Silencing Dissent

(More thoughts inspired from Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism)

"Even as the government was churning out propaganda, it was silencing dissent," writes Goldberg about the Wilson administration. Homeland Security is looking to do the same thing in America today, I fear. Wilson's Sedition Act banned "uttering, printing, writing, or publishing any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the United States Government or military." At least 75 publications were banned. Over 400 publications had been denied mailing privileges by 1918. They are going to have a heck of a time doing that in 2009, with the millions of blogs and other internet publications.

Goldberg writes, "Today's liberals tend to complain about the McCarthy period as if it were the darkest moment in American history after slavery It's true: under McCarthyism a few Hollywood writers who had supported Stalin and then lied about it lost their jobs in the 1950s. Others were unfairly intimidated."

But, under Wilson and his fellow progressives, "any criticism of the government, even in your own home, could earn you a prison sentence. The Justice Department created the American Protective League, or APL, which had branches in nearly six hundred cities and towns. The APL rounded up fifty thousand men in New York City who were accused of avoiding conscription. 175,000 Americans were arrested for failing to demonstrate their patriotism in one way or another.