The Framers of the United States Constitution understood several things very clearly from their experience as a colonial vassal state with only limited legislative or self-governing authority under the rule of Britain’s King George III. That principle lesson learned, justifying a revolution, was that the leader or ruler of a nation must not be allowed to unilaterally initiate armed conflicts because war is the greatest calamity that can afflict a nation and its people. That was why the US president under the balance of powers had no ability under the Constitution to initiate a war on his or her own authority. It required an act of war approved by Congress with the legislature also providing the funding and most of the manpower through voluntary levies from the state militias as the national army was deliberately small.
And why might a revolution be needed apart from negating the propensity of kings to go to war? A constitutional government in this case was devised as a mechanism to protect fundamental rights and liberties, which at least some of the Founders considered to be inalienable and granted by the Creator to all human beings. The most important of those rights was freedom of speech, which rightly was featured as the First Amendment to the Constitution leading off the ten liberties that comprised the Bill of Rights. That American citizens should have the right to speak their minds was considered essential to their concept of freedom, particularly when it encompassed the right to protest at what the government was doing.
We all know how attempts to institutionalize the type of centralized control evident in eighteenth century Britain began to creep into the American democracy soon after the Revolutionary War ended, leading to a set of four federal laws called collectively the Alien and Sedition Acts enacted in 1798 that applied restrictions to immigration and free speech throughout the United States. The Naturalization Act required immigrants to obtain citizenship, the Alien Friends Act granted to the president the power to imprison and deport non-citizens, the Alien Enemies Act empowered the president to detain and even imprison non-citizens during times of war, and the Sedition Act criminalized false and malicious statements about the federal government, ending free speech. The Alien Friends Act and the Sedition Act expired after a set number of years, and the Naturalization Act was repealed in 1802. The Alien Enemies Act is still in effect.
The Alien and Sedition Acts were inevitably at that time controversial and the debate lined up along political lines. They were supported by the President John Adams’ Federalist Party which argued that the bills strengthened national security during the undeclared naval war with France from 1798 to 1800. Interestingly, the acts were denounced by the minority Democratic-Republicans as violations of free speech under the First Amendment as they were used to suppress publishers affiliated with the opposition, and several publishers were indeed arrested for criticism of the President and his party. Does that justification to strip citizens of their rights sound familiar? Substitute “war on terror” and Patriot Act plus the undeclared wars in Ukraine and Gaza that Washington appears to believe have something to do with national security.
The lessons to be learned ever since 1798 is that if you want to subvert the restraints on war and individual liberties you have to do it with a whole lot of lies coupled with penalties designed to make possible “complainers” shut up and go away. I would point to the recent treatment of Scott Ritter, Dimitri Simes and Tulsi Gabbard by the Joe Biden Administration involving using “foreign agent” legislation drafted in 1938 to stretch the government’s ability to make claims of foreign interference in the upcoming election that it can hardly back up with facts. The suggestion of criminality also at the same time sought to threaten and intimidate public figures who were critical of policy. And the government is not shy about what it has been doing. In 2022 the Biden Administration sought to establish a Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security and on Monday September 16th Hillary Clinton told her ideological soulmate Rachel Maddow that Americans who share political misinformation, which she called propaganda, should face potential civil – or even criminal – legal consequences.
Another even more powerful example of what will happen by continuing down the road that the United States is proceeding on comes from Britain, where the government has more tools in terms of terrorism, treason and “hate speech” type legislation. The relatively new Keir Starmer national government is as deeply embedded with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s band of war criminals as in President Joe Biden and his gang of war enablers. Lest there be any confusion about what the government is prepared to do to protect that relationship, there have been several arrests of journalists on “terrorism” charges whose only crime is being too outspoken about the genocide that is taking place openly day by day by the Israel Defense Force (IDF) in Gaza. On August 29th 16 police officers, including some from the UK’s elite and armed counter-terrorism unit, arrested pro-Palestinian journalist Sarah Wilkinson under the Terrorism Act 2000, charging her with “terrorist” content she had written and posted online. Her initial bail conditions included not being allowed to use any electronic devices or any form of public transportation. Wilkinson had been advocating for Palestine long before October 7th, but many believe that over the past eleven months the pressure to penalize voices like hers in the UK has increased. Other well-known outspoken figures such as freelance journalist Richard Medhurst and co-founder of Palestine Action Richard Barnard were also arrested in August under the same legislation.
Likewise, no matter who wins the election in the US in November, the Israeli tie that binds will continue to be in place controlling many policies and actions of the federal government as well as of many state and municipal administrations. And there are clear signs that those who choose to criticize Israel and the nation’s obsession with going to war will be targeted. Critics of federal government policies defending the wars and specifically Israel will be under attack like never before, most particularly at the universities. Organizations like the Anti-Defamation League will also be using “lawfare” to criminalize as antisemitism any complaints about the behavior of the Jewish state under the Antisemitism Awareness legislation that will undoubtedly finish moving smoothly through Congress before being signed off on by either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.
As has been true for the past eleven months, America’s universities have been the epicenter of the protests against both Israeli and US policies vis-à-vis Gaza, leading to mass arrests and demands led by billionaire Jewish donors that severe penalties against “antisemites” should be in place. Many universities, now that they are back in session, are adopting “institutional neutrality,” which means that they will not be taking a position on issues that do not impact directly on their educational mission. Alan Garber, the Harvard President to replaced Claudine Gay after her abrupt resignation declared that the university would no longer “issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function.”
Jewish groups aren’t necessarily pleased at the change of course. Mark Yudof, chair of the pro-Israel Academic Engagement Network and former president of the University of California system, objected saying that what happens regarding Israel does directly affect Jewish members on campus. “If Jewish students can’t cross campus safely, I expect presidents to speak out about that and I don’t want institutional neutrality to say they can’t look out for the best interests of students, faculty and staff.”
Many pro-Palestinian campus voices, meanwhile, are also opposed to institutional neutrality as it will continue to allow protesters to be arrested and expelled while denying them any voice on campus. Some argue that universities have already declared themselves not to be neutral on Israel because of their refusal to divest from it. “It has enabled college presidents to foreclose public debate, while draping themselves in the mantle of a lofty moral principle,” Anton Ford, a University of Chicago professor who has urged U of C to divest from Israel, wrote in May. He added “In the midst of a national protest movement, nothing could be more convenient.”
Universities not embracing “institutional neutrality” are generally taking traditional harder lines against protesters which will pander to Israel and repress pro-Palestinian sentiment. University administrators across the United States have declared an indefinite state of emergency on college campuses. Schools are reshaping regulations and even the physical layouts of campuses in a process intended to suit this new normal. Nearly all recent university policy updates have intensified the already numerous bureaucratic hurdles for student organizations to gain approval to host an event. Some have gone further to capture complete administrative control of campus activities. Long before the Student Intifada, both private and public universities began to remove Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) from their campuses. Last year, George Washington University and Rutgers University suspended their SJP chapters under the pretext of restoring order on campus. This year both universities have again targeted SJP. Other universities are following suit.
And then there is the Antisemitism Awareness Act which is now in the Senate after passing through the House by an overwhelming 320 to 91 vote in May. In a recent discussion at Columbia University, Representative Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey said that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has “assured” him that he plans to bring the Act to the Senate floor for a vote “before the end of the year.” The legislation directs the federal Department of Education to use the extremely controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which considers any criticism of Zionism/and/or/Israel as antisemitic, when investigating claims of discrimination against Jews. In other words, any criticism of Israel will be ipso facto an act of antisemitism and subject to criminal penalties under hate speech and similar legislation.
If free speech ends in America there will be no mechanism to attack illegal or unconstitutional actions by the Federal government like the current wars being fought without a declaration of war or evidence of any imminent threat. If criticism of Israel becomes criminalized then the cause of the most horrific war currently taking place on the planet will become normal practice any time when the Jewish state wants to expand its lebensraum at the expense of one of its neighbors. Neither situation should be tolerable in a constitutional democracy but there you have it and it will only get worse since the people have little enough voice as it is and the madmen in Washington are blithely speaking of a two-front war against Russia and China, both of which are nuclear powers and are prepared to use them in their own defense. Is there something gone seriously wrong here in this country? The answer is surely “Yes!”
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
No comments:
Post a Comment