Other People's Freedom, Part I

Autumn though of herself as a kind soul, and she took great pride in her compassion, she believed things could be made perfect, and her voting reflected this fashion. She was to see that the wealth was shared, and that people were nice in their words, since so few out there ever recognized how what they said could offend and disturb. If folks would only learn some basic tact then everything would run more smoothly, and she was so glad to help elect leaders who would take a strong stand against ‘hate speech.’ One day she saw on social media a report about a conspiracy man who liked to breath fire when he spoke his mind, so the tech giants all had him banned. But she didn’t think that much about it, she’d never liked that fellow anyway, so she shrugged it off as unimportant, and mindlessly went about her day. A month later she saw some new footage of men’s right activists under attack, for trying to change the family courts they were set upon by hoodlums in black. But Autumn did not care much for their cause, opposing women was beyond the pale, why listen to fools who had never been told that the future ‘belonged to females?’ A year after that a church made the news when it refused to marry two men, the pastor tried to explain his reasons, but ‘Anti-fascists’ just threw rocks at him. Autumn just shook her head at the scene, had not the pastor heard of the new laws? Who was he to claim that he knew the truth? To exclude folks on the word of his ‘God?’ Three months later, in campaign season, a brash man roused the crowds with his rants, said all sorts of things she found horrible, it was really getting out of hand. And when the networks block out all his ads, and refused to cover his rallies, Autumn felt that peace had been restored, there were ‘standards’ to democracy. Then a year later a new judge declared that ‘hateful words’ were not protected, Autumn was glad, progress would be made! She eagerly waited for what lay ahead… Over the next two years many people ran afoul of this new ‘moral code,’ it started with fines, then came prison time, hundreds, then thousands, to the jails did go. Autumn started to feel a bit uneasy at all the chaos that it had caused, but every change came with some trial, and those people had broken the laws... CONCLUDES IN PART II.