Silence Seft!

It seems that the first reaction of the ruling class is to shut down, shut up, and shut out any views they don't like.

For example:

Andrew Klavan wrote a book called Empire of Lies. It was slated to be published in France by Seuil Policiers, but the editor who bought the book left that firm, and the new editor decided not to publish Klavan's book. This wasn't because she thought it wouldn't sell; it wasn't an economic decision at all, as Klavan had already been paid. Rather, the editor explained that "she can not publish . . . because of the political and religious aspects of the story." That is, the book's protagonist is a conservative Christian. Not only that, the liberal media is a sort of collective villain.

Klavan ponders

Take the e-mails that the Daily Caller obtained from the now-defunct lefty Web service Journolist. Never mind the personal or psychological implications of a radio producer who lovingly imagines Rush Limbaugh’s death or a law professor who doesn’t know that the FCC has no power to deprive Fox News of a license or a reporter who wants to smear Fred Barnes and other right-wing commentators as racist in order to distract the public from the hateful radicalism of Jeremiah Wright, then Obama’s pastor. The point is not these people’s animus or ignorance or wickedness. The point is that what they desired was not victory in open debate but silence—the silence of censorship, intimidation, or the grave.


...

Old-media pooh-bahs like former ABC anchor Ted Koppel lament the “good old days,” when three government-licensed networks served as gatekeepers to what the public could and couldn’t know. Breitbart, meanwhile, exhorts crowds of citizens to shoot videos and gather information, telling them, “You are the media now!” Breitbart only wants more information, while the left-wing media too often operate through obscurantism and suppression.

Back to John Hinderaker:

It's an interesting question: do liberals try to silence their opponents because of an inherent authoritarian tendency, or merely because they are losing the argument? I think it's a combination of the two.

If they're telling you to shut up, then you're doing something right.

Via Rand.