Freedom of Speech...Absolutely

Recently I purchased a wee little book called "The FBI vs The First Amendment" by ACLU attorney Robert Criley. Criley was also one of the leading left wing opponents of HUAC- The House Un-American Activities Committee. This committee is a black mark on the American Congress and shameful assault on America's Revolutionary ideals and principles. I am not concerned with the fact that HUAC was fighting socialism or communism. What I am concerned about is the national security state that rose out of the Cold War and the lunacy and hysteria that accompanied it. Joseph Mc Carthy, J. Edgar Hoover, LBJ and other enemies of liberty were men of paranoid and dark minds. What I fear, and what this essay is about, is the recreation of this near demonic, fear driven society due to the "War on Terror". The men with dark and paranoid minds are the neoconservatives and fascistic conservatives who are attempting to further saddle the American people with a police state.

Roots on the Right

As I have touched on above the roots of this police/national security state lie in the 1950's and 60's and the increasing power of the federal government. J. Edgar Hoover, a vile and evil man, was at the forefront of not only increasing his personal power, but the power of the FBI and the US government. Hoover, a hero to the lunatics in the John Birch Society, took the FBI, once an inept and tiny investigatory bureau and turned it into a first class domestic spy agency. Hoover held a lifetime of power from 1924 to 1972 and it showed. Due to this near life tenure he amassed an enormous amount of detailed information on individuals, usually referred to as a dossiers, which were used to destroy the lives of those he believed were "communists", "socialists" and as he called them "dissenters". Hoover hated any dissent against the federal government. All dissent was treasonous in his mind, and all dissent must be crushed. Hoover was no fan of the principles of American Liberty and the American Revolution. As I have pointed out in earlier essays the American Revolution was a radical, violent, and powerful libertarian upheaval. I would venture to say if Hoover had been alive during the American Revolution he would most assuredly have been a Tory.

The Creation of COINTELPRO

In 1956 Hoover created COINTELPRO a domestic spy and surveilence unit within the FBI. Hoover, and the FBI, had never been friends to freedom, or constitutional liberties. COINTELPRO was used to infiltrate, spy, and use agent provocateurs to destroy organizations that Hoover deemed "subversive". COINTELPRO was used to spy on various left wing groups from it's creation in the 50's right up until it's disbandment in the 1980's. The FBI frequently engaged in criminal acts, like illegal wiretapping, burglary, and other police state crimes worthy of a communist dictatorship. FBI agents also allowed their own undercover agents to commit crimes and allow them to take place. COINTELPRO was used against any and all perceived "enemies" of the US government: Black Panthers, SDS, Weathermen, Hippie and antiwar groups, etc. Supported by fanatical anticommunist organizations the John Birch Society, Young Americans for Freedom, and other conservative-fascist organizations, the FBI was able to amass a huge groups of secret informers, spies, and snitches, ready and willing to destroy constitutional liberties to "fight communism". This mentality exists today, except the enemy is not communism, but "terrorism". Terrorism is the new enemy. Despots and enemies of liberty always need an enemy. This enemy is not only terrorism, but antiwar groups, leftists, libertarians, and average everyday people like Cindy Sheehan. This, as Lew Rockwell so eloquently calls it, is really "Red State Fascism". Red State Fascism is a military-industrial-statist mindset masquerading as freedom loving enemies of "Islamic Fascism". This group of Red State Fascists is made up of the following elements: fanatical zionist neoconservatives, christian fundamentalists with an "Armageddon" complex, economic fascists ( men like Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al) who are CEO's of large politically connected industries, officers in the military aristocracy, propagandists in the government-media complex ( O'Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh)
and unfortunately a large number of average, run of the mill, middle class Americans. This Red State Fascism will destroy the American Republic if not exposed and stopped.

Assaults of Freedom of Speech

The Propagandists at FOX, CNN, and other politically connected media organizations are currently in cahoots with government agencies and Bush Administration fascists to destroy freedom of speech in America. Many in the federal government, with the support of fascists like Bill O'Reilly want bloggers, like myself, regulated by the FCC! The First Amendment means nothing to the fascist. All "enemies" of the state must be crushed. Calls by conservatives to "regulate" the Internet and imprison opponents of the Iraq War who dare to print their opinions are now heard every day. Fanatical Zionist and neoconservative Micheal Savage calls for the federal government to arrest newspaper columnists, editors and all opponents of American foreign policy towards Israel as "anti-Semitic". These calls for the suppression of free speech is noting new for conservatives. Remember one thing: conservatives love the state. They believe men to be stupid, factious, corrupt and incapable of self government. This always applies to their opponents, but never themselves.


Sean Hannity calls all who oppose the Iraq War and the President "traitors", and enemies to America. Men like Mr. Hannity remind me of Joseph Goebbels, constantly using demagoguery and imagery to destroy people's faith in free government and to fool them into believing that by destroying free speech we are somehow , more free. Recently "conservative" Ann Coulter gave a very un-American speech in which she denounced freedom of speech in the most brazen of terms. This fascist woman has no more respect for American "values" or ideals than did Mao tse Tung. In her speech Coulter called for censorship of "liberals" and the banning of free speech. These ideas are not new, and they are also at total variance with Anglo-American libertarian theory.

Establishment Enemies of Free Speech and Thought

The United States government has always been an enemy to free speech, and the First Amendment. Now they have new enemies: Anarchists, leftists, libertarians, antiwar groups amd other "anti-government" folks are now the focus of the new Surveillance State. J. Edgar Hoover, LBJ, Richard Nixon and other Cold Warriors are the architects of this surveillance society. Hoover believed all Americans should be monitored and files kept on them to measure whether they were "subversives". Both LBJ, and Nixon, used Hoover and his FBI to monitor, spy and repress their political enemies. Presumably Hoover had serious dirt on both men and used it to his full advantage. Now the current President, George W. Bush has used the new Cold War, the "War on Terror" to his advantage. Free speech zones, roving wiretaps, sneak and peak searches, computer spying with programs like the FBI's Carnivore and the NSA's Echelon have begun to create a nation of spies and the spied. At the pinnacle of all this is the FBI. Although Hoover is dead and gone his evil spirit lives on in the bureaucratic mindset of of the FBI's agents and managers. Every year the FBI comes to Capitol Hill to request more and more power. Their failures, mistakes and outright lawbreaking mean nothing to Congress, who generously gives the agency more and more. Such CHUZPAH by the Bureau is rewarded and the American people are not only less safe, but less free.

The Destruction of the Anglo American Libertarian Tradition

The Administration of George W. Bush and his propagandists in the government-media complex have done more to destroy the Anglo-American libertarian tradition. Free speech zones, arrests of peaceful protesters, banning of anti-Bush signs at rallies, etc are all an attempt to undermine and eventually annihilate the freedom of speech in the United States. This proud tradition beginning with the English Levellers, Cato's Letters, by Trenchard and Gordon, Locke, Sidney and the American Revolutionaries is now being shunted aside for the tyrannical ideals of modern day Marxists with "hate speech", and conservatives with their near worship of the state and the President. Soon Americans will find that the vaunted and glorious tradition of liberty and free speech our ancestors left us will be gone and a surveillance state set up in it's place.

The destruction of liberty in American will only herald the destruction of liberty throughout the Western World. Although America is not perfect, and has not always been perfect ( who has?) it is still the last best hope for freedom and liberty on Earth. With all of it's warts, the American Republic brought into the world by America's Founders is still the beacon for people who love liberty to rally around. Reject the police state! Support free speech, free thought and free institutions! Reject the tyranny of right wing and left wing despots before it's too late.