Posted on 09/24/2001 3:10:00 AM PDT by Ada Coddington
Unfree Republic
by Jeff Elkins
Let the stench of Middle East flesh reach Paradise reassuring them that these filth have gone to hell permanently."
The quote above is representative of many posted on the FreeRepublic.com site in the wake of the WTC attack, and unfortunately its like is not uncommon elsewhere. Americans are angry, predictably and rightly so, but just as predictable are the side effects. As always, that righteous anger will be accepted as a beloved gift by the state and molded into tools of oppression.
It’s funny how that works. Every single state-sponsored war the US has become embroiled in has resulted in an inexorable increase in the power of the state.
It’s also funny that it’s always assumed that human behavior in the past has no relation to how we behave today. Why those people were old-fashioned, we’re modern, educated, etc.
The beginning of this repeating pattern has already become public with the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. It has an ominous sound, that name, almost Germanic. (I can’t wait to see the uniforms.)
On April 13, 1917, days after our entry into World War One, President Wilson created the Committee on Public Information to promote the war domestically while publicizing American war aims abroad. Bush has replicated that step, with this new cabinet-level department.
Under the leadership of journalistic muckraker George Creel, the CPI was a propaganda apparatus unparalleled at that point in world history. The CPI functioned as a de facto public censor, vetting nearly all published material about the war and helping to draft legislation such as the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. In the months prior to our entry into the war and especially after our entry when they were nearly criminal, antiwar viewpoints were rarely heard.
The same pattern emerges now: Penn. Gov. Tom Ridge will be President Bush’s George Creel, and just as in those dim days of yesteryear, he’ll have plenty of willing civilian accomplices. And after all, there’s so much more to censor -- Ridge will need all the help he can get. In seeking warriors for the front line of Internet censorship, Ridge needs look no farther than FreeRepublic.com. The atmosphere there is now poisonous.
Again, look back to Wilson's CPI. It encouraged businesses to spy on their employees, parents to spy on their children, children to spy on their parents, neighbors to spy on neighbors, and above all to report "disloyal," pro-German sentiments. State authorities banned the teaching of German in schools and changed German street names. As the madness mounted, those regarded as pro-German were hounded from their jobs, pressured to change their German names, beaten, and in a few cases lynched. Almost all cases of violence, while incited by the state, were carried out by "civilians" in the grip of war hysteria.
Along with this anti-German hysteria, Congress passed several measures designed to rigidly suppress criticism of the war. In particular, the Espionage Act, passed in June 1917, specified a fine of $10,000 or twenty years in prison for "whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, and whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag."
The Espionage Act was very popular in its day. It was cheered on by mindless lemmings under the influence of state propaganda. Their great grandchildren now inhabit FreeRepublic.com, viciously attacking anyone who questions the wisdom of the state.
Our Congress is considering similar measures under the rubric of "anti-terrorism," and as it was at the beginning of the 20th Century, the FreeRepublic lemmings of the 21st are cheering the morally corrupt politicians along.
It’s not just message posters on the site. The management of FreeRepublic has instituted a "loose lips sink ships" campaign, with new moderators patrolling the forum to delete posts that in their opinion are detrimental to the "war effort."
The FreeRepublic mission statement claims "We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America."
Sanctimonious hogwash. Everything old is new again – the keyboard warriors of FreeRepublic would be right at home in 1917 shilling for Wilson.
September 24, 2001
Jeff Elkins is a freelance consultant and writer living in North Central Florida. His personal website is located at www.elkins.org.
Libertarians as a group are not blaming our government, they are arguing that the policies that have been pursued have invited people in other parts of the world to hate us and sympathize with the terrorists. The terrorists hate us for other reasons not necessarily related to our foreign policy. Some people who are libertarians blame our government, as do some conservatives and some liberals.
Now it's time for full disclosure, what was the name you posted under as a libertarian before you saw the light and became a man without a decernable and consistent philosophy? Time to come clean.
It brings a tear to my eye to see you both taking Rodney King's advice.
Seriously, well done men, you reflect well on the site. Stormy hasn't disappointed yet.
"Day ain't over yet."
That says it all IMHO. This article is Berkeley California material. Defended by those of the same flavor.
I welcome Nuke'm Glowing opinions. His were based on a love of this nation, unlike the others, usually libertarian.
Give them hell Nuke'm !!!
I'll correct my comment. Here is the new version.
Stormy hasn't disappointed yet.
:-)
You are beneath contempt.
Another libertarian hater heard from. This one claiming if you have a libertarian philosophy (as the founders had) you don't love your country. I'm sure you lie about libertarians on other topics as well.
Well I absolutely guarantee that the 6500 or so still unaccounted for at the WTC do!
Demonstrably true.
In a broadside printed in 1858, Spooner spelled out how such a right could be exercised. First, groups should form in the North to send arms, aid, and even to fight in the South. Groups of Black citizens in the South should also "form themselves into bands, build forts in the forests, and there collect arms, stores, horses, everything that will enable them to sustain themselves, and carry on their warfare upon the Slaveholders." Such guerrilla forces could (until the anti-slavery forces were strong enough for outright war) capture, strip and flog individual slaveowners, in front of their slaves in order to undermine the master’s authority. These forces, North as well as South could live by robbing the slaveowners...When John Brown failed and was imprisoned, Lysander Spooner made another proposal for a guerilla action. He suggested the capture of Governor Henry Wise of Virginia, who could be held hostage for Brown’s release. Spooner planned an attack by sea through the Chesapeake Bay and James River; this area was already a haven for runaway slaves, smugglers, and others outside the law. A group could reach Richmond, the state capital, and kidnap the governor on his evening walk; once out to sea, they would be relatively safe. John LeBarnes wrote Thomas Wentworth Higginson, November 15, 1859, "LS [Lysander Spooner] called upon me yesterday. His idea has certainly the merit of audacity."
http://www.lysanderspooner.org/BIOch5.htm
Predictably backwards. Lysander Spooner condemned the US military for fighting the Confederacy.
Thanks for the push
No. He was a wacko-antiCultural-Jihadist., commonly called Statists by some, but he has also been dead a long time. You could not possible think I am him could you?
Is this the Jihadists attempt at guilt by association? You miss no tools to assault the intelligence of the common Freeper do you? You might get by with the lap dogs who come yipping like Chihuahua dogs to believe your implications, but anyone smart enough to understand Spooner would know that he is no anarchist anyway.
More importantly, it misses the mark of delimiting terrorists. All of the killers on Flight 11, for instance, could have had legitimate National IDs along with their Green Cards. Heck, one Muslim guy under arrest was born in Minnesota, a de facto American! Their faces might have triggered absolutely no response from a scan program. And until 9/12, carrying an edged weapon aboard was no offense.
I'm for security. I have a wife and three kids whom I don't want anything bad to happen to. But the threat is not us, the average American. It's comprised nearly exclusively of young adult, male, Middle Eastern Muslims. If you want to track someone, profile someone, or deport someone, work on them.
He was right, wasn't he?
I don't recall reading that bit of history. Would you mind sharing your source?
The rest of this article is full of (insert explitive here).
While there are some items of concern about the various proposals coming out of Washington, the best way to handle questionable legislation is to let your Represenatives and Senators know what you think of it. And if something stupid does become law, can you say lawsuit? We are a very long way off from WWI levels of hysteria.
As far as calling FR "Unfree Republic". Well this is Jim Robinson's site. He owns it, he can do whatever he pleases with it. If wants to replace the forum with pictures of dancing pink hippos in tutus he can, end of story.
It's no more censorship for Jim to remove any person for any reason than it is for Lew Rockwell to refuse to publish an article by Jonah Goldberg!
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