Today on Radio Dubya the host, Rush Limbaugh, declared Lincoln and FDR to be heroes of his because “they knew it,” unlike so many other American politcians, such as Thomas Jefferson. “It” was the notion that Americans do not have the right of free speech when that speech is in conflict with “the national interest.” Limbaugh was making the Lincolnian case for having the state censor all antiwar voices in order to prop up the neocon Bush regime.
Of course, the big question is: Who is to define “the national interest?” Historically, this question has been answered by Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Mussolini, Lincoln, and others with the word “me.” Rush clearly wants to bring back the Sedition Act, which made it a crime punishable by prison to criticize the central government.
1:27 pm on June 1, 2004
