THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX
Slouching
towards fascims
Dr. Charles Ormsby
It took thousands of years for mankind to
discover the miracle that Americans have
enjoyed for the past two centuries: a
social system that offers both individual
liberty and ever increasing prosperity.
Most of us have never had to face living
with tyranny nor had to contemplate the
probable loss of the “American way
of life.”
The last generation of Americans that
lived through a protracted hot war with
totalitarian regimes – World War II,
a war that could have been lost
– are now in their late
seventies or older and are slowly passing
from our lives.
While those younger than seventy have
felt the threat of the communist
superpowers and Muslim terrorists over
the last sixty years, most of us have
never experienced the gut-wrenching fear
and pallor that would accompany the
imminent destruction of our freedoms.
Those under thirty … well, their
biggest worry is that they will run out
of cell phone minutes.
Unless you are from a family that
immigrated to the U. S. within the last
three generations, you probably have no
familiarity with tyranny. Americans
understand that many people in foreign
lands live in squalor with no freedoms
and little hope. But we can’t
imagine it happening to us. Our
perception is, “It can’t happen
here.”
Tyrants have a long history of selling
promises of a better life. All one has to
do is give up some freedoms or be willing
to sacrifice the freedoms of others. Of
course, in the latter case,
everybody’s freedoms are undermined,
but that is lost in the fine print –
only to be discovered later when it is,
unfortunately, too late.
We think we know tyrants when we see
them. The word “tyrant” congers
up images of the great dictators of the
Twentieth Century: Lenin, Mussolini,
Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Tse-tung.
But tyrants don’t sell themselves as
brutal thugs or butchers. All tyrants,
even these mega-tyrants, promise a better
way; one that would make the lives of
those that support them better and more
secure.
In short, tyrants offer change. Seemingly
well-meaning people buy their promises
and then get more change than they
expected.
Americans are not immune to the courting
of tyrants. In fact, our naiveté and
ignorance of history renders us
particularly susceptible to their stump
speeches. America is ripe for tyranny and
it might be closer than you think.
A student of history will remember that
both fascism and communism were admired
and supported in the U.S. by the
Progressive and Socialist left early in
the last century until Moscow decided
that fascism threatened success of the
communist movement.
Why were the leftists initially attracted
to both the communist and fascist
prescriptions for organizing society? The
reason was simple: they were enamored by
both of these philosophies because they
concentrated power into the hands of the
government and therefore into the hands
of the elite.
Leftists believed that an all-powerful
government would ensure that decisions
were made by the most informed members of
society. Wasteful competition could be
eliminated and production decisions made
by an all-knowing central authority.
Uncertainty and fear could be eliminated.
Jobs, wages, and the necessities of life
could be assured. The average citizen,
who was too ignorant or ill-informed to
deal with these difficult decisions,
would only have to do what he or she was
told.
While the American people were not ready
to go as far down this path as the
Russian Communists, the German Nazis, or
the Italians Fascists, clearly these
political philosophies were seen as the
future by the liberal and radical left.
In the interim, America was urged to
begin moving in the same direction. And
so it did.
Starting with the presidency of Woodrow
Wilson and then continuing with Franklin
Roosevelt, America established an
authoritarian foundation that the
Democrat left continues to build on to
this day – unfortunately, with the
all-too-frequent acquiescence of the
Republican Party.
Some of the more shocking authoritarian
policies of the Wilson Administration,
excused at the time by World War I, were
over-turned by the Republican
administrations of the 1920s. The most
egregious of these was Wilson’s
Espionage Act of 1917 and its later
amendment, the Sedition Act of 1918,
which outlawed “uttering, printing,
writing, or publishing any disloyal,
profane, scurrilous, or abusive language
about the United States government or the
military.”
One provision of the Sedition Act gave
the postmaster general the authority to
refuse postal services to publications
that were deemed to have violated the
Act. Numerous publications were shut down
under the Act and presumably many others,
in fear of a similar fate, were dissuaded
from dissent.
Under the Espionage and Sedition Acts, it
was illegal to criticize the government,
even in the privacy of your own home. To
enforce this law, Wilson created a secret
police force, the American Protective
League or APL, which conducted domestic
surveillance by spying on neighbors,
reading their mail and tapping their
telephones. The APL formed a sub-group
called the American Vigilante Patrol that
rounded up men suspected of avoiding the
draft - arresting 50,000 in September
1918 in New York City alone. By the end
of 1918, the APL had over 250,000 members
in 600 cities and towns across America.
Approximately 175,000 Americans were
arrested for violations of these Acts.
(Note: Wilson’s political prisoners
were later released by Warren Harding
whose campaign slogan was “A Return
to Normalcy.”)
Amazingly, the Supreme Court upheld the
Espionage and Sedition Acts in Debs v.
United States (1919). It is difficult to
understand how any literate adult could
read the First Amendment and uphold the
constitutionality of such laws, but the
justices did.
While FDR’s first presidential
campaign stressed conservative principles
including the call for a balanced budget,
his presidency delivered the opposite.
With the Great Depression as
justification, it was time for the
government’s liberal elite to call
the shots.
FDR’s National Recovery
Administration was Gestapo-like in its
heavy-handed control of the economy. Its
centerpiece was the “Blue Eagle
Program,” which attempted to force
compliance with government mandated short
work hours, high wages, price controls,
and union rules.
Businesses were expected to display the
Blue Eagle with the slogan, “We Do
Our Part.” Minimum prices were
established for over 500 items. Six
million pigs were slaughtered and farmers
paid to let crops rot in the fields - all
to create scarcity and raise prices.
Huge military parades were staged in
support of the program, and 100,000
school children made a pledge of support
on the Boston Common. Lack of compli-ance
was rewarded with jail sentences. In one
case, an immigrant dry cleaner spent
three months in jail for charging five
cents too little to press a suit.
We might still have this liberal
totalitarian economic mismanagement
policy if it were not for the Supreme
Court, which ruled the Blue Eagle Program
unconstitutional in mid-1935, along with
the FDR’s Agriculture Adjustment
Act.
With this shameful history of trying to
destroy our constitutionally-protected
liberties, it is no wonder that
today’s liberals are so proud of
Woodrow Wilson and FDR.
Liberals believe in the virtues of
government power and centralized decision
making. They believe that centralized
bureaucracies are more efficient than the
free market. They don’t believe in
individual liberty or the right to
private property. They want higher and
higher taxes to continually expand
government’s reach into our lives.
Liberals are the champions of compulsion:
send your children to government schools,
join the union or you can’t work,
buy government-approved health insurance
policies, fund your retirement through
Social Security, rely on Medicare and
Medicaid, pay the prevailing wage,
register your stock with the SEC, license
every profession, perform
government-mandated record keeping, and
wear your damned seatbelt.
In short, they are modern day fascists
with a hundred-year-old record of
imposing fascist policies. Do as you are
told and shut up. We will take care of
you … just give up your freedoms.
Yes, Barack and Hillary want change. So
did Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, and
Mao Tse-tung.
To be fair, so did Thomas Jefferson.
Our job is to figure out the difference.
Dr. Ormsby is a member of
the North Andover School Committee.
He is a graduate of Cornell and has a
doctorate from MIT. You can contact Dr.
Ormsby via email: cormsby@comcast.net
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