Paranoia About Paranoia; J. Bovard

One of the twentieth century's most respected American historians, Hofstadter is an unrecognized early advocate of politically correct thought. His writing on political para noia-inspired in part by the 1964 presiden tial campaign of conservative Barry Goldwa ter (who had been "diagnosed" from afar as mentally ill by a group of psychiatrists )-has encouraged people ever since to equate aver sion to government intervention with patholo gy. Hofstadter had no such aversion: he was a former member of the Communist Party. When he joined the party in 1938, he wrote to a friend: "My fundamental reason for joining is that I don't like capitalism and want to get rid of it. I am tired of talking."2 (Hofstadter left the party in 1939, after the Soviet Union James Bovard is the author of Freedom in Chains: The Rise of the State and the Demise of the Citizen (St. Martin's Press, 1999). 27 signed the Non-Aggression Pact with Nazi Germany.) Hofstadter's book quickly became sancti fied by the academic and political establish ment. He acknowledged that "the term 'para noid style' is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good."3 Hofstadter wrote, "What interests me here is the possibility of using political rhetoric to get at political pathology." And in his view, distrust of gov ernment was among the worst political pathologies imaginable.

Hofstadter's opinion of the opponents of big government-whom he called "pseudo conservatives" -was unmistakable: "Pseudo conservativism is among other things a disor der in relation to authority, characterized by an inability to find other modes for human relationship. than those of more or less com plete domination or submission."4 (Emphasis added.) He seems to be saying that wishing not to be oppressed by government proves that advocates of a limited state actually want to tyrannize their fellow citizens. The logic was Orwellian, but it played well in academia and in the media. Hofstadter observed, "The pseudo-conser vative is a man who, in the name of upholding traditional American values and institutions and defending them against more or less ficti tious dangers, consciously or unconsciously aims at their abolition."5 (Emphasis added.) Hofstadter believed that since the threat of government power is "fictitious," everyone 28 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • AUGUST 1999 who fears government is, by definition, men tally ill. But this diagnosis derived largely from Hofstadter's presumption that people had nothing to fear from government.

Government Spying The pseudo-conservative, It according to Hofstadter, "believes himself to be living in a world in which he is spied upon, plotted against, betrayed, and very likely destined for total ruin. He feels that his liberties have been arbitrarily and outrageously invaded."6At the time of Hofstadter's first article on this thesis, in Harper smagazine, the Federal Communi cations Commission was striving to torpedo "right-wing" radio.7A few years earlier, Pres ident John Kennedy's assistant secretary of commerce, Bill Ruder, had declared: "Our massive strategy was to use the Fairness Doc trine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope that the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue."8 Also, the Internal Revenue Service had been carrying out the Ideological Organiza tions Audit Project to harass and destroy con servative organizations-both nonprofit and otherwise. 9 And it wasn't only "right-wingers"

who were the targets of government. 1. Edgar Hoover's FBI sought to subvert the civil rights movement by smearing and trying to black mail Martin Luther King, Jr.lO In 1962, the Kennedy administration sent FBI officials to do late-night "interviews" with steel company executives who raised steel prices higher than Kennedy approved.11 The FBI also carried out an extensive surveillance operation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention of a civil rights challenge that President Lyndon Johnson feared would embarrass him. 12 And in 1965, the FBI did background checks on dozens of people who had sent Johnson telegrams opposing his Vietnam policy.13 Hofstadter even ridiculed the tendency of big-government critics to heavily document their charges. "The entire right-wing move ment of our time is a parade of experts, study groups, monographs, footnotes and bibliogra phies," he wrote.14 If "paranoids" offered what appeared to be evidence for their beliefs, that was simply further proof of their mental ill ness. Once a professor officially attaches the "paranoid" label to a group, no amount of evi dence can remove it. And any consideration of the evidence proffered is unnecessary, since the people offering the evidence are known to fie crazy.