The Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) new platform could fairly be called communist. America and various states had laws criminalizing communism which could potentially be weaponized against the DSA today. Are any ideas so pernicious to justify criminalization?
I have first-hand knowledge of loyalty oaths. I was not a member of the communist party to be a professor at the University of Oklahoma.
I have been criticizing communism since high school. Still, I found the loyalty oath troubling. Criminalizing ideas is authoritarian censorship. Throughout history, the censors have never been the good guys.
Other ideas also face criminal sanctions. Alabama and other states have banned DEI and divisive concepts within state governments, including universities. Germany banned the Nazis and Holocaust denial and may criminalize denying Israel’s right to exist.
A proviso about America’s communism laws. The U.S. communist party was affiliated with the Communist International, a Soviet Union tool for worldwide revolution. Loyalty oaths were arguably about assisting a hostile foreign nation.
This raises a significant point. First Amendment law distinguishes speech and conduct. While speech gets extensive protection, conduct can be restricted. Protest combines both elements and receives protection, but protests can be criminal actions.
No idea – unconnected from action – seems harmful enough to be banned. How can theorizing about organizing society to implement “from each according to ability, to each according to need” need to be criminalized?
The marketplace of ideas says challenge bad ideas with better ideas. We should demonstrate the folly of government production to socialists or America’s enormous progress on race relations to critical race theorists. As opposed to jailing the proponents.
Many recent protests blur the line between speech and conduct. Cornell professor William Jacobson, founder of the Legal Insurrection blog, tirelessly exposes the antisemitism of pro-Gaza college protests. But Professor Jacobson recognizes that scholars should be free to argue against Israel’s right to exist. Mobs intimidating Jewish students and faculty, however, are not arguing.
I strongly oppose the DSA’s rejection of private property and the Constitution. One legislative chamber possessing executive power (they would abolish the Senate and the Presidency) with no judicial review is the formula for limited government.
Property rights and limited government are the core of freedom. America’s founders viewed limits on government power as foundational. If government can take your property, you merely have possession and not ownership by right.
I consequently view the DSA as aiming to destroy freedom and suspect millions of Americans would agree. The DSA’s extremism might require activating New Hampshire’s state motto, “Live Free or Die.” I would fight for my freedom, like Mel Gibson in “Braveheart.” (Reality Check: I am weak and frightened of my own shadow and will be meekly led off in chains.)
Must a free nation tolerate the promulgation of ideas that might provoke conflict and destroy freedom if ever enacted?
America’s founders were citizens of the Enlightenment, as Brad Thompson explains in America’s Revolutionary Mind. They believed in citizens’ ability to understand the world through reason. The urge to ban ideas frequently arises from reservations about our fellow citizens’ ability to see through seductive demagogues.
Nate Silver recently detailed how DSA supporters are predominantly highly educated low earners. Many display remarkable ignorance about America, our history, and basic economics. This is not surprising as their education has only presented America as an oppressor nation and capitalism as built on slavery.
Past mistakes created today’s predicament. Conservatives and libertarians offered feeble resistance to the progressive left’s long march through the institutions, especially universities and K-12 education. Traditional liberals saw radicals as allies to help win elections. No easy way exists to educate those who only learned about systemic intersectional oppression and socialism’s greatness.
Banning the DSA will not change their supporters’ minds. The DSA wants a very different country from America. Continuing under the political institutions of a single nation will yield continuing and potentially violent conflict. The best outcome might be a peaceful national divorce over irreconcilable differences.
Daniel Sutter is the Charles G. Koch Professor of Economics at Troy University. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of Troy University.
