American teenagers may be doing to themselves what the Chinese Communist state does to its citizens. Koldo_Studio - stock.adobe.com American teenagers may be doing to themselves what the Chinese Communist state does to its citizens. An Ivy League professor — an old-fashioned liberal who actually cares about free speech — recently warned me about what’s happening in classrooms like his. He encourages class discussion of the great books he teaches in class — but students are reluctant to speak . Not because they’re afraid of the professor, but because they fear each other . Communist regimes have tried to stamp out dissent for more than a century; tyrants and totalitarians have always tried to sow suspicion among their subjects, turning friends, neighbors and even family members into informers against anyone who won’t conform to the party line. That’s the scenario in George Orwell’s dystopian classic “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” and it’s the intention behind China’s insidious “social credit” system today.…