AT Intellectual Conservative, Alan Roebuck has an essay titled “What to Say to the Leftist Gestapo.” Roebuck recommends defending the right to think politically unacceptable thoughts whenever facing censure for expressing improper thoughts. Beliefs cannot be controlled and liberalism has always defended the right of people to think whatever they want in private. Someone charged with saying the wrong thing could respond:

They say that we must all celebrate diversity and be tolerant and nonjudgmental. OK, I celebrate and tolerate, as ordered.

Also know that I do not apologize for the beliefs I hold in the privacy of my mind. There is no rule in America that you have to think a certain way. I’m not telling you what those beliefs are, because they’re none of your business, but I do not apologize for them. Thank you, and have a nice day.

Roebuck also writes:

Leftists bully people ultimately for their own good, to hasten the advent of the Truly Just Society in which all beliefs and lifestyles are honored, all feel at home, and universal peace and freedom reign. Leftists, in their own minds, wield their manifest intolerance to serve the cause of personal freedom.

And therefore the above scenario presents an unsolvable dilemma to the leftist: He must either tolerate private dissent — thereby undermining the leftist enterprise — or he must strike at the root cause of opposition to the Left (personal non-liberal convictions), thereby making himself illiberal in his own eyes.

And even a consistent leftist, although he will have no qualms about attacking privately-held non-liberal beliefs, will hesitate before affirming publicly that all his talk about respecting the freedom of the individual conscience is just talk, and that his real position is a totalitarian one: No thoughtcrime allowed.

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