“Shhhhh!”: The Code of Silence

Written by John (the other John).

“Shhhhh” is the international sound of telling somebody else to remain silent. Whether it is to conceal a crime, or a secret, or to conceal a shortcoming/failure, or to conceal a fraud, etc…; basically, it is intended to prevent/restrict somebody from speaking his/her mind. Historically, this limitation of speech has been practiced by either tyrannical governments or criminal syndicates, under threat of physical violence or death. (As a reminder, the Red Holocaust killed an estimated 100 million people, and the Holocaust killed about 6 million people). With this realistic fear, people practiced self-censorship (the most effective form of censorship). This was very effective even without direct government surveillance, because these governments all had a network of public informants by private individuals (i.e., snitches).

Although the US has the 1st Amendment to protect our freedom of speech, and although the 20th Century has taught us of the evil by such authoritarian governments, unfortunately that does not exempt us from this code of silence today. So because we have our own dark cloud of cyber-tyranny lurking in our shadows (both by big tech and by private individuals who act as snitches) that seeks to silence us, we thus self-censor ourselves out of fear.

In the meantime, just remember to “shhhhhhhhh!”, it’s for your own good.

Photos: Bildarchiv / Truthandaction.com