While I cannot change what took place last year or what may come, as a science fiction writer I offer the following political dystopian future to ponder. In my future world there is a group called the Neo-Obliteration Movement which goes around trying to erase all symbols, words, and cultural concepts of hate. They are extremist in their ideologies and protest national Civil War parks and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as symbols of hate to be removed from society. They want nothing more than to expunge from society every reference to hate so we have a culture that knows of no wars, racial hatred, or any other form of hate as if these things never happened. This story bit is part of this group’s history.
The Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles heard a civil case involving hate speech brought forth by the Neo-Obliteration Movement of Southern California, LLC in the hopes to overturn decades of court cases, such as the famous Beauharnais v. Illinois permitting hate speech. The Neo-Obliteration Movement was trying to get the County of Lost Angeles to approve a list of non-offensive words and to ban a specified list of words. Called the NOM Dictionary, this was an attempt to clean up the hate speech in society. The case won at the Superior Court level but was later overturned in subsequent courts due to the Federal Supreme Court precedent on this issue. President Veronica Simmons took note and created the Agency of Morally Correct Speech which went around trying to promote the NOM Dictionary. This move just inflamed hate groups like the KKK and the Alt-Right who launched lawsuit after lawsuit in each jurisdiction the Agency pushed its agenda. In the most unlikely team up was when the Agency pushed to remove the Federal land donation to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as an appeasement to the NOM base. Aside from Jewish groups who came to protest this move, U.S. Neo-Nazis groups joined against the move because they considered NOM a threat to their Nazi hateful heritage. President Simmons washed her hands of the whole affair blaming a Congressman for the Agency idea to gather votes.