Chapter 325: Plausible Deniability
Revolutionary sentiment within France had been curbed for a time, but after suffering through continuous defeats on the battlefield, it became clear that the people had been lied to by those in power.
And this had once more caused protests to break out across the country. Whether it was the Marxist revolutionaries who sought to install a communist utopia within the borders of France, or right-wing reactionaries who blamed the defeats in 1871, and the ongoing losses during the Great War on their own failing republic. All who wished to participate in civil unrest were making their voices heard.
To combat these protests, the French Government began to crack down on them, dispersing any gathering of ten or more people with law enforcement agencies, while imposing a curfew on all citizens.
In addition to this, anyone caught spreading "defeatist" sentiment was jailed without proper legal recourse. Only further adding to the powder keg that was waiting to blow. You see, if someone had a grievance, whether legitimate or otherwise, the last thing you wanted to do was silence them.
Because if you took away the ability of the people to speak of their concerns, whether through legal means, or by trying to ruin their livelihood via socio-economic pressure, then the only thing that remained to express what they believed was violence.
It was perhaps one of the reasons Bruno had feared in his past life the future of his own nation. As when government figures came out stating that free-speech should not be permitted if it allowed the rise of dissenting viewpoints, well then those people who believed such things had only one option left to get their point across.
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And when that happened civil war was but a stone’s throw away from engulfing the nation. Public debate and political discourse were the lifeblood of a republic. If you began to suppress opinions you did not like, you only encouraged them to become violently dissident.
This was not a problem for more authoritarian governments such as monarchies, dictatorships, and other forms of autocracies. As they did not falsely preach lofty ideals such as free speech, equality, and democracy. Nor would they care to.
But in a republic, founded under so called "democratic ideals" to reject these notions for thee but not for me was hypocrisy, and hypocrisy was something universally despised by human cultures around the world.
For example, If a leader of a nation was to call themselves an autocrat, and openly preach that they were going to suppress the people’s freedom of speech, infringe upon their so called "human rights", rig elections in their party’s favor (assuming they even had elections in the first place), imprison their political rivals, and outlaw political parties which expressed disagreement with their worldview?
Most people would accept it. These were the rules they lived in, and while this autocrat in power might be "bad" at least he was honest about what he was doing.