BY MURRAY SABRIN
COMMENTARY
In the former Soviet Union, dissidents were called "enemies of the state" by the ruling apparatchiks and imprisoned for posing a threat to the ruling order. In addition, dissidents were branded as mentally ill and confined to a psychiatric ward so they could be "cured" of their anti-state thoughts. Ironically, in America today the mass media are performing a similar task as the thugs who enslaved the Russians and other ethnic groups for nearly seventy five years by insinuating that critics of the federal government are "dangerous" and mentally unbalanced.America's mass media questioned the mental health of Republican presidential nominee Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964, while some in the media opined that President Richard Nixon was "losing it" during the Watergate scandal. But the real assault on critics of the welfare-warfare state began in earnest during the 2008 GOP primary, when Rep. Ron Paul of Texas was called everything but a child molester for proposing to downsize the federal government to its constitutional functions and supporting the withdrawal of American troops from the Middle East and around the world, because the federal government's disastrous bipartisan interventionist foreign policy was draining the federal treasury and killing innocent victims by the thousands and inflaming hatred against America. For his bluntness and despite his plain spoken manner, Rep. Paul was vilified and called a "nut" among other things.
Instead of having a civil discussion of the issues, many in the media demonized Rep. Paul's free market, limited government agenda, calling it "racist," "unpatriotic," "anti-poor" and of course, the ultimate insult, "paranoid." The pseudo intellectuals on cable talk shows and in their newspaper and magazine columns reveal that they worship in the temple of Big Government. The welfare state is their Bible, while the progressive income tax, the Federal Reserve and the "holy war on terror" are their commandments, which must be defended against all "nonbelievers" with insults and character assassination. (READ ENTIRE ARTICLE)
