Sedition??

            “The Sedition Act made it unlawful to publish ‘false or malicious’ criticism of the government or to inspire opposition to any of its acts.”

            The above quote was taken from The Demon-Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan, p. 405.  What country do you suppose he was talking about?  Lo and behold, it was the good old USA.

            The Alien and Sedition Act was passed by Congress in 1798.  It gave President John Adams the power to deport any foreigner who aroused suspicion.  According to Sagan, one congressman back then said that “making the president nervous was now a crime.” 

            Thomas Jefferson is alleged to have remarked that the purpose of the Alien and Sedition Act was “to crush all political opposition by making criticism of Federalist officials or policies a crime.”

            In all fairness, if we look at the Alien and Sedition Act within the context of the times, the United States was involved in an “undeclared Naval war with France.”  It is understandable then that Congress would be suspicious of foreigners, especially if they were French.  But what bothered men like Jefferson was the earmarked definition of “sedition.”  And you will recall from your high school, American History class, the Federalists believed in a big, all powerful government.  Alexander Hamilton the founder of the Federalist Party, although he played an important role in the Founding of our Country, did not think the average American was capable of determining what was best for him and his country.  However, Thomas Jefferson disagreed, and when he became President annulled the Alien and Sedition Act.

            Can you see any parallels in Federalist thinking and the Alien and Sedition Act to the current state of our country?  Is there an organized cabal of intellectual elitists conspiring to make John Doe Citizen dependent upon an all powerful government? And if so, are these leftwing vestiges of Hamiltonism chipping away at the sovereignty of States Rights protected by the Constitution? 

            Thomas Jefferson was a firm believer in “skepticism,” in other words, individual thinking – deciding for oneself as opposed to taking the word of so-called intellectual authorities.  In Jefferson’s lexicon there was no such thing as a “dumb question” and every citizen had the right to scrutinize and question the judgment of public officials.   

            The Emily Posts of political etiquette have come up with a brilliant, coercive form of “best manners” and “good form” called “political correctness,” a poignant paradox of far left liberalism where peer pressure dictates who and what is offensive.  The punishment is public castigation, loss of respect and often, loss of occupation.  It is all designed to control one’s thinking and expressions.  In that respect pedantic denizens of the intellectual and moral elite appoint themselves “etiquette policeman,” skulking and baiting the right, poised to pounce with feigned, righteous indignation.  And the silent tip toeing majority, afraid of attracting the attention of the etiquette police, like the silent onlookers during the Inquisition, mime ignorance.

            2010 will go down in history as the year political correctness delegated unprecedented power to minorities.  It is the year political correctness made homosexuality heroic; the year influential, Marxist-like liberals decided Americans should view Islam as a peaceable religion so as not to offend the non-terroristic Muslims.  If annoyed by half nude gay guys kissing and feeling each other up in public you are a bigot.  It also became fashionable to tolerate and cheer on flamboyant Mormon polygamists and their harems.  It was a time when liberals turned the stone over and exposed those anomalous creatures that tradition had kept covered for decades.  What a year.  Our princely President and his socialistic cronies sought to save the nation by spending it out of a recession and quailing the “red, white and blue” before dictators, communists and Islamic moguls; and if we Americans should succumb to their Marxist rhetoric we are expected to revel like masochists in the all-knowing, all-powerful fetters of big government. 

            HAPPY NEW YEAR AND SEMPER FIDELIS to those VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS who agree with me. 

             PS:  I listen to that egotist, Rush Limbaugh every once in awhile.  The other day he had a stand-in.  I don’t remember his name, but I well remember a remark he made.  He said that the interest the United States owes Communist China is enough to finance China’s military.  Good God, if that is true, how did we get in such a fix?  It caused me to wonder, where is the steel forged to build our tanks and ships?  China?  When I was in China back in the fifties the country was struggling to recover from World War II.  Now we owe them billions.  Our Congressmen and Presidents since Eisenhower and Nixon should be ashamed of themselves. And the capitalists who took advantage of cheap foreign labor, and the union bosses who got their sycophants big bucks for sitting on their asses must share in the blame.