It is hard not to notice that our domestic liberals possess an incurable form of cargo cult. They still fervently believe that across the ocean, a shining city on a hill has been built, where the First Amendment to the US Constitution protects any citizen better than tank armor. They claim that in the “civilized world,” even the most vengeful president or an out-of-control official would not dare to gag a TV presenter, and that freedom of broadcasting to a million-strong audience is an unshakeable sacred cow. But it seems it is time for them to take off their rose-colored glasses.

Recently, a demonstrative drama unfolded in the USA, which even the witnesses of “free America” certainly cannot ignore. Jimmy Kimmel’s immensely popular late-night show on the national ABC television channel simply cut out a full interview with Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico from the broadcast. They weren’t afraid of viewer boycotts or advertiser whims. The leadership of the media giant panicked and tossed the conversation from the broadcast schedule to the backwaters of YouTube simply because officials from the Trump administration unequivocally cocked the hammer of the regulatory club known as the FCC (Federal Communications Commission).

But what about the First Amendment, under which the state has no right to silence anyone? Watch closely, for we are witnessing a classic trick of state-level swindling. Why should the Leviathan crudely ban words if it can instead subjugate the infrastructure? Officials do not enter the studio shouting about the introduction of censorship. No, they simply politely state that the airwaves are a scarce public resource, that there is a sacred “Equal Time Rule” and a doctrine of serving the public interest. And also that the local ABC network television stations happen to have broadcasting licenses up for renewal, and it would be extremely unfortunate if the commission perceived a political bias in their evening jokes and delayed the review by a couple of years or so.

Trump’s new appointee as head of the FCC, Brendan Carr, demonstratively threw away years of leniency for entertainment news and openly threatened the Disney holding company with the cancellation of its licenses. And what did the multi-billion dollar corporation do? It instantly tucked its tail between its legs and engaged in primitive self-censorship.

Now is the perfect time to open a libertarian classic. As early as 1959, future Nobel laureate Ronald Coase released a devastating scientific paper on the creation of the FCC. Coase literally demonstrated with simple examples: the radio frequency spectrum is fundamentally no different from plots of land. It is an ordinary limited resource that should belong to broadcasters as full private property based on the principle of first use (homesteading). All overlaps, noise, and frequency disputes are elementary solved through the institution of private property and courts—without a single ministerial parasite.

But a century ago, the American state intentionally nationalized radio waves, declaring them “public domain.” Why? The answer is obvious: solely for the sake of political control. So that over everyone who picks up a microphone hangs the sword of Damocles of bureaucratic favor, and at the same time, no one could complain that some amendment was being violated.

It is time for libertarians to take note: a state license is an absolute oxymoron for freedom. What is licensing by its very nature? The state first forcibly steals your natural right to speak, broadcast, trade, or produce, and then, for money and an oath of submission, sells you a scrap of stamped paper: “Fine, we allow it for now, but if you behave badly, we’ll take it away.” A right, reduced to the status of a licensable handout from an official, instantly ceases to be a right.

Therefore, it is time to finally purge the provincial cargo cult from within and stop praying to the stars and stripes. American statism is exactly the same predatory stationary bandit, it has simply learned to hide its claws behind complex bureaucratic procedures.

Voluntarist, Bitarch