For some time now, I have been concerned about the erosion of freedoms in our state, our nation and the Western world. Following are five examples of that erosion from “The Week” section of the December 31 issue of National Review.

We must take care in 2014 that we not let our freedoms slip away from us even more.

#1-France
For speaking strong words in an interview published in the French edition of Rolling Stone magazine last year, Bob Dylan faces legal charges of committing “public injury” and “incitement to hatred.” He implied that Croats are to Serbs as Nazis are to Jews. Offended, a group representing Croats in France brought their case to the Paris Main Court, where Dylan will be tried on a date not yet determined. During World War II, hundreds of thousands of Serbs died at the hands of Croatia’s Nazi-supported Ustashe government. Most Croats living today were not yet born. Dylan imputed to them the sins of their fathers or, an even greater stretch, the sins of their neighbors’ fathers, perpetuating exactly the brand of nationalist stereotyping and bigotry that he meant to decry. Dylan was wrong, and Croats are right to say so. But they’re wrong to treat his error as a crime that the state is supposed to deal with.

#2-Britain
While the British media were exhausting the lexicon of superlatives for Nelson Mandela, finally likening him, on the BBC, to Jesus Christ, a Mr. Neil Phillips, a 44-year-old shopkeeper in rural Staffordshire, turned dyspeptic. He posted, “My PC takes so long to shut down I’ve decided to call it Nelson Mandela,” and also, “Free Mandela — switch the power off.” It is dangerous to make jokes, especially if they are tasteless. A Mr. Tim Jones, on the bottom rung of British politics as a member of the local council, complained. The police arrested Phillips and held him for eight hours, took fingerprints and DNA, and examined his computers. “Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee; she is a fen of stagnant waters.” Things have hardly changed since Wordsworth wrote those lines. Amid outcry, the section of the Public Order Act that gave rise to Mr. Phillips’s persecution is to be repealed this coming February. Unwittingly, Mandela’s last gift has been this bolstering of free speech.

#3-Colorado
Hunter Yelton, age six, had a crush on a girl in his school in Canon City, Colo. In reading group one day, he leaned over and kissed her on the hand. He was promptly suspended for two days for “sexual harassment,” an offense to be entered on his record. Hunter’s mother, in an interview with a local news station, was incredulous: “How can you do this? How can you say this about my child?” The school superintendent explained that Hunter’s behavior met the definition of “unwelcome touching” under the district’s sexual-harassment policy, and furthermore, it was a repeat offense — he had previously been disciplined for kissing the girl on the cheek. After a few days of negative media coverage, the district agreed to downgrade his offense to “misconduct.” One news report noted that “no criminal charges have been brought against the first-grader.” How reassuring.

#4-United States
The issue of black quarterbacks has been touchy from time immemorial, or so it seems. When Doug Williams was the Super Bowl MVP at the end of the 1987 season, that was held to be an important milestone. All these years later, the touchiness continues. Williams quarterbacked the Washington Redskins, and so does “RG3,” or Robert Griffin III. Coach Mike Shanahan benched him, however, for poor play. This led a couple of ESPN commentators to suggest that the benching was racial. At this juncture, it ought to be possible for coaches to be coaches and quarterbacks to be quarterbacks without the specter of racism over their heads.

#5-United States
If a keen satirist were to roll all of modernity’s asinine cultural pathologies into one grand story, he might end up with the case of the arrested sock monkey. In early December, a woman at a TSA checkpoint inside a Missouri airport was pulled over by an agent after a toy monkey dressed as a cowboy was discovered in her hand luggage. The monkey, named “Rooster Monkburn” after the John Wayne character of the almost-same name, came with a tiny two-inch pistol in a fabric holster. This, authorities said, wouldn’t do: “This is a gun,” an agent told the woman. “If I held it up to your neck, you wouldn’t know if it was real or not.” The woman suggested that, not being blind, she would, in fact, be able to tell. But she declined to press the matter. “I understand she was doing her job,” the monkey’s owner informed local news, “but at some point doesn’t common sense prevail?” Alas, in a country in which children are routinely sent home from school for pointing pencils at one another while saying “Bang!” it would appear that the answer to this question is “No.”