Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look, and an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

After several years in jail, former media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been found guilty of subversive activities.

To China, subversive activities mean speaking truth not approved by Beijing.

Lai spoke out when silence would have been

safer. The story of Lai's remarkable life is told in a moving documentary by the Acton Institute.

Born in poverty, he became one of the wealthiest men in the once-free city of Hong Kong.

When the communists began to crack down on any descent, he could have fled to the West, but instead

he chose to stay.

And now the tyrants want to make an example of him. As Father Robert Serico put in a article

at the Daily Wire, and I quote, the verdict was preordained. The performance has been elaborate,

and the point could not be more explicit. China intends to demonstrate that even a man of extraordinary achievement, wealth,

international attention, and moral outrage can be ground down when he refuses to bow, end quote.

Stories like this should, of course, make us thankful that we don't live in a society governed

by totalitarian overlords, but it should also make us realize just how important it is to defend the freedoms

that we enjoy and not take them for granted. For example, a recent report by Free Speech Group,

the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or Fire, claim that a record number of attempts

were made in 2025 by colleges in the U.S. to silence speech.

Quote, fire has documented 273 efforts so far this year in which students and student groups

were targeted for their constitutionally protected expression.

That breaks the previous record of 252 set back in 2020, the first year of the students' under-fired database, during the unrest

prompted by COVID-19 lockdowns and the murder of George Floyd, end quote.

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