{"id":138278,"date":"2025-07-03T07:05:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T11:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=138278"},"modified":"2025-07-03T15:59:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T19:59:16","slug":"ec-lauren-smith-live-not-by-lies-a-cautionary-tale-for-an-illiberal-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=138278","title":{"rendered":"(EC) Lauren Smith&#8211;Live Not By Lies: A Cautionary Tale for an Illiberal Age"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A crowd of journalists, politicians, commentators, and activists gathered in central London on the hottest day of the year so far to attend a black-tie event organised by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).&nbsp; Last night I had the pleasure of attending the UK premiere of&nbsp;<em>Live Not By Lies,&nbsp;<\/em>the documentary adaptation of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/europeanconservative.com\/rod-dreher\/\">Rod Dreher\u2019s 2020 book<\/a>&nbsp;of the same name.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before the screening, there was a speech by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@triggerpod\"><em>Triggernometry<\/em><\/a>\u2019s Konstantin Kisin. Kisin, having spent a large part of his childhood in the Soviet Union, was well-placed to bring together the themes of the film\u2014totalitarianism, in its various forms, past and present.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Live Not By Lies&nbsp;<\/em>was released by Angel Studios in April this year on its streaming platform as a four-part miniseries, though at yesterday evening\u2019s viewing, we watched it in one go. It describes itself as \u201ca powerful warning from Soviet dissidents about the emerging totalitarianism in our society,\u201d which it undoubtedly is. The film features interviews with various experts on the subject\u2014notably, author Douglas Murray, associate professor of philosophy of religion at Cambridge University Dr. James Orr, and the ADF\u2019s senior legal communications officer, Lois McLatchie Miller.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/europeanconservative.com\/articles\/news-corner\/update-billboard-chris-released-without-charges\/\">McLatchie Miller<\/a>&nbsp;herself has experience with being arrested for speech-related crimes. Just last month, she and Chris Elston (better known as Billboard Chris) were arrested in Brussels for holding signs decrying the gender transitioning of children. They were both released without charges after a few hours, but the whole ordeal was a frightening reminder that free speech now holds little sway in many Western countries.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/europeanconservative.com\/articles\/commentary\/live-not-by-lies-a-cautionary-tale-for-an-illiberal-age\/\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Live Not By Lies provides sustained deep delves into the plights of individuals whacked with the censorious stick. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/_BellaEpoque?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@_BellaEpoque<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Zsn6zjxSt8\">https:\/\/t.co\/Zsn6zjxSt8<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Ayaan Hirsi Ali (@Ayaan) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Ayaan\/status\/1940435924250157290?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 2, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A crowd of journalists, politicians, commentators, and activists gathered in central London on the hottest day of the year so far to attend a black-tie event organised by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).&nbsp; Last night I had the pleasure of<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=138278\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,199,200,114,151,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-watch","category-england-uk","category-europe","category-law-legal-issues","category-politics-in-general","category-religion-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138278"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138283,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138278\/revisions\/138283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}