The Theft of Our Freedom

by Dr. William L. Pierce

I WANT to talk with you about freedom today. Freedom! That seems simple enough, but it is a word with profoundly different meanings for different people. Some of the people whom I most despise and whom I consider the greatest threat to freedom have, in fact, represented themselves as champions of freedom. I’m talking about liberals. The name “liberal” comes, of course, from the Roman word meaning “free.” How ironic! — although I am sure that most liberals don’t see the irony. It’s just that their concept of freedom is so radically different from mine. (ILLUSTRATION: The Lexington Minuteman (1900), representing militia Captain John Parker)

For me freedom is a fairly simple thing: it is closely tied to my idea of independence. I am free when no man can claim the right to force me to do his will rather than mine. This definition is a definition relative to society, to government, and to the law. I said, “when no man can claim the right . . . .” Thus, I don’t consider myself unfree when a robber points a gun at me and tells me to give him my wallet. He’s telling me what to do, but he doesn’t claim any right to do so. I consider myself unfree if I am not able to entertain the possibility of drawing my own pistol and contesting his request for my wallet because the government previously has disarmed me with a gun-control law.

I also consider myself unfree when I cannot say whatever I want to say on any subject whatsoever, because the government has forbidden me to speak.

Freedom or lack of freedom is a function of my relationship to society and to the government. It is not a function of how much money I have or how popular I am or how happy I am with my life. A lot of people talk about things like “freedom from hunger” or “freedom from fear” or “freedom from want,” but they’re not using the word “freedom” the way I use it. Hunger and fear are serious things, important things, and unpleasant things, but they don’t have anything to do with freedom as I’ve defined it here.

Before I go on I should mention that we all make conscious decisions to impose certain limits on our own freedom. When we marry, for example, we consciously give up some of our freedom. When we choose to be a member of any community or any society, we enter into a social contract: in return for receiving the benefits of being a member of the society, we agree to obey the society’s rules. But these things are a matter of choice for us. They are voluntarily accepted limitations. The man with a strong sense of self-worth and independence, the man who loves freedom, will be cautious about accepting such limitations, and he will want to keep them to a minimum. He will be eternally vigilant to prevent other men from changing the terms of his social contract in such a way as to diminish his freedom.

Weaker, more dependent men, on the other hand, may gladly accept more limitations in return for the promise of more social benefits or more security. And that’s all right, so long as we don’t let their weakness encroach on our freedom.

Liberals have an entirely different concept of freedom. For the liberal the idea of freedom is mixed up with the ideas of happiness and comfort. That’s why one always hears liberals talking about things like “freedom from want.” To liberals, a hungry man is not a free man. And of course, in a certain sense of the word that is true. A hungry man is encouraged by the pain in his belly to do something to get food. His options are more limited — at least temporarily — than those of a man who is not hungry. But that’s not the sense in which we use the word “free.” Whether a man is hungry or not, whether he is poor or not, he is free as long as he not prevented by the government from seeking food for himself or seeking to alleviate his poverty.

That’s where we and the liberals differ. To us a poor man is unfree only if the government prevents him by law from bettering his condition. To us a man can be poor and hungry and still be free. To the liberals a poor man lacks freedom even if he is poor solely because of his own laziness or stupidity. What counts to the liberals is that he is poor, regardless of the reason, and therefore cannot have everything he wants. So the liberals campaign to free him from his wants, not to free him from laws which prevent him from taking care of his own wants. The liberals in their campaign for “freedom from want” very often seek solutions in the form of more laws: laws which take away our freedom in order to satisfy the wants of those who have an entirely different concept of freedom.

A big thing with the liberals these days is “freedom from oppression.” By “oppression” the liberals mean anything which makes them feel bad or keeps them from having what they want. To the liberals poverty is a form of oppression. So is feeling bad because they are ugly or stupid or awkward or ill-bred or unpopular. The liberals consider a person is “oppressed” when he is reminded of his inferiority by something another person writes or says. Feminists, in particular, are fond of complaining about this sort of “oppression.” They believe that they are free from oppression only when they are feeling good about themselves, and this “freedom to feel good,” as they see it, is threatened by people who say “insensitive” things. The liberals believe that they are fighting for freedom from oppression when they campaign for laws designed to protect the feelings of people who could be offended by the comments or actions of other people. These laws are often called “hate laws.” The liberals sometimes speak of “freedom from hate” and believe that they are achieving that with their “hate laws.”

In fact, to hear a liberal or a Jew talk about it, you would believe that “freedom from hate” and “freedom to feel good” were what the Founding Fathers really had in mind when they drafted the Bill of Rights. To the liberals the so-called “freedom” of a homosexual not to be offended by the remarks of someone who considers him a freak ranks right up there beside freedom of speech and freedom to keep and bear arms — in fact, a bit above freedom of speech and way above the freedom to keep and bear arms.

These new “freedoms” that the liberals have invented — freedom from oppression, freedom from bad vibes, freedom from hate, freedom from being offended — have been given an enormous promotion during the past decade or so. Several large and well-funded Jewish organizations — Morris Dees’s Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, the Simon Wiesenthal Center — have been working together with the Jew-controlled media and bought politicians to push so-called “hate laws” through state legislatures. These laws attempt to protect people — especially those considered “disadvantaged” by the liberals, and that means non-male, non-White, non-heterosexual, or non-Gentile people — from being made to feel bad by outlawing “oppressive” thought and “oppressive” expression. Some of the laws aim at punishing a person for having “oppressive” thoughts when he commits a crime. For example, if a homosexual solicits you and you punch him in the nose, it ordinarily would be a misdemeanor assault in most jurisdictions. But if you say, “Take that, you filthy pervert!” when you punch him, it becomes a felony in those areas where a “hate” law is in effect. Instead of being fined a few hundred dollars, you can be sent to prison for five years.

Other laws, based on the same “freedom from oppression” theory, criminalize any speech or other expression which might “oppress” a “disadvantaged” person — that is, it criminalizes so-called “hate speech.” Jewish and liberal groups have succeeded in pushing such speech-limitation laws through several state legislatures. They also have succeeded in convincing a substantial portion of the public that “hate,” “racism,” and “discrimination” are illegal, even in those states where they have not yet succeeded in enacting “hate” laws. Thus, they have intimidated many people into limiting their own speech, in the belief that to say something Politically Incorrect might result in a prosecution. And, I am sorry to say, in many cases they have gotten away with these infringements on the freedom of other Americans: infringements committed in the name of “freedom from oppression.”

It is infuriating. It is also ironic. It may lead to the shedding of blood. I’ll give you an example of a recent infringement, and I think you’ll agree with me that it is something which justifies the shedding of blood.

Florida is a state with lots of liberals and even more Jews, and in order to protect “disadvantaged” people in the state from “oppression” they have enacted several “hate crime” and “hate speech” laws. These laws are all unconstitutional, and they clearly are intended primarily for the purpose of intimidating the citizens of Florida into conforming their speech and behavior to liberal norms — although the liberal and Jewish elements in the state certainly would like to see the Constitution actually changed to favor their concept of “freedom” over ours.

Late last month nine students at Killian High School, in the Miami suburb of Kendall, Florida, were arrested and hauled off to jail after they published a pamphlet satirizing their school’s administration. They were charged under two of Florida’s “hate” laws, because the principal of Killian High School is Black, and he was treated unkindly in the pamphlet, which even included cartoons depicting the Black principal engaged in sexual intercourse. It was the principal who called the police and requested that the students be arrested. One of the charges against the students carries a penalty of five years imprisonment.

The Jewish Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith joined the Black principal, feminists, eager-beaver politicians and bureaucrats, and others in praising the action against the students, who range in age from 16 to 18 years. One of the more eager members of the lynch mob who praised the arrests was Henry Fraind, deputy superintendent of schools. He told reporters, “Free speech doesn’t give anyone the right to use a word that would inflame. They do not have the right to incite the feelings of outward racism.”

Unfortunately, Henry Fraind is all too typical of the sort of vicious, Politically Correct bigots we have put in charge of the education of America’s children. I don’t know whether or not he really believes that Americans don’t have the right to use words which inflame or which incite feelings of racism, but it’s clear that he would like for the use of such words to be illegal — and I’ll bet he also would like to see people go to prison for using words which incite Politically Incorrect feelings about sex, sexual orientation, religion, and a number of other things.

Even if Mr. Fraind understands that the Bill of Rights is still a bar to the type of “hate speech” laws he favors, he seems pleased that the laws, unconstitutional though they are, are on the books and serve to stifle the ignorant and the timid. And there are, I’m afraid, far too many other people, who’re not activist bigots like Fraind and not even especially liberal, who would vaguely go along with him. They’ve gradually been persuaded by two generations of television propaganda that people are entitled to “freedom from oppression” and that there should be some sort of penalty for saying or writing things that “disadvantaged” people find “oppressive.” They believe that the government has — or should have — the authority to compel us all to write or say only “nice” things. Perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising in this feminized age. The feminine spirit gives priority to niceness and getting along with everybody and not hurting anyone’s feelings. The masculine spirit gives priority to freedom and to truth and to saying what needs to be said, offensive or not — but masculine priorities have become Politically Incorrect in this age.

It is interesting to note that of the nine students thrown into jail for producing and distributing their “insensitive” and “oppressive” pamphlet, five are girls. One of the students is Asian, and three of them have Hispanic surnames. Most of them are honor students. This “diversity” didn’t stop the prosecutor from charging them, and it didn’t stop the police from leaving them locked up overnight in the Dade County jail with murderers and rapists. Four days after they were charged and arrested the state reluctantly dropped the charges against them. The feminist prosecutor who was responsible for the arrests, Katherine Fernandez Rundle, told the Associated Press that dropping the charges against the students was “a difficult decision” for her, even though she knew the laws were unconstitutional and unenforceable. One gets the distinct impression that she and other authorities involved were sorry that they couldn’t prosecute the students and felt that keeping them in jail for a night was letting them off too easy — for exercising their constitutional freedom of speech.

The parents of the arrested students have talked about the possibility of suing, but I have the feeling that a good, old-fashioned necktie party, with the Black principal; deputy superintendent of schools, Henry Fraind; and Kathleen Fernandez Rundle as the guests of honor would be more appropriate. Too much of the blood of our forefathers was spilled securing the freedom which these Politically Correct bigots would like to take away from us — too much to permit them to continue trampling on our Bill of Rights with impunity.

These arrests last month in Florida are a pretty clear-cut case of our freedom — freedom of speech — coming into conflict with freedom as defined by the liberals and Jews: namely “freedom from oppression,” freedom to feel good. But it is by no means the only such case. This sort of thing is happening more and more frequently these days, and our freedom all too often is subordinated to theirs. Believe me, they really would like to re-write the Bill of Rights, taking away all of our freedoms and substituting theirs instead. And that’s what they actually are doing, step by step.

There are three categories of people responsible for the gradually increasing loss of freedom in America. First, there are the Jews, as represented by groups such as the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center — and of course, by the masters of the mass media. These are cold-blooded, hard-headed people who know exactly what they are doing in trying to take away our freedom. I’ve talked at length about their activities and their motivations on earlier programs, and I’ll talk more about them in the future.

In the second category are the hard-core liberals, the people who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s believing that they were “oppressed” if mommy or daddy reprimanded them for not picking up their dirty socks and underwear or if the kid next door was better looking or had more toys than they had. They built their ideas about “freedom from oppression” and “freedom from want” into a sort of nut-case religion, which has been adopted by a lot of really wacky people, people with serious problems of retarded personality development: the feminists, for example. This religion also has been adopted by a lot of amoral opportunists who don’t care about freedom one way or another, but who find it profitable to go with the flow: who find that it helps them get a good press and more votes.

But it’s the third category of people that we really have to worry about. Those are the people who have been too passive, too selfish, or too cowardly to stop the Jews and the retards and the opportunists: the people who have let them get away with it and have put up virtually no opposition to the theft of our liberty.

I’m talking about us. I’m talking about those who really believe in freedom of speech and freedom of self-defense, but who are so afraid of being called an “anti-Semite” or a “racist” that they remain only silent spectators when our freedom is raped the way it was in Florida last month. Too many of us have let ourselves be buffaloed by the very clever Jewish tactic of calling their campaign against our freedom a campaign against “hate.” Too many of us who see through this tactic are still afraid to stand up and denounce their “hate laws” — and them — because we are afraid of being thought “haters.”

Let me leave you with this thought. Cowardice and freedom are not and never have been compatible. If we want to be free again, then we must find the courage to deal properly with those who are stealing our freedom.

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Source: American Dissident Voices broadcast, March 21, 1998