In the former Soviet Union, dissidents were called “enemies of the state” by the ruling apparatchiks and imprisoned for posing a threat to the ruling order. In addition, dissidents were branded as mentally ill and confined to a psychiatric ward so they could be “cured” of their anti-state thoughts. Ironically, in America today the mass media are performing a similar task as the thugs who enslaved the Russians and other ethnic groups for nearly seventy five years by insinuating that critics of the federal government are “dangerous” and mentally unbalanced.
America’s mass media questioned the mental health of Republican presidential nominee Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964, while some in the media opined that President Richard Nixon was “losing it” during the Watergate scandal.
But the real assault on critics of the welfare-warfare state began in earnest during the 2008 GOP primary, when Rep. Ron Paul of Texas was called everything but a child molester for proposing to downsize the federal government to its constitutional functions and supporting the withdrawal of American troops from the Middle East and around the world, because the federal government’s disastrous bipartisan interventionist foreign policy was draining the federal treasury and killing innocent victims by the thousands and inflaming hatred against America. For his bluntness and despite his plain spoken manner, Rep. Paul was vilified and called a “nut” among other things.
Instead of having a civil discussion of the issues, many in the media demonized Rep. Paul’s free market, limited government agenda, calling it “racist,” “unpatriotic,” “anti-poor” and of course, the ultimate insult, “paranoid.” The pseudo intellectuals on cable talk shows and in their newspaper and magazine columns reveal that they worship in the temple of Big Government. The welfare state is their Bible, while the progressive income tax, the Federal Reserve and the “holy war on terror” are their commandments, which must be defended against all “nonbelievers” with insults and character assassination.
Not to be outdone, establishment pundits are now hurling invectives against any of the Tea Party supported candidates who dare to suggest that maybe Social Security and Medicare, the federal government’s two Ponzi schemes, should be phased out; that the Departments of Energy and Education should be abolished; and that the federal government should be constrained by the Constitution. Heresy, say the media defenders of statism. Anyone not hewing to the catechism of big government, pontificate the pundits, must be “crucified” in print and on talk shows, declared an enemy of the state and a “nut job.”
Too be sure, there are flawed Tea Party candidates, who embrace the ‘war on terror” as much as any neoconservative in America. But it is verboten say the media apparatchiks, to challenge the welfare state, the Federal Reserve and the federal government’s Ponzi programs.
Despite their leftist ideology, Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd, Chris Matthews, Eugene Robinson, Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert, E.J Dionne, Lawrence O’Donnell and countless others who keep the flame of collectivism lit while the welfare state is collapsing all around the world, are on the wrong side of history. Statism is a bankrupt ideology. Liberty will emerge once again in America as the prevailing philosophy sooner than the punditocracy realizes.