The noblest and most envied proclamation of the American democracy's founding charter is the First Amendment to the constitution that guarantees humankind's most precious liberties—freedom of speech, religion, the press, the right to assemble and the right to petition their government with grievances.
Yet, in contradictions that make no sense, Americans—especially political figures—are easily panicked when these rights are exercised by people or institutions that are considered different or unconventional or evil.
For a generation or more, the nation was in the grip of the "Red scare"—communism—that led to banning of books on Marxism and communism, the prohibition on communism being taught in schools, gifted writers being blacklisted for refusing to answer whether they were communists, thousands of Americans being tailed and bugged by the FBI for their political views.
Any politician who showed any inkling of resistance to the wave of fear sweeping the country then were accorded the ultimate smear—accused of being "soft on communism." President Harry Truman was the most notable target: He fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur who wanted to bomb communist China in the Korean War.
Now the cry is "soft on terrorism." Critics of the Iraq war are considered by the Bush administration to be un-American at least, perhaps even treasonous. Among the most disturbing examples just discovered of the Bush administration's assault on free speech involved an Ohio firefighter being stopped at the Canadian border and questioned by federal agents about "politically charged" opinion pieces he'd written for his local newspaper about U.S. Middle East policies.
Bush agents revealed in that one instant a sickening official paranoia, a disabling fear of criticism from its citizens and an attempt to intimidate. Shades of jackbooted Nazi storm troopers in Europe in World War II.
Now the cry is about Columbia University allowing Iran's tyrant, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to speak.
Shamefully, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, denounced Columbia, obviously appealing to voters on the right, but thereby also extolling George W. Bush's philosophy—don't speak to your enemies.
So long as American politicians insist on tuning out tyrants, they practice the politics of bliss-through-ignorance.
The great Chinese military strategist Sun-tzu's counsel was wise when he said it in 400 B.C. and just as wise today—"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." (No, "Godfather" star Marlon Brando did not originate the phrase as Vito Corleone.)
Far more down-to-earth advice about hearing Ahmadinejad came from columnist Dana Milbank in Tuesday's Washington Post.
"Without listening to Ahmadinejad, how can the world appreciate how truly nutty he is?"
