I know there are many people who simply will not expose themselves in the media, because they know their argument is so weak. But in that case, the media should be making a whole issue out of that.
I've written a version of the following in a thread about Scots Govt. response to an item but it holds here.
What an indirect light this shines on the upholders of this inchoate ideology's own acknowledgement of reality - that their justification needs misrepresentation and dishonesty to have any chance of succeeding. Allied to that, that it's necessary to introduce a broadening of the concept of 'hate crime' to suppress any objection made to this ideology and also debate in the public arena.
With apologies to Isaiah Berlin's Two Concepts of Liberty it is as if various bodies have determined that the ends for this topic have been agreed and all that remains to be determined are the precise forms of political engineering by which these ends are to be achieved (Oakeshott's "rationalism in politics").
The public is not to be allowed a voice in the necessary discussion about social and political order and how they intersect with what the nebulous authorities have decided we shall have in this Utopia.
This is dangerous and ignorant (Berlin described it as "surprising"). Berlin delivered his lecture in 1958 but we are still grappling with familiar manipulations and a lack of engagement with the general populace. We're currently watching parts of Europe burn, Afghanistan is a metaphorical tinder box, and much of the world is still grappling with a pandemic, and a major democratic govt. has not been able to deal with an assault on its Capitol.
Dangerous, because when ideas are neglected by those who ought to attend to them – that is to say, those who have been trained to think critically about ideas – they sometimes acquire an unchecked momentum and an irresistible power over multitudes of men that may grow too violent to be affected by rational criticism.
Robert Conquest's Reflections on a Ravaged Century (2000) elaborated on this danger when he named the phenomenon of mindslaughter - he described the destruction of intellect by ideas grown too violent to be affected by rational criticism
The BBC and MSM are facilitating this on various topics of interest to the public. It feels as if they are abusing powers in a way that resembles political systems they would otherwise deplore - and, here they are, actively misleading the public and refusing to be accountable for their misrepresentation.
For this thread - it feels as if the BBC is actively facilitating mindslaughter - and they and every MSM will continue to do so until they insist that there is coherent argument that is robust to factchecking.