We’re in the dawn of a high-tech, bloodless cultural revolution, one that relies on intimidation, public shaming, and economic ruin to dictate what words and ideas are permissible in the public square.

“Words are violence” has always been an illiberal notion meant to stifle speech and open discourse. Popularized by a generation of coddled and brittle college students, it now guides policy on editorial pages at newspapers such as The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, and most major news outlets.

The Times can claim that a harsh tone and a small factual error in Sen. Tom Cotton’s recent op-ed was the reason the entire paper had a meltdown, but the staffers who revolted initially claimed that Cotton’s argument for bringing the National Guard into cities put black lives in “danger.”

None of the Times’ editors, all of whom are apparently comfortable with running fabulist histories or odes to communist tyrannies, pushed back against the caustic notion that engaging in debate was an act of violence. They bowed to the internal mob and pleaded for forgiveness.  Taken in part from a  Commentary  by David Harsanyi—The Daily Signal