The left is working overtime this election year to remind millennials of their servitude to political correctness. This new generation is like a tragic novel wherein the central character has lived his or her entire life under some sort of oppressive code and suddenly finds himself with something important to say, but finds it nearly impossible to break with convention and give utterance to what they believe. And political correctness is oppression in the guise of gentility. As a people we’ve allowed ourselves to become slaves of the opinions of others, as though our own opinions don’t matter and its jeopardizing our very lives in numerous ways. We’ve taught our children to comply with the national peer pressure; and the national leadership has exploited our own insecurity to the point that we’ve developed a cultural identity crisis.
And then came Trump and Cruz. Young people are now being presented with examples of courageous leaders teaching what is for this generation, a new lesson; speaking the truth will set you free. Now I’m the first to assert that Trump in particular doesn’t always speak that true in love, but he’s speaking it fearlessly, as is Cruz, and Americans are paying attention, as is evidenced by the fact that the two most outspoken candidates are leading the pack. The electorate is done with the placative voices of the likes of John Kasich and others. They, [we] want boldness.
And I think, young people are torn. They’ve been told what not to say for so long, and at the same time find that the truth carries a heavy punitive reward. They’re promised freedom of speech but warned not to use it. Like Mao’s “Hundred Flowers Campaign,” society voices a love of free expression, but shouts down and destroys anyone with the courage to live by the principle. So as people are being attracted by Trumps bellicose bluntness, or Cruz’s voice in the wilderness, the mainstream media is desperately trying to put out the fire of free speech by trying to hold the children they’ve raised to their false standard.
But as Chesterton once boldly proclaimed, emphatically it will not work! The American Constitution props open the door of free speech, and while it’s questionable how many college youths even know what the First Amendment even contains, they do know that they were not meant to live lives of submissive silence, where feelings trump (no pun intended) the truth.