Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World

Science and Witchcraft
those in power really allow their own critics to be heard? Would
freedom of speech, of assembly, of the press, of religion, really be
permitted? Would people inexperienced with freedom be able to
bear its burdens?
Some of the Soviet citizens present at the dinner had fought for
decades and against long odds for the freedoms that most Americans
take for granted; indeed, they had been inspired by the
American experiment, a real-world demonstration that nations,
even multicultural and multiethnic nations, could survive and
prosper with these freedoms reasonably intact. They went so far
as to raise the possibility that prosperity was due to freedom -
that, in an age of high technology and swift change, the two rise or
fall together, that the openness of science and democracy, their
willingness to be judged by experiment, were closely allied ways
of thinking.
There were many toasts, as there always are at dinners in that
part of the world. The most memorable was given by a
world-famous Soviet novelist. He stood up, raised his glass,
looked us in the eye, and said, 'To the Americans. They have a
little freedom.' He paused a beat, and then added: 'And they
know how to keep it.'
Do we?
The ink was barely dry on the Bill of Rights before politicians
found a way to subvert it, by cashing in on fear and patriotic
hysteria. In 1798, the ruling Federalist Party knew that the button
to push was ethnic and cultural prejudice. Exploiting tensions
between France and the US, and a widespread fear that French
and Irish immigrants were somehow intrinsically unfit to be
Americans, the Federalists passed a set of laws that have come to
be known as the Alien and Sedition Acts.
One law upped the residency requirement for citizenship
from five to fourteen years. (Citizens of French and Irish origin
usually voted for the opposition, Thomas Jefferson's
Democratic-Republican Party.) The Alien Act gave President
John Adams the power to deport any foreigner who aroused his
suspicions. Making the President nervous, said a member of
Congress, 'is the new crime'. Jefferson believed the Alien Act
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