Bret Stephens is the only person worth reading any more in the Times:
In the proverbial land of the free, people live in mortal fear of a moral faux pas. Opinions that were considered reasonable and normal a few years ago are increasingly delivered in whispers. Professors fear their students. Publishers drop books at the slightest whiff of social-media controversy. Twitter and other similar platforms have delivered the tools of reputational annihilation (without means of petition or redress) into the hands of millions, so that no comment except the most private is entirely safe from the possibility of instantaneous mass denunciation.
It will be deeply disappointing to see comments about how Stephens is a Nazi who said something objectionable at some point in his life. Because people who leave such comments are stupid. And it pains me to think that I somehow attracted a stupid person to the blog when there’s the entirety of Facebook for such individuals.
Another good quote:
“Armed with the ‘truth,’ Jacobins could brand any individuals who dared to disagree with them traitors or fanatics,” historian Susan Dunn wrote of the French Revolution. “Any distinction between their own political adversaries and the people’s ‘enemies’ was obliterated.”