The Laughing Wolf

The Death Of Free Speech

And hope for the resurrection...

Free speech has been under assault almost from the time the Republic was founded. Let's face it, anyone seeking dominion over others hates free speech. Anyone who has dominion over others, to any lesser or greater extent, hates free speech. For with free speech comes honest exchanges of ideas, shared information, and inconvenient facts that discomfit those who act as betters.

Such is why free speech has been killed, gutted, and stuffed at far too many college campuses these days. Such is why free speech is banned at far too many basic schools/school systems around the country. Why, any words can be incendiary and feelings matter far more than freedom, especially when those same words may light fires under teachers and administrators who fail to measure up in any sense of the word.

Such is why every repressive regime in history has felt it essential to control most means of communications. Print was easy to control and choke, even in the modern era, by the simple act of controlling the supplies. Radio and television were easy to monitor, both because any serious effort took power and room, and because small-scale efforts could be hunted down by direction finders.

Such is why so many on left and right these days want to end free speech here in the U.S., and have mounted the single largest assault on the Constitution, in my not so humble opinion, since the founding of the Republic. That assault was in the form of the McCain-Feingold law, is now being applied to the Internet and Blogging.

Go read the story here. Go read the roundup at Instapundit, this excellent roundup from by Michelle Malkin, and this post and this post, both outstanding efforts from Captain Ed.

Think on this a bit, then remember THAT YOU ARE THE GOVERNMENT. Your elected representatives are just that, your representatives -- whom you can replace at will if they fail to properly represent you. Call them, write them, and e-mail them. To truly get their attention, you must do all three. E-mail can and will be ignored. Calls will be noted, but are not enough. Snail Mail is a bit hard to ignore, though it can be put off. Doing all three sends a clear message and should get action -- or you should get new Congrescritters.

The thuggish, ill-considered, and ill-bred assault on individual liberty and the Constitution known as McCain-Feingold needs to be repealed. Not modified, not given special exemptions for the Internet or Blogging, but flat out repealed. It was a bad law that should never have been enacted -- and I for one plan to see how my Congresscritters voted on it at the time and discuss the matter with them.

While he is not posting right now, Ironbear of Who Tends the Fires and I have had a discussion on this topic, and I agree with him.

This is a test.

If we kick up, complain, etc., then the matter will be dropped. If we don't do too much, a modified version will pass. If we don't respond much or at all, then we will lose our freedom.

The choice is yours. Choose wisely.

LW