Introductions are decadent and weaken our national resolve; besides, another Ben Shapiro column awaits:
Sen. John McCain is no conservative. He opposed the Bush tax cuts. He sponsored the greatest lasting crackdown on political speech in American history with campaign finance reform. He allies himself with radical environmentalists. He's an open-borders advocate on immigration. He voted against the constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriage. He cobbled together the Senate's Gang of 14, which stifled the appointment of strict constructionists to the federal bench. His pro-life rhetoric is lukewarm at best.
Much of this is true. But what of this "greatest lasting crackdown on political speech in American history"? Shapiro refers here to McCain-Feingold, which, among other things, limited the degree to which certain organizations can run ads in support of a candidate, and which Shapiro and many other conservatives consider to be an unconstitutional abridgment of free speech. They may be right, and the fact that President Bush signed it into law doesn't reflect well on its inherent constitutionality. But can such a thing truly be deemed the "greatest lasting crackdown on political speech in American history?" Perhaps more importantly, is that really why Shapiro opposes it? Of course, I'm being all rhetorical here.
The Sedition Act of 1918 provided for fines and jail time for those who engage in
disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the Army or Navy of the United States into contempt, scorn, contumely, or disrepute, or shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any language intended to incite, provoke, or encourage resistance to the United States, or to promote the cause of its enemies, or shall willfully display the flag of any foreign enemy, or
shall willfully by utterance, writing, printing, publication, or language spoken, urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of production in this country of any thing or things, product or products, necessary or essential to the prosecution of the war in which the United States may be engaged, with intent by such curtailment to cripple or hinder the United States in the prosecution of war, and whoever shall willfully advocate, teach, defend, or suggest the doing of any of the acts or things in this section enumerated, and whoever shall by word or act support or favor the cause of any country with which the United States is at war or by word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein
... which, taken together, constitutes such a blatantly blatant violation of the First Amendment that the sheer blatantness of its blatantness is so blatant as to render all other acts of blatantness blatantly blatant to the max, yo.
Comrade Shapiro is hardly ignorant of this law; he has, in fact, praised it on at least one occasion in the course of calling not only for the prosecution of those of his fellow American citizens who speak out against U.S. foreign policy while the nation is engaged in a military conflict, but even for the prosecution of those of his fellow American citizens who speak out U.S. foreign policy when the possibility exists that the nation will become engaged in a military conflict at some point in the near future. If any such legislation is ever enacted, I would suggest calling it the Wars and Rumors of Wars Act, but then no one listens to me. At any rate, Shapiro's proposal will certainly save our Republic a lot of time and effort. And if he manages to implement a grandfather clause, we can prosecute that large portion of the Republican legislature and affiliated punditry which openly opposed the Kosovo conflict back in the '90s, although I'm not sure whether or not Shapiro has thought that far ahead, or, rather, that far backwards, or at all.
Now, if the Reader has just arrived in our fair country from some other country located on another planet and in some other alternate universe, the Reader will consequently be surprised to learn that our movement conservative friend may have been somewhat disingenuous in his denouncement of McCain on the grounds that the probable GOP nominee made some minor dent in the American tradition of free speech, seeing as how that, when it comes time to discuss whether or not the sixty percent of American citizens who oppose the current war ought to be prosecuted for sedition, he dismisses the term "freedom of speech" as "a slogan" that we ought not be too quick to "buy into." Then he gives us a history lesson:
President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and allowed governmental officials to arrest Rep. Clement Vallandigham after Vallandigham called the Civil War "cruel" and "wicked," shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers, and had members of the Maryland legislature placed in prison to prevent Maryland's secession. The Union won the Civil War.
Cause, I believe you know Effect. Oh, you've never met? I'll leave you two to get acquainted, then.
Under the Espionage Act of 1917, opponents of World War I were routinely prosecuted, and the Supreme Court routinely upheld their convictions. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes rightly wrote, "When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right." The Allies won World War I.
He's right. Incidentally, the Axis powers also "routinely prosecuted" opponents of World War I. And they lost. So, uh...
During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the internment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans, as well as allowing the prosecution and/or deportation of those who opposed the war. The Allies won World War II.
Again, I don't want to blow anyone's mind here, but the Nazis weren't exactly polite to those Germans who opposed the war, either. And one can hardly libel them as having been reluctant to "intern" quite a few of their own citizens. They also lost the war. So...
During the Vietnam War, the Supreme Court repeatedly upheld the free speech rights of war opponents, whether those opponents distributed leaflets depicting the rape of the Statue of Liberty or wore jackets emblazoned with the slogan "F--- the Draft." America lost the Vietnam War.
... to the Commies, whom our friend Ho Chi Ben clearly believes to have been doing something right.
But wait - what of today? Even as the war continues in Babylon, domestic sedition goes relatively unpunished, which is why the 60 percent or so of Americans who oppose the war are not yet in prison. Are we, then, to lose this war as well? Let's ask Ben himself, who recently opined thusly in
another recent column:
Because of American success in Iraq, the war there has become a secondary issue in the 2008 campaign.
Giggle giggle.