From a comparative perspective, the United States is unusual if not unique in its lack of restraints on freedom of expression. It is also unusual in the range and effectiveness of the methods employed to restrain freedom of thought. The two phenomena are related. Liberal democratic theorists have long observed that in a society where the voice of the people is heard, elite groups must ensure that that voice says the right things. The less the state is able to employ violence in defense of the interests of elite groups that effectively dominate it, the
more it becomes necessary to devise techniques of “manufacture of consent,” in the words of Walter Lippmann over 60 years ago, or “engineering of consent,” the phrase preferred by Edward Bernays, one of the founding fathers of the American Public Relations industry.