CNN’s Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour caused a lot of dentures to end up on the floor recently when she asked that paradigm of integrity, James Comey, if he, in retrospect, believed that law-enforcement people should have stopped Trump supporters from chanting “Lock her up” at his rallies.  She added that such language was dangerous hate speech that could have led to violence, and asked him, with a totally straight face, “Should that have been allowed?”

It was a stunning question, but not a surprising one.  In essence, it was an open admission that the Radical Left wants to shut down any speech with which it disagrees.  Which, of and by itself, would be bad enough.  What makes it even worse, however, is the fact that those on the left feel no compunction whatsoever about saying the most vile, hateful, even threatening things about conservatives — or, for that matter, liberals who so much as hint at being civil to any conservative.  (Just ask befuddled Uncle Joe about the blowback he received after referring to Mike Pence as “a decent guy.”)

Silencing the expression of an opinion is pure theft.  It’s not just stealing from the person who holds the opinion that others wish to silence, but also from those who are at odds with that opinion.  If the opinion is right, those who disagree with it are deprived of the opportunity to learn why it’s right.  On the other hand, if the opinion is wrong, they lose the opportunity to exercise both their reasoning powers and their powers of persuasion to try to help the person understand why his opinion is incorrect.

Keep in mind that when someone stifles another person’s opinion, he can never be 100 percent certain that the opinion he is trying to shut down is wrong.  But even if it were possible for him to know with absolute certainty that the opinion is incorrect, he still would be on the moral low road for trying to drown out someone else’s viewpoint.

Today, topics that demand there be no dissenting views include such favorites as manmade climate change (for which “the science has been settled”), the murder of children in the womb (euphemistically referred to as “a woman’s right to choose”), and “institutionalized racism” (a term that ignores overwhelming evidence that we actually live in a post-racial society).

Today, the main excuse for repressing free speech is to unilaterally label anything one disagrees with as “hate speech.”  As with so-called hate crimes, hate speech is in the eyes of the beholder.  For example, according to Radical Left hysteriacs, Make America Great Again is hate speech.  Thus, expressing a desire for your country to be great, or showing support for the president of the United States, is considered to be hateful.  But it’s perfectly acceptable for Democrats to cozy up to anti-Semites like Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton.

Criticizing Muslims, for any reason, is also considered to be hate speech.  That’s right, if you criticize someone who happens to practice the religion of Islam, you are engaging in hate speech by default.  Regardless of what the person said or did, they are fully inoculated against criticism.  But it’s perfectly fine for Muslims to badmouth America and the Constitution.

Saying there were “very fine people on both sides” in Charlottesville still goes unchallenged as hate speech.  Never mind the fact that President Trump went on to say, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.”  And never mind the fact that the Antifa goons came armed and ready to clash with the white supremacists who went to the trouble of obtaining an official permit for their protest.

On the other hand, members of Congress who express contempt for Jews is not considered hate speech.  Nor is it considered to be hateful to express contempt for Trump voters.  And, above all, villainizing the president with one false accusation after another is not hate speech.  Heck, if you’re a known follower of the religion of liberalism, you can even talk about blowing up the White House or assassinating the president.  No hate speech there, right?  As Chris Plante is fond of saying, “It’s good to be a Democrat.”

At the root of all this vile nonsense is the hideous notion of moral superiority.  Make no mistake about it, those on the Radical Left who are intolerant of the opinions of others sincerely believe they are morally superior to those with opposing views.  These boorish cretins include a majority of those in the mainstream media, sports, education, film and entertainment, and, of course, government.

We should all keep in mind that once dissent goes underground, not only are the lives of dissenters endangered, it also makes it that much easier for the state to brainwash children from a young age, long before they have the ability to develop their deductive reasoning powers.  It’s already a very bad situation, but it will be far worse if the voices of dissent are completely silenced.

Those who take the Radical Left’s threat to put an end to free speech lightly should watch the video of Christiane Amanpour asking James Comey, “Should that have been allowed?”  She was dead serious.  Republican campaign strategists should run this video again and again during the 2020 campaign, with a message at the end asking voters if they want to live in an America where Democrats decide what words can, and cannot, be spoken.

Make no mistake about it, free speech and tyrannical government are mutually exclusive objectives.  Free speech is the most potent weapon for neutralizing a tyrannical government.