Silence by Inaction

If we lose the courage to disagree, we lose everything.

We lose the ability to course-correct bad policy. We lose the means to stand up against corruption. We lose the space to wrestle with uncomfortable truths - and yes, to be wrong, to be offensive, to learn and grow. The erosion of free speech doesn’t just silence the extreme. It numbs the entire spectrum of ideas. It hollows out public discourse. It creates echo chambers where truth is dictated, not discovered.

And it breaks people.

People like the teacher afraid to speak about her Jewish son’s murdered friend for fear of being accused of hate speech. The artist who’s quietly pulled a painting because it could be “misinterpreted.” The student who whispers their views to avoid being labeled as intolerant. The small media outlet throttled by algorithms and denied funding because it dares to ask unpopular questions.

This isn’t just censorship. It’s fear culture. And it’s spreading.

The Cornerstone of Trust, Truth, and Progress

Free speech isn’t just a right. It’s the mechanism by which trust is earned, truth is discovered, and progress is made.

Without it, we don’t learn - we comply. We don’t think - we repeat. We don’t grow - we conform.

When only one side of a debate is allowed airtime, we don’t get consensus. We get coercion. And worse, we get stagnation. No innovation, no reform, no breakthroughs - because progress has never come from those towing the line. It has always come from those willing to challenge it.

Without dissent, science would still be clinging to false consensus. Civil rights movements would have been silenced as disruptive. Democracy itself would never have emerged.

When speech is controlled, truth becomes fragile - contingent on the approval of those in charge. And when people can no longer speak freely, they stop trusting the institutions that silence them. Public confidence erodes. Suspicion flourishes. Polarization deepens. And a society once defined by dialogue begins to unravel from within.

Censorship doesn’t protect us from harm. It protects the powerful from accountability.

The Death of Critical Thought

Free speech is the oxygen of critical thinking. When we stop allowing uncomfortable ideas to be voiced, we stop exercising our minds.

We begin to mistake agreement for understanding. We get used to simple answers instead of wrestling with complexity. We become consumers of narratives, not participants in them. And that makes us manipulable - easily swayed by curated headlines, half-truths, or the illusion of consensus.

This isn’t accidental. A public that doesn’t question won’t push back. And when people don’t think critically, they’re more likely to believe what they’re told, to follow without understanding, to accept restrictions that would once have been unthinkable.

This is how freedom dies in modern societies - not with violence, but with compliance dressed as compassion.

We begin to mistake repetition for truth and comfort for clarity. We lose our appetite for nuance. And slowly, we become intellectually malnourished - consuming only what’s been pre-approved, regurgitating what’s been filtered for us by politicians, influencers, algorithms, or institutions.

This isn’t a hypothetical fear. History shows us exactly what happens when speech is censored and thought is tamed.

Stalin’s Soviet Union

In Stalinist Russia, censorship wasn’t just about protecting the regime - it was about controlling reality. Newspapers printed only what the Communist Party allowed. “Enemies of the people” were not only jailed or killed, but erased from photos and books. History itself was rewritten.

And the terrifying thing? People learned to believe the lies.

When alternative views were no longer visible, the Party’s narrative became the only reality many could comprehend. Dissenters weren’t just criminals - they were “insane” or “traitors.” Thought was no longer a process of inquiry. It became an act of submission.

Nazi Germany

In the early years of Nazi Germany, the regime moved quickly to silence opposition - especially in the press, the arts, and academia. Books were burned. Jewish and left-leaning professors were dismissed. Newspapers were consolidated into a state-controlled propaganda machine.

The purpose wasn’t merely to silence dissent. It was to replace it with something else: dogma, obedience, and fear masquerading as unity. Hitler understood something many still don’t: controlling speech is the fastest way to control thought.

The Chinese Cultural Revolution

Under Mao’s rule, the Chinese Communist Party led a violent purge of intellectual independence. “Rightists,” artists, and teachers were publicly humiliated, beaten, or killed for expressing divergent views. Millions were set to re-education camps. Speech was sanitized; thought was reprogrammed.

This was not just suppression - it was mental colonization. Students were taught to report on their teachers and parents. Children were trained to parrot slogans without ever understanding what they meant.

And the legacy of that fear still haunts China today,

What About Now?

You might think, “That can’t happen here.” But history doesn’t repeat itself in obvious ways. It whispers. It nudges. It creeps.

Today, we may not burn books in the street, but we do ban them from libraries and schools. We don’t exile professors, but we do cancel them. We don’t arrest journalists en masse, but we deplatform and demonetize them. And every time we nod along - every time we stay silent because it’s safer - we feed the same beast: the quiet death of independent thought.

When people are punished socially, professionally, or legally for asking difficult questions, most stop asking. Not because they suddenly agree, but because fear is louder than curiosity.

This creates a culture of intellectual cowardice - a society where people self-censor not just out of compliance, but eventually out of habit. And that is when critical thinking dies - not from a single blow, but from a thousand tiny cuts.

How We Push Back

It’s easy to feel small in the face of government overreach, media manipulation, and cultural pressure to conform. When you start to realize how much of what you see and hear has been curated or censored, it can feel like the truth is slipping through your fingers. But here’s the thing: we are not powerless.

Free speech only survives when people exercise it.

We push back by refusing to surrender our right to ask hard questions - even when they’re unpopular. Even when they make others uncomfortable. Especially then.

We push back by staying informed - not just by consuming headlines, but by reading past the first paragraph, questioning sources, and digging into who’s funding what and why. We support the voices that are being drowned out. We follow independent journalists, subscribe to local and alternative media, and share content that challenges the narrative instead of simply reinforcing it.

We push back by holding our elected officials accountable. That doesn’t mean just voting. It means watching how they vote. It means calling and writing and showing up. It means knowing who your local MP is and making it known that you care about their position on free speech - not just when it aligns with your views, but when it protects the views of others you might even disagree with.

We push back by listening - really listening - to perspectives we don’t like. Not because we’re going to be persuaded, but because echo chambers make us dumb and fragile. A free society depends on our willingness to tolerate discomfort and debate. That’s how ideas sharpen and evolve. That’s how truth emerges - not through censorship, but through collision.

We push back by talking to each other - not through angry comments or hashtags, but in real conversations. Around dinner tables. On front porches. At work. In schools. Real change starts locally, with courage and clarity and connection.

We push back by remembering that dissent is not disloyalty. That critique is not hate. That silence in the face of censorship doesn’t keep the peace - it just keeps the powerful from being questioned.

And we push back by not giving up. Because it’s not too late. But it will be if we keep waiting for someone else to do it.

Closing Thoughts

Over the course of this series, we’ve peeled back the layers of something deeply unsettling - an erosion of free expression in Canada that has accelerated in recent years. We’ve looked at the laws passed under the guise of safety. The quiet control of media through money. The silencing of dissent through legislation and tech restrictions. The double standards that protect some voices while vilifying others. The societal shift toward conformity over critical thought.

And if you’ve stuck with me through all of it - thank you. I know this hasn’t been easy reading.

But it shouldn’t be.

It should make us uncomfortable to realize how easily liberty erodes. How fast we’ve gone from valuing open dialogue to fearing offense. From embracing diversity of thought to demanding ideological purity. From questioning our leaders to being told that doing so is dangerous.

What we’re facing in Canada is not just a political problem. It’s a cultural one. A spiritual one. A problem of courage.

And yet, I still believe in us.

I believe in the power of ordinary people to make noise that matters. I believe in the mom who teaches her kids to think critically, the student who dares to question the status quo, the elder who remembers when things were different and won’t stop reminding us. I believe in the power okee dokee people gathering across differences, refusing to be divided by politics or algorithms. I believe in you. And I believe in me.

We can’t protect free speech by staying silent. We can’t defend truth by pretending lies don’t exist. We can’t preserve democracy by outsourcing our thinking to people in power. We must engage - consistently, courageously, and compassionately.

This series may be ending, but the work is only beginning. What you do from here - what we all do from here - will shape the kind of country Canada becomes.

We can choose fear, or we can choose freedom. But we cannot have both.

Free speech is not a fringe issue. It is not the domain of only academics, journalists, or politicians. It belongs to all of us. It protects the artists, the skeptics, the believers, the protesters, the scientists, the whistleblowers - and yes, even those we may passionately disagree with.

It’s easy to take it for granted, especially in a country like Canada where freedoms have long felt secure. But the truth is,  rights unexercised are rights easily lost. When we stop using our voice out of fear, when we stay quiet because it’s safer, when we label people as dangerous simply for questioning or dissenting -we lose more than just opinions. We lose the very foundation of a free and just society.

We cannot build a stronger, wiser, kinder Canada by silencing each other. Growth is noisy. Justice is uncomfortable. Truth is often inconvenient. But if we want a future built on something real, we need to make room for it all.

So speak. Question. Listen. Disagree - honestly, respectfully, and bravely.

Because freedom doesn’t end when the conversation gets hard.

It begins there.

Ⓒ July 2025. Beki Lantos. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the author.