To Say or Not to Say

September 7, 2026 — Pat Bertram

It seems funny to think of all the years I’ve been struggling with the issue of how safe it is to say what is on my mind since it seems such a “today” issue. More than that, though, I’ve pretty much forgotten all the other posts where I talked about the same thing. Each day, though, WordPress (the company that hosts this blog) gives me a list of posts that I published that date in previous years, and I’ve been surprised to learn how often I’ve spoken about this same subject.

In fact, exactly six years ago today, I wrote about Malcolm R. Campbell, author and fellow blogger, and his article entitled, Are you afraid to say what you think?

He mentioned, among other things, penalties imposed on people for exercising their right to free speech, the lack of civility, allowing violence under threat of more violence, and mob-enforced political correctness. He was also brave enough to say that “most of us see and hear enough stuff daily to know how and why the problem is larger than what can be put in single blog.” And he admitted that he no longer felt safe enough to say how much larger the problem is.

This was during the Covid years, and back then, I made sure to keep my mouth shut about my vaccine status, as well as my thoughts on how the whole thing started, which recently has proven to be correct. (My studies in biological warfare primed me for the truth. Calling something “gain of function” does not negate its illegal biological warfare status, it just gives it a legal name to experiment under.)

My response to Malcolm’s post still holds true today: I’m certainly afraid to say what I think. I study everything, including both sides of an issue, and often my views end up being on the quiet end of the spectrum rather than the burning-down-buildings end. If people today can get killed by doing nothing but wearing the wrong hat or the wrong tee shirt or the wrong smile, then it’s no wonder so many of us are afraid to tell the truth even in our personal online spaces. (Because when it comes to an online space, there is no personal space with unbounded freedom from rancor to say what one wills.)

I doubt anyone would come after me physically, but still, it’s something I need to pay attention to. I am learning, though, to keep silent, especially in real life. Some of the things I want to say to people I am conversing with aren’t full-fledged ideas, but rather the beginning of a complex thought buried somewhere in the back of my mind, but even the most intelligent person seldom can get beyond my inciting comment, so we end up arguing a point I didn’t even wish to make until I finally tell them to forget it, to ignore what I said, and let’s agree to disagree. This makes them uncomfortable and leaves me with a nest-full of half-formed ideas with no place to fly. (It’s one of the reason’s I blog — to help me figure out those half-formed ideas, which is why it bothers me that I’m reticent to talk about the things that I’m trying to comprehend.)

Beyond my own safety, physical or emotional (I’m really too sensitive to easily accept discord), there is the issue of hurting other people’s feelings. While I might think they are simply reacting to headlines or to group-think, they believe they’ve researched an issue, though how can someone research an issue if they only delve into one side of it? But still, they don’t need me (or want me) to point that out. It’s a good way to end up with no friends.

But whatever . . . This post was not supposed to be a reiteration of my worries about discussing certain topics, but about how often I’ve had this same conversation with myself here on this blog. One of these days I’ll go back to infrequent posts, in which case I won’t be thinking of what to say or what not so say. I’ll simply keep my mouth shut and my fingers off the keyboard.

(I’m still trying to keep to my unofficial New Year’s resolution of daily blogging, but I have a hunch I won’t make it. Not that it matters. As I mentioned yesterday, if an opinion is just an opinion, what’s the point of figuring out the truth.)