Somehow, the United States of America has become a country that talks about ways to force people to get in line with political agendas. It seems we've learned nothing from witch hunts of the past, and our nation seems determined to repeat these mistakes. As a nation founded on the principles of legalized dissent and free speech, it's nothing short of criminal to try to encourage the silencing of those deemed "dangerous." A novel I recently read called Our Missing Hearts tackles this situation.

Remember back during the dark days of the pandemic when people were saying horrific things about what should be done to the folks who opted not to get vaccinated with an experimental medication that had been pushed through the approval process? Don Lemon, formerly of CNN, felt that the unvaccinated should not be allowed to buy food or work. CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner says that unvaccinated people shouldn't go to bars and restaurants. A doctor pondered the ethics of whether he could refuse to see unvaccinated patients in The New York Times.  Pam Keith, an attorney from Florida, suggested that the unvaccinated be denied access to any federal benefits…including things they've paid into their entire working lives, like Social Security.

And "deprogramming" has been brought up more than once in the past few years also. There was a popular thread back when X was Twitter, in 2020, about how anyone who had voted for Trump over the senile and corrupt Biden needed to be put into reeducation camps and deprogrammed.

Apparently, the idea stuck with failed presidential candidate Hillary "Sour Grapes" Clinton because she repeated the notion a few years back in an interview with CNN, calling for the "formal deprogramming of MAGA extremists."