Socialism, Coercion and Free Speech

George Orwell, who wrote 1984 and Animal Farm, understood the power of controlling free speech. Each book describes a dystopian system, broken by the thoughtless power-mongering of socialism.

The other day in one of my political science classes, we started on the topic of Stalinism - Stalin's brutal and totalitarian interpretation of the Communist ideal. Many of my students looked at Stalin's regime and refused to believe that such a thing could ever happen to us here in the United States. After all, they argued, our political system is nothing like Russia's.

They're right, the US system was founded on the ideals of liberal democracy, tempered with a Republican structure. But what my students failed to realize is that Russia also had a political system unlike Stalinism, at least until the ideals of socialism created the opportunity that led to the abuse of power. It took years and years of socialism to creep its way into the Russian system before Lenin could exert enough political power to overthrow the monarchy and replace it with his own brand of Communism.

Back to Stalin. Between Lenin and Stalin, the government that emerged, based on the power of a single vanguard party, exercised two important political principles antithetical to our own classic liberalism and to the individualism on which it was based. (I often joke in my political science classes that all we ever talk about are "isms." It's an unfortunate side effect of trying to identify and explain political phenomena.) These two principles are political coercion and limiting free speech.

In a sense, all political systems try to coerce its citizens into behaving certain ways. Yet we have to admit that the US system was initially designed to coerce its citizens less than any other system thought of, previously or since. We, as Americans, especially abhor physical coercion and tend to get all bent out of shape when tyrants attempt to physically force people to bend to the will of government.

Enter socialism. Socialism, on the surface, looks like a good thing - for example, providing central planning in order to more efficiently take care of its citizens (such as providing retirement benefits or health care). After all, who doesn't have a natural tendency to want to be taken care of? Socialism is a comforting and very seductive ideology.

Yet, Americans still fight against the socialist trend, even the so-called democratic socialism - a kinder, gentler, more benign socialism than those totalitarian communisms of the old Soviet, China, North Korea or Cuba. Of course, we tell ourselves, we could never become totalitarian. We'd rather trust that our system of government will only exercise power in order to create the Great Benevolent Society.

Yet, when such "benevolent" systems appear, we Americans always end up with a bad taste in our mouths, as if we've swallowed a bitter pill with no guarantees that it will cure the sickness. And we also notice that a few more liberties have been sacrificed in the name of safety and comfort.

The problem is the coercion inherent in socialists systems. Americans cannot pretend to love life, liberty and property and not realize the dangers inherent of giving up those inalienable rights to an ever-growing and power-hungry government.

Endemic to power mongering is the control and stifling of free speech. Little by little, we find we are censured and silenced for speaking the "wrong" things in our country. We, as Americans, have discovered new levels of limiting free speech based on the extraordinarily nebulous concept of "political correctness." While rude speech is ill mannered and should be frowned upon, we find in our modern society the application of coercion based on the principle of not offending anyone who is a member of certain "protected" groups in society.

What arises are new classes, groups based solely on ideological principles, who see no problems with censuring other groups simply because they disagree with their principles. Such systems are inherently hypocritical. They take the stance that "we" can say what we want and be as abusive as we want because "we" disagree with "you."

Why do many Americans chafe at such an attitude? We can point, obviously so, at the founding principle of free speech and see encroaching control over its expression. We can also point to the ideal that protected classes are socialist concepts, not individualist, and create a huge disjoint between the foundational principles of classical liberalism and modern liberalism. We can also chafe at the coercion, either social or, increasingly, legal that protects certain groups and speech while excluding a majority of Americans.

Here are a few examples:

• This past week, a lot of news and blogosphere commentary centered around NRP firing Juan Williams for expressing an opinion, based on real fears about certain Muslims. The real danger of this type of coercion lies in the fact that Williams didn't even express the opinion in a show connected with NPR. It's also ironic noting the extreme duplicity of NPR's position firing a black man for his bigotry.
• The other week the Human Rights Commission created a website completely dedicated to the defamation of the National Organization for Marriage. (I've rarely seen such defamation tactics used, except by anti-Mormons and gay activists.) Is this attack site stepping on free speech? Certainly. By trying to propagandize misinformation about an organization dedicated to protecting traditional marriage, the HRC participates in coercive behavior and in taking a duplicitous stance. (How would a similar website hold up in the courts if applied against the HRC?)
• In a similar vein are the political ads between the two parties, each more defaming than the other. For example, we can look at President Obama's demonizing the Republican party during his recent speeches, once again ignoring the hypocrisy of his own position. Inexcusable is his typifying Americans in general as stupid.
• We're familiar with the contempt members of Congress held for Americans daring to oppose Obamacare. By stifling debate and constituent-led protests, the members of Congress proved that, while they certainly could grab power for the federal government, they couldn't do so with the mute approbation of American citizens.

The problem with the great divide in politics stems from encroaching socialism, as opposed to the liberties of expressed classical liberalism. Encroaching socialism can and does lead to totalitarianism. (See F.A. Hayek's brilliant work The Road to Serfdom for a coherent and thorough argument on the subject.)

There may still be enough Americans who appreciate the values of individualism, liberty and property to oppose our current system of encroachment and coercion. Remember the words of P.J. O'Rourke: "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." The crash is bound to come. We ought to err on the side of the foundational principles of the United States, rather than giving in to the slouching path of the too-powerful welfare state.

And if you disagree with me, you're probably a bigot.