“The progressive culture masters have decided to destroy this movie”
By Bob Lonsberry
Why are the people who try to tell us what is good for us are also telling us that a movie condemning child sex trafficking is a bad thing?
I’m talking about “Sound of Freedom,” a movie out last week that tells the story of a guy who rescues children from sex trafficking in Central America. It has been well received by audiences, but roundly condemned by the progressive media.
One survey shows 97% of people who actually saw the movie liked it – a staggeringly high number – but the Washington Posts, Rolling Stones and CNNs of the world have vilified it, mocking its premise, actors and viewers.
They have tried to brand it as extremism or associated with secret, conspiratorial groups. It’s the politics of personal destruction employed against a motion picture. The leaders and enforcers of progressive orthodoxy have damned it and have sent the message that those who support it will suffer the wrath of the American left.
Made five years ago, the company that produced it was shortly thereafter bought by Disney, which immediately shelved the movie, choosing to eat the $14 million production cost without trying to recoup it by any sort of release – including streaming. That’s a pretty good indication of where this movie stands with the powers that be.
Simply put, the progressive elites hate “Sound of Freedom.” Their antipathy is palpable, and has ended up bringing far more attention to it that it would have otherwise received. Clearly, there is something about this movie that sets off the progressive establishment. The progressive culture masters have decided to destroy this movie.
The question is: Why?
Is it because it was made by Latinos?
Is it because it was paid for by Christians?
Or is it because progressivism is evil, and this movie strikes a blow against evil? In a contest between innocent children and the people who would sexually exploit them, why does it seem like critics of this movie aren’t coming down on the side of the children?
And how does that fit in with the clear progressive effort to bring both sexualization and sexual confusion to America’s children? If parents who think books explaining how to perform fellatio shouldn’t be in school libraries are dismissed as “book burners,” “Nazis” and “domestic terrorists” by the media, the teachers unions, the Democrats and sometimes the government, what does that tell us about the people doing the dismissing? And what are we to deduce when those same people now attack a movie highlighting the internationally recognized problem of human sex trafficking?
By every estimate, there are millions of children being trafficked for sex – with about six million forced into prostitution in India and China alone. Human trafficking, primarily for sex, is a larger global criminal business than either arms sales or marijuana smuggling. Of all humans trafficked for sex, about a third are children. It is the slavery of our day, with dramatically larger numbers than the Atlantic slave trade to North America in the 1700s and 1800s.
And pedophiles and child molesters in the United States provide the market demand for a great deal of this sexual exploitation of children. American sexual tourism to Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, and the massive downloading and merchandising of child pornography, pump dollars into a world of indescribable evil.
And progressives are denouncing a movie that brings that to the public’s attention.
The Democrats’ criticisms of “Sound of Freedom” in 2023 are reminiscent of Democrats’ criticisms of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in 1852.
It’s almost as if progressives don’t want light shined on this particular social evil.
And that’s unacceptable. Because God’s children are not for sale, and the power of public scrutiny can do much good. The Biden Administration has chosen to make trans rights and gay rights hallmarks of its foreign policy, pressuring countries to adapt its view on those issues. Why can’t the United States also use its power to pressure foreign countries to better protect their children? If Joe Biden wants 87,000 new federal law-enforcement agents to go after taxpayers, why can’t he more aggressively go after the people who receive and share child pornography?
In a world where it seems progressives are moving toward stretching tolerance, diversity and inclusion to protect pedophiles, the attack on a movie that reminds the world how abhorrent, violent and evil pedophilia is is more than troubling – it’s indicative.
Indicative of the evil that may lay at the heart of progressivism.
That’s not some right wing theory, or a kooky conspiracy, it’s a reasonable conclusion to draw.
“Sound of Freedom” ends up being a Rorschach test of sorts, and your reaction to it tells us something about you.
It’s about children and pedophiles and good and evil, and which side of the line you – and this society – stand on.
Bob Lonsberry, a Canisteo native, is the father of nine children, a veteran of the United States Army, and a newsman for nearly three decades. The former newspaper columnist, reporter, and author, is a marathon runner. You can hear Bob mornings on NewsRadio WHAM 1180 in Rochester and NewsRadio 570 WSYR and 106.9 FM in Syracuse. You can reach him at bob@lonsberry.com
