In the early television era, one of the most innovative and imaginative shows around was Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone. Certain episodes were so compelling that they entered the popular imagination, and are familiar to anyone over 30. One of the most brilliant episodes, shown in 1961, was It's a Good Life, based upon a Jerome Bixby short story.
The show's first audience was composed in part of the World War II generation, and entirely of the Cold War generation. These were people who had seen first hand totalitarian regimes that demanded their citizens' total obedience.
To enforce that obedience, the spy network for each of these totalitarian governments measured people's allegiance by closely examining their behavior. The wrong word, a mis-timed blink or twitch, an unfortunate handshake in the street, and ordinary people would suddenly find themselves in the gulag or the gas chamber. The regimes surely regretted that they lacked Anthony's mind reading skills, but with a frightened population, spies in every family, and draconian punishments for even the slightest deviation from total devotion, they were surprisingly effective at creating a Stepford citizenry that, even as the world crumbled, repeated that every government initiative was "a real good thing."
For decades, Americans assumed that "it can't happen here." American strength and American freedom would inevitably overwhelm any efforts to turn the thought police lose on the American public. But of course, it has happened here, although not with the bloodshed and torture that characterizes most totalitarian regimes. Instead, through the medium of political correctness, which preys on Americans' innate desire to be a good and decent people, we are constantly pushed into "correct" modes of thought. Deviate from that line of thinking and you will find yourself publicly pilloried as an "-ist" (e.g., racist or sexist), or a "phobe" (e.g., Islamophobe), appellations that have become the ultimate insult that can be visited upon any good American.
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Put simply: we don't have the moral or physical strength any more, as a citizenry, to take a stand against threats to our fundamental freedoms. TV shows will be ever more bland and careful. Newspapers, echoing the BBC, may well start proactively appending "pbuh" to stories the reference Mohamed. And ordinary citizens, increasingly cowed by accusations of "isms" (e.g., racism) and phobias (e.g., Islamophobia), will not only keep their mouths shut, but will also keep their thoughts pure.
Welcome to the new American Twilight Zone.
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