, the harsh tenor of today’s political discourse is setting us back on what has never been an easy road.