Human-rights activist Natan Sharansky spent 9 years in Soviet prisons for disagreeing with the communist regime. He asks:

“Can you express your individual views loudly, in public, without fear of being punished legally, formally, in any way? If yes, you live in a free society; if not, you’re in a fear society.”

Russians have always lived in a fear society, from the czars to Stalin to Putin. They’re used to it. But what’s our excuse? We lived in a more-or-less free society for two and one-half centuries. Then, in a few years, we imposed speech codes, banned unwanted opinions from media, and told students and employees what they could or could not say. We did it to ourselves. So we can undo it. Will we?