RealClearPublicAffair’s Censorship Page is designed to be an online venue where conversations on these critical issues can take place. This page promotes, distributes, and archives the work of leading journalists and thinkers who take the growing issue of censorship as their core concern. 

What began as localized skirmishes in the “culture wars” has expanded its reach with startling speed. Journalists and editorial boards self-censoring for fear of political — or financial — reprisal. University administrators invoking speech codes to shield students from “harm,” i.e. ideas they found uncomfortable. Faculty members capitulating to dominant campus orthodoxies. Students themselves revealing they are afraid to speak their own minds. College newspapers, which once crusaded against such proscriptions, going along for the ride.

The contagion of censorship was never going to be contained to the academy and it hasn’t been. Social media, with complicity of the legacy media, disseminated the seeds of conformity far and wide. The federal government has entered the fray —on the wrong side.

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In December 2022, Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, Bari Weiss, and other journalists published the first installment of the seminal story known as The Twitter Files. Among many chilling revelations, the Twitter Files proved the worst suspicions of those who cherish the First Amendment: For years the government has pressured private companies to censor the speech of ordinary Americans. Topics ranging from COVID-19 lockdowns and origin to voting practices have felt the stifling influence of government censors on open discourse.  

The Twitter Files were the spearhead of a now robust journalistic inquiry into the nature of government censorship in the 21st century. We have since learned the extent to which a new self-appointed media oversight industry cooperates with the government to undermine free expression, which is the birthright of every American.

As our democracy’s challenges deepen and multiply, the incentives to control speech only grows. It is therefore vital to witness, and document, governmental and institutional censorship efforts wherever they appear. This page, and RealClear as an organization, is dedicated to that task.  

The American republic rests upon the foundation of “E Pluribus Unum” — out of many, one. Although the Founders knew from their own experience that a vast diversity in outlooks and opinions would be present among the country’s citizens, they understood that such diversity must rest upon principles and practices we hold in common. It is up to each generation to make sure that this foundational unity remains intact. This project on American Civics seeks to contribute to that worthy cause.(((break)))

These pages will bring together, into one place, the clearest, most accessible materials on the American experiment. Visitors will gain insight into topics ranging from the “self-evident” truths described in the Declaration of Independence and the framework that the Constitution set in place to prevent tyranny and secure rights and liberties to the virtues citizens must possess in order to enjoy freedom and self-government. Nor will we shy away from exploring the greatest injustices in U.S. history, including slavery and racial discrimination. Present at the Founding, they were departures from the nation’s founding principles. Neither this paradox, nor these injustices define America, however. Rather, it is on the basis of those principles that they are rightly condemned—and ultimately addressed.  

Users will also find the 1776 Series: a collection of accessible essays written by scholars that explore how the American Founders understood themselves and the system of government they implemented. These essays will give readers a clear and concise understanding of important American themes, such as the republican nature of the U.S. Constitution and Abraham Lincoln’s deep appreciation of the moral foundations of American self-government. These pages will also curate modern thinking on topics such as balancing the desire for security with the innate American impulse for individual freedom; the challenge of preserving judicial independence in a polarized political environment; how to simultaneously foster intellectual curiosity and tolerance among a generation ready to take democracy’s baton and run with it.

RealClearPublicAffairs is a new series of sponsored curation designed to provide coverage of important and trending public policy issues. More About

The most important event in economic history: the harnessing of heat to do work. First coal, then oil, and later natural gas – hydrocarbon energy powered the Industrial Revolution and transformed humanity’s existence for the better. Growth rates in the one and a half millennia before the Industrial Revolution averaged approximately zero. Since then, per capita incomes in a typical free-market economy have risen by amounts ranging from several hundred to several thousand percent.

Yet today, businesses and consumers face demands for the forcible phasing out of fossil fuel energy over the next three decades to stop global temperatures rising by a half a degree Centigrade. This is not just incompatible with capitalism. It is incompatible with modern living. Some six in every seven humans today still live in undeveloped countries. Non-Western nations aspiring to Western standards of living now account for around three-fourths of global CO2 emissions. For this reason alone, whatever the US and other western nations do, net zero by mid-century is simply not going to happen.

Energy policy should be based on facts and reason, from the fundamental physics of energy production and storage to the relation between energy and economic growth. This page is meant to serve as a clearinghouse for research, news, and multimedia that can inform debate over the major energy policy questions of today. Together, these curated materials lay the foundation for the policies that will ensure reliable and affordable energy for businesses and consumers and help the economy bounce back once the COVID-19 pandemic has passed, as well as chart a course for genuine environmental stewardship.