Today
the path to total dictatorship in the U.S. can be laid by strictly
legal means, unseen and unheard by Congress, the President, or the
people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating
within our government and political system, another body representing
another form of government – a bureaucratic elite.[1] We have a
well-organized political-action group in this country,
determined to destroy our Constitution and establish a one-party
state... The important point to remember about this group is not its
ideology but its organization. It is a dynamic, aggressive, elite corps,
forcing its way through every opening, to make a breach for a
collectivist one-party state. It operates secretly, silently,
continuously to transform our Government without suspecting that change
is under way... If I seem to be extremist, the reason is that this
revolutionary clique cannot be understood, unless we accept the fact
that they are extremist. It is difficult for people governed by
reasonableness and morality to imagine the existence of a movement which
ignores reasonableness and boasts of its determination to destroy;
which ignores morality, and boasts of its cleverness in outwitting its
opponents by abandoning all scruples. This ruthless power-seeking elite
is a disease of our century... This group ... is answerable neither to
the President, the Congress, nor the courts. It is practically
irremovable.
- - - - - Joseph McCarthy 1954: Former U.S. Senator