The danger of selective censorship: Galileo was arrested for spreading ‘fake news’ that the earth orbits the sun

from NewsTarget

The self-proclaimed purveyors of all facts and other things wise—the lamestream media, which publishes neither wise nor truthful things, in many cases—is not the first institution to claim all information which it cannot control to be “fake” and unworthy of notoriety or attention. A very long time ago, a brilliant man was persecuted for daring to publish scientific findings that didn’t jibe with “the scientific establishment” of his day.

Galileo Galilei was born in 1564—the same year that Shakespeare was born and Michelangelo died.  According to this history published by the University of Missouri-Kansas City, was very scientifically gifted from a very early age.

At the tender age of 19, he discovered the isochronism of the pendulum; by 22, he had invented the hydrostatic balance; and by 25, he assumed his first academic position, lecturing at the University of Pisa. It wasn’t long before Galileo developed quite a reputation throughout Europe as an excellent scientist and lecturer, and eventually he would be recognized as the father of experimental physics.

Punishing the messager because of the message

After three years lecturing at Pisa, he accepted a position at the University of Padua, where he began to develop a very strong interest in Copernican theory. In 1543 Nicolas Copernicus published “Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs,” a revolutionary theory at the time that the sun was the center of our universe, and that earth and the planets in our solar system, rotating on an axis,  revolved around it (the earth once per year). Skeptics derided the theory, claiming that the earth they stood on did not appear to move at all, especially at the speed it would take to move around the sun.

At some point in the mid-1590s, Galileo came to the conclusion that Copernicus was right, and the discovery of the telescope in 1609 helped him confirm it. But this was heretical thinking at the time; even most of the learned academics of the day were not only skeptical but also hostile to this Copernican Theory. So Galileo decided to take his findings public.

But his biggest detractor of the day was the Catholic Church, whose adherents pointed to Biblical Scripture as stating plainly that the earth, not the sun, was the center of the universe. In those times, the Church served as “the state,” so to speak, for it was ubiquitous and all-powerful.

In the end, Galileo’s ideological battles with the Church landed in trouble with the authorities of the day. He was arrested in 1633, put on trial before 10 Cardinals in 1633 and found guilty of what was essentially violating commonly held views of the day. He was placed in the care of Church officials, and eventually allowed to move into his own small farmhouse in Arcetri, in Florence, Italy, where he would go blind and die in 1642, having been forced to denounce what he knew to be true.

17th century censorship alive and well today on the American Left

Fast-forward to the modern day. Supporters of the party of Obama and Hillary Clinton would love nothing more than to be able to persecute those who espouse political, social and scientific positions that differ from their own. Left-wing orthodoxies like “human-caused global warming is real,” “conservatives are racists/homophobes/bigots” are the narratives they cling to, no matter how demonstrably wrong they are. They demand “safe spaces” on college campuses and in the workplace so they don’t have to listen to or entertain any ideas or beliefs different from their own. They shout down opponents and, were they permitted to do so, would effectively ban certain speech they don’t agree with or approve of.

And like Galileo, the Left views as heretical any science that doesn’t fit their narrow views, as some researchers whose work has disproven those views, know well.

So-called “fake news” is the buzz phrase created by the Left to explain how it was that GOP nominee Donald J. Trump managed to defeat Democratic rival Hillary Clinton—fake news supplied by Russia, no less.

There is no explanation given as to why Moscow would favor Trump over Clinton, but that doesn’t matter; you’re just supposed to believe that fake news did her in and now we have to do something about fake news (censorship of facts and views the Left doesn’t like).

In truth, there are those in our country today who would treat politically divergent views and inconvenient facts the same way divinely-inspired censors treated them in the 17^thcentury. Don’t let them do it.