Guest Columnist Arthur I. Cyr: A blocked Florida law and attempts to dictate expression
Florida Republicans, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, have just won big in the election but also suffered a major loss in court. Citing "1984," George Orwell's classic novel of totalitarian repression, Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker has blocked portions of FL HB 7 (22R), Individual Freedom Act, also termed the "Stop W.O.K.E. Act."
The law limited by Judge Walker's injunction attempts to dictate in detail what can or cannot be taught or promoted regarding people's appearance, ethnicity, gender, race and other matters. State officials tried to violate First Amendment freedom of speech by dictating in detail topics that can be discussed.
Why should we care? Young children must be protected from adult manipulation under the false guise of "education," but freedom of expression is essential for our wider society.
Governments aren't the only entities that try to intimidate. Decades ago, the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, then my employer, experienced pressure to cancel an event featuring an official of the Palestine Liberation Organization. We did not. Council Chairman John D. Gray, head of Hart, Schaffner & Marx, provided crucial support.
Efforts to suppress speakers came from various directions. A telephoned bomb threat disrupted a lecture by Congressman Paul Findley, a critic of Israel; we continued in a stairwell. Followers of radical Lyndon LaRouche, who exploited youth, tried to break up a meeting. They were removed. As an organization, we successfully resisted intimidation.
Winston Churchill well understood the value of debate, when stakes were highest. Frederick Lindemann, a longtime Churchill associate, was a brilliant Oxford don in physics and philosophy. Despite academic success, he remained a social outcast.
No doubt, anti-Semitism was one factor in 1930s Britain. However, Lindemann was his own worst problem, a know-it-all and generally obnoxious. Churchill's granddaughter Celia Sandys politely described him as "anti-social."
Even Churchill's patient wife Clementine resisted having the Oxford don as a guest, but Winston insisted. He clearly regarded his friend as possessing special talent.
When Churchill returned to government as head of the Admiralty at the start of World War II in Europe, he immediately recruited Lindemann and gave him freedom in selecting his staff and generally in choosing his myriad projects. The scholar, who was particularly talented at statistical analysis, had one mission: to undermine the conventional wisdom of the Navy and related government projects.
Churchill became Prime Minister with the fall of France, and Lindemann's role expanded, but his basic mission remained continuous. He was to analyze and criticize proposals by the officials of the government: admirals and generals, civil servants and politicians and members of the Cabinet - especially the Prime Minister.
Churchill possessed a sizable ego, but also enough long, hard experience to be well aware of his own fallibility. He assumed Lindemann would enjoy his role but also expected him to excel, and he did.
Imagination and innovation were crucial to Allied success. Reliability of information was another factor. Lindemann helped drive these dimensions.
Not long after that war against tyranny, young UCLA instructor David Saxon was fired for refusing to sign California's controversial "loyalty oath," part of anti-communist fever of the time. The California Supreme Court overturned the loyalty-oath law, but meanwhile, Saxon and his young family struggled financially.
Two decades later, Dr. Saxon was named president of the University of California overall. His earlier courage was cited in his favor.
Freedom of expression, if not suppressed, can be a great source of collective strength.
• Arthur I. Cyr, acyr@carthage.edu, of Northbrook, is a former vice president of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, and teaches political science at Carthage College in Kenosha. He is author of "After the Cold War."