out of

CONTEXT

A compilation of quotations on a variety of issues by national, state and regional writers, well-known personalities, just plain everyday people and from various publications collected by the editors of THE ADVANCE.

Quotes for our Times:

Dennis Prager, nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist: The 'Good American'.

What the left is doing is announcing — and enforcing — that conservatives 'do not belong' in our society. The parallels to 1933 are precise. And most good Americans are keeping silent, just as did most Germans. Though they do not risk being beaten up, are Americans in 2021 as afraid of the American left as Germans in 1933 were of the German fascists? We're about to find out.

Ben Shapiro, political commentator:

The lies tearing America apart.

Lies are dangerous. And double standards are perhaps the most dangerous form of lying: They grant the bravery of purity to those most willing to defy decency, prompting similar spasms of cruelty and malice from the other side. The solution to our national crisis of conscience isn't badfaith political purges or repetition of tiresome falsehoods about the nature of the United States. It's truth.

But truth is more a shield than a sword. And we are now in the age of swords, wielded aggressively by those with little principle but an unending sense of their own moral superiority.

Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York and author: Regulate social media like public utilities.

In 2017, the high court struck down a North Carolina law that barred registered sex offenders from using Facebook, Twitter and similar tech platforms. The justices unanimously ruled that the North Carolina law deprived sex offenders of their right to find out what members of their government are saying and doing. Justice Elena Kagan called social media 'a crucially important channel of political communication.'

If sex offenders are guaranteed access to social media, how can conservatives be blocked?

Expect the justices to broaden the First Amendment to limit tech abuses.

The Constitution bars government from limiting what we see and hear, so why should five tech companies that no one elected have that power?

Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., physician and freelance writer: Will COVID numbers now shift for Biden’s benefit?

Let’s see what happens during a potential Biden administration. Once the pandemic has served its purpose, Democrats using COVID as an excuse to finish fundamentally transforming America, the rules of the game may change, providing “proof” that the new rules, ushered in under wise Joe Biden, have finally tamed the COVID beast.

As George Orwell said, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Watch the past year’s COVID tragedy suddenly pivot to a new and more useful narrative.