The issue of free speech versus sedition – Washington Times

OPINION:

When President Woodrow Wilson marched the country into World War I in 1917, California Sen. Hiram Johnson observed that The first casualty when war comes is truth.

Wilson did his best to prove that statement true as he promised stern repression of those the Wilson administration believed demonstrated disloyalty and thereby undermined the war effort. With speed only next seen after 9/11, Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act a year later. These laws allowed the government to prosecute and jail anyone including journalists who dared question Wilsons war policies. Before the war ended, it had been used to indict and imprison more than 2,000 Americans, including Eugene Debs, a former Socialist candidate for the presidency who questioned the draft and empowered postal authorities to ban publications that questioned U.S. policies from the mails.

Many of Wilsons critics remained in jail after the war ended and were only released after Warren Harding, Wilsons successor, pardoned them in one of his first acts as president. He said, Ours is not a country that imprisons men for what they say or write, although America under Wilson had done just that.

Wilson, like many national leaders before and since, considered anyone who questioned his policies disloyal and argued that by doing so, they sacrificed the right to civil liberties. He was hostile, particularly to German Americans, whom he called hyphenated and regarded as a fifth column within the country. They were persecuted by a president who declared that any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic when he gets ready. This was the same attitude that led Franklin D. Roosevelt to round up and intern Japanese Americans in World War II and regard both German and Italian Americans as a threat to U.S. security.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and many of his harshest critics in this country seem to be channelingWilsons spirit. One of the Russian dictators first acts after launching his unprovoked assault on Ukraine was to make it a jailable offense to criticize or even call the invasion an invasion.

Last week at a massive Moscow rally, Mr. Putin dismissed his critics as gnats. He suggested true Russians will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors, calling those who disagree with his policies fifth columnists and vowing that Russians will simply spit them out like an insect in their mouth, spit them onto the pavement.

In our country, some politicians are similarly labeling anyone who questions the wisdom of our response traitors. Suggesting that President Bidens policies may have contributed to the crisis leading to the invasion are described in much the same terms by people who recognize authoritarianism in foreign politicians, but not in the mirror. Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, former Democratic former Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe are calling out Fox commentator Tucker Carlson and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard not for being wrong, but for treason. They would undoubtedly spit out such fifth columnists like an insect in their mouth.

In wartime, there is a tendency to demonize the opposing nations leadership and anyone unfortunate enough to have been born there. Wilsons hatred of the German people led to incredible persecution. Now Russian Americans and anything Russian is being targeted by people who should know better. A symphony orchestra that believes banning the performance of Tchaikovskys works or blaming every Russian, including those who have fled current and past tyrannical rulers, is far more un-American than anything Mr. Carlson or Ms. Gabbard has said.

During the height of the Vietnam War, there is little doubt that some protesters were fifth columnists, but most were exercising their right to express heartfelt opinions in a free country. My friends and I disagreed with most of them, debated them and denounced their extremism. We never suggested they be rounded up and jailed. We have a country that not only recognizes the right to disagree with governmental policies even in wartime but thrives because we as a people have always valued the right to debate and dissent as the most effective way to arrive at the truth.

That shouldnt change now. Our values are threatened when supposedly responsible politicians react to dissent by adopting the music and lyrics of a man like Mr. Putin.

David Keene is editor-at-large at The Washington Times.

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The issue of free speech versus sedition - Washington Times