Without even holding a formal vote, Norway's parliament "outlawed hate speech against transgender people" last week, including in private conversations.  Those found guilty will face fines and up to a year in jail for private remarks and three years for public remarks.  Don't laugh — things aren't much better in the U.K., Australia, Canada, or even the U.S.

If only conservatives could be granted such coddling protection!  A substantial swath of the mainstream media and entertainment industry would be in jail — right next to the Big Tech bigwigs and university professors.  And across the bare hall from the Hollywood stars and starlets.  Late-night "talk show" hosts would be shelling out fines like a berserk Pez dispenser.

But, in truth, that wouldn't be good, either.  Free speech was the foundation upon which the American Dream was built.  Thomas Jefferson said, "I have sworn on the altar of God, eternal hostility to all forms of tyranny over the minds of man."  And here we are today, with nearly half the country afraid to say what they believe, because they know they can't go against the prevailing groupthink without being savaged, threatened, canceled.  We have reached "herd mentality" before achieving "herd immunity" from the coronavirus.  Nineteen eighty-four has passed, but COVID-1984 is upon us, suffocating, man-made, deadly.

What's next?  How long until just thinking "the wrong way" will be punishable by law?  More than eighty years ago, Winston Churchill observed the advance of Nazism and warned of "a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science."  The fight to defeat that perverted science was long and costly...and came very close to failing several times.

Those who hold power today have vastly more advanced technology at their disposal.  And they are trying again to exterminate our free will and imprison our minds.  If we let them, you can be sure that our bodies will soon follow.  As will a new Dark Age.

Graphic credit: Openmoji Project, CC BY 4.0 license.