My thought and critique:
Now in America (and beyond) you are no longer allowed to have your own opinion.
What I mean is this:
The ‘thought police’ (Politically Correct “PC” culture) makes people scared to voice their own opinion.
America is great because we are a tolerant nation. But slowly, we are becoming less and less tolerant.
The thought police (1984)
Orwell was right. In the future (today) we are no longer allowed to have independent thoughts. To share your thoughts which are contrary to those with political power is considered suicide. Even in higher education (college, university, masters programs, Ph.D. programs, etc), to have a non-liberal non-left view is not tolerated. In other words, you cannot be a conservative and (publicly) be an academic and scholar who is pro-Trump.
Is ‘silence’ truly “violence”?
I don’t think so. I am often silent about certain matters because either I don’t know all the details, facts and context, because I don’t really care, or because I haven’t experienced it first-hand (empirical experience). To tell others “silence is violence” is wrong because it strong-arms people into having an opinion about something they might not actually have an opinion about.