POLITICS: The “tolerant” left – USSA News

Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

Several years ago I started writing a dystopian novel about a place that banned thinking.  The novel is titled: It Began With A Whisper and it’s the story of Idere, a boy who risks everything for choosing to think in a world of mindless automatons who have been bribed by their government not to think.

After Charlie Kirk’s assassination, I was really distraught because I greatly admired him for his courage and focus on critical thinking skills.  I decided to change the book dedication and dedicate it to him.

This is the dedication I wrote in the book:

To Charlie Kirk, an American hero and martyr. He helped inspire much of what is written on these pages through his own dedication to the value and importance of what it means to think.

The book was completed a few months ago and was in the editing process when Charlie was killed. My publisher, a Christian publisher in Australia, sent out requests for book reviews.  Today she received a reply from a reviewer who refused to review the book because of the dedication.  The publisher, Appointed Media, was sent the following text by a TikTok Reviewer:

Leftists are constantly arguing about the censorship of books by conservatives, but this is a reviewer who refused to read my story simply because of the dedication.  I guess this reviewer believes you should judge a book by its dedication instead of by its cover.

What has happened to a society created by Enlightenment thinkers like Rousseau, Locke, and Paine?  These were true liberals who believed in freedom of the press and whose writings created the foundation for a free press.  They would turn over in their graves if they saw the poor excuse for media that shows up each night on television with their sour pusses to fabricate their agenda driven news, and this is extended to so many other aspects of information delivery systems that includes social media and the publishing industry.

Is it censorship that movies have a rating system, which protects younger children from adult material?  Isn’t it the responsibility of parents to monitor what their children are exposed to?  Or is it the teacher’s unions who tell parents to remain silent as they expose 6 year old children to material that borders on it being pornographic!  Yet, my story, a wholesome novel without any sex, LGBTQ issues, or graphic violence, doesn’t “align with the morals of this particular reviewer.”

One of the things I liked best about Charlie Kirk and others like Michael Knowles, Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh is their courage to go into unfriendly places and expose the left as fascists who censor instead of engaging in debate because their ideas are based on the same tired emotional appeals that have them believing perceptions are actually reality.

This reviewer actually made my point for me because this story is about those who censor what they fear, make laws to control and indoctrinate but claim to educate.  It is one thing for a reviewer to read a chapter of a novel and realize it’s going to be too tedious to review or to read the back cover and reject the basic premise of a book.  However, to simply read a dedication and make this the entire basis of a refusal is beyond myopic and illustrates the lack of objectivity in the media, in education and in so many other areas of American society.

My last article was all about the left’s control over the publishing industry.  This coincides with the left’s domination over education and it is good to see states like Florida fighting back to say enough is enough and end wokeness in Florida’s schools and universities.  It is no coincidence that Florida’s educational system under the leadership of Ron DeSantis has produced a high school graduation rate of 89.7% in 2023-2024, compared to 2010, when the graduation rate was an abysmal 70.6%.  This is what happens when you prioritize and realize that the future isn’t about how many pride flags hang in school classrooms or that a teacher’s main job is to put ideas into student’s heads about gender and getting back to the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.

The sick and twisted response of teachers, like the teacher in Chicago who motioned a gun to her throat to mock the murder of Charlie Kirk during the No Brains, I mean No Kings protest is despicable.  How many members of ANTIFA are teachers?  How can we allow our children to be taught by demented individuals who lack the civility to applaud the death of someone who was a husband, father and son simply because he posed questions that baffled their small minds?

I’m proud to have dedicated my book to Charlie and I hope one day to be able to place a copy in the hands of his widow, so she can read it to her children.

I realize it will be an uphill battle because those in positions to review books, do interviews and promote the novel will be biased and will find ways to dislike what I’ve written simply because of my dedication, but I refuse to allow anyone to blackmail me to change what I wrote for someone I greatly admired.

I’ve never been afraid of cancellation or being banned because I despise bullies and the worst bullies are the ones who are internet warriors who wouldn’t have the courage to say in person what they write behind the covert safety of their computer screens.