If a third-rate political hack of limited intelligence can claim to be Spartacus, the leader of a Roman slave revolt, I can claim to be Roger Stone.  In fact, all patriotic Americans concerned about the First Amendment should declare themselves to be Roger Stone.

The attack on freedom of speech is a worldwide effort.  Nothing reveals the global Deep State's agenda like the simultaneous attacks on Roger Stone and Tommy Robinson.  They are only the most prominent members of the right who are being silenced.

One of the reasons Stone faces jail time is an Instagram he posted to raise money for his defense.  In it he claimed, "Despite a lack of evidence of Russian Collusion, Wikileaks collaboration or any other illegal activity in the 2016 election, long time Trump advisor Roger Stone has been targeted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.  Mueller seeks to criminalize normal political activities by Roger Stone while ignoring the blatantly illegal activities of the Clinton campaign and the Obama NSA,DOJ and FBI."  Mueller immediately informed the judge about this egregious violation of her gag order.

Stone's imprisonment will not be as potentially fatal as those imprisoned in Europe.

Opposition to Islam can be a capital offense.  Tommy Robinson is aware of the dangers of being imprisoned.  Prison officials can place him in an environment that would guarantee his death.  They can conveniently claim total innocence.  Kevin Crehan, who placed bacon on a mosque door handle, is an example.  Crehan  died after serving five months of a twelve-month sentence.  His death is attributed to a drug overdose.  It is not explained how he obtained these drugs while in prison or if he administered the drugs himself or if he had assistance from some of his Muslim prison mates.

If you deface the Koran, you may be sentenced to death.  If you put a crucifix in a jar of urine, you may receive a government grant.

In the United States, we have a First Amendment that is designed to restrain apparatchiks like Judge Amy Berman Jackson.  Progressive judges will test the limits of their authority.  A federal judge in Idaho injected her opinion in a local rape case involving immigrants.  She claimed, "The spread of false information or inflammatory or threatening statements about the perpetrators or the crime itself reduces public safety and may violate federal law.  We have seen time and again that the spread of falsehoods about refugees divides our communities."

In Britain, they have the Communications Act of 2003, which makes it illegal to intentionally "cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another."  Surprisingly only 3,395 people have been arrested under this law.  Tommy Robinson surely has caused "annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety" in the British establishment.  He created a documentary that exposed the BBC's deceitful tactics designed to discredit him.

Germany has similar legislation designed to limit speech.  A German YouTuber faces five years in prison for his criticism of Islam.  Because of the large number of Islamic inmates in German prisons, this could well be a death sentence. 

Government action is unnecessary if politicians can convince the internet companies to ban information the government finds objectionable.  Angela Merkel was overheard asking Mark Zuckerberg to curtail critical speech.  Merkel asked, "Are you working on this?"  Zuckerberg replied, "Yeah."  Progressives did not consider this a crisis until Donald Trump was elected president.  By 2017, Facebook had eliminated content from a vast majority of top conservative publishers.  This would appear to contradict Zuckerberg's testimony before Congress, where he claimed, "We consider ourselves to be a platform for all ideas."  He excluded "hate speech, terrorist content, nudity, anything that makes people feel unsafe in the community."  Zuckerberg has an odd view of what makes people feel "unsafe."  He banned Trump-supporters Diamond and Silk's page but came to the defense of Black ("pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon") Lives Matter.  He chastised Facebook employees for defacing Black Lives Matter slogans on the company's internal "signature wall."

The American experiment is in danger.  Roger Stone is just one canary hitting the bottom of his cage in the coal mine.

John Dietrich is a freelance writer and the author of The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy (Algora Publishing).  He has a Master of Arts degree in international relations from St. Mary's University.  He is retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.