Where has all the free speech gone?
May 16, 2003 ~ 5:01 p.m.
To revisit yesterday�s topic: I cannot easily put into words how flabbergasted I feel at those doom-and-gloomers who are decrying the dissolution of free speech in America. One diarist wrote in jest that if she suddenly disappeared, it was because the FBI had apprehended her. I have read the same thing over and over in other diaries, in opinion columns, in letters to the editor, and overheard it in conversations. This fear is everywhere. And, as always, it is based purely on conjecture. Liberals lost the 2002 mid-term elections, they lost the anti-war battle, and they will lose on economic policy very soon too when Bush�s tax-cuts get approved by Congress. So what else for it but to cry wolf�our free speech rights are in peril!
It�s strange, but I was in America only a month ago, and I did not feel pressured into withholding my right to speak freely or letting my feelings be known. Sure, you risk a bit by doing so, as my mother found out by exercising her own free speech by flying a flag on her car and subsequently getting her vehicle keyed and windshield busted. But, all in all, Americans can still speak their mind. I could freely speak my mind, in any place and at any time, and not feel that I would be dragged off by secret police and beaten.
You see, for those of you who just cannot get it through your craniums, it was Saddam Hussein who imposed such rigid codes against free speech. The villain of this story controlled Iraq, a country in the Middle East. He tortured fellow Muslims and Kurds, invaded Kuwait, threatened Israel, and mocked the West, was a destabilizing force all throughout the region. He flouted U.N. resolutions on weapons possession for twelve years. The U.S. and Britain went in and threw the evil dictator out and decimated his party and their stranglehold on Iraqis. But, to the good little pious people of the West, this would not hold. It was not about good versus evil. It was about oil and about imperialism. Rescue Afghans from the Taliban? Fine and dandy. Rescue Iraqis from Hussein, Uday and the rest of the Ba�ath gang? How insufferable. Damn that cowboy, that � that Dubya!
But, thankfully, the lefties had no control over this war. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, with the political backing of 35 other nations, called a halt to Hussein�s regime, like it or not. The Left decided that they most definitely did not like it, and so, guess what? Free speech is dying! To liberals, the rejection of their abject cluelessness equates to an automatic repeal of the First Amendment.
There is no stranglehold on any American�s right to free speech by �Shrub,� �Wolfie,� or �Rummy.� (Nice childish nicknames, by the way, people. I guess when you think like a child, you must act like one too. Sorta goes with the territory, don�t it?) I know what you want to believe, but sorry, kids�it just ain�t true.
I have neither seen nor heard any proof that would bear out these doom-mongers� hypothesis on the death knell of free speech. Instead those very words, �free speech,� are just being used as the banner that liberals are raising in their confusion and anger that they�ve lost the battle on so many fronts. Like �no blood for oil� and �tax cuts for the rich,� the Left has simply taken on another catchphrase. Don�t agree with them? You�re denying them free speech! How dare you. What kind of American are you? I�m shocked and awed.
What�s that? You wish to cite the dude in Minnesota who got arrested for his t-shirt, which only said �Give Peace A Chance?� Fine. That was wrong�indeed, it was horrendous. But it was a blunder committed by local authorities, who�d probably been taking abuse in controlling anti-war protestors all day long. The police, as a lot of people don�t seem to realize, are only human. The National Guard did not drag the man off. Complain to the town hall in the place where the infraction occurred. But do not assume it�s some sinister plot by the federal government to deny the average citizen�s right to express their views. Government does some pretty screwed-up things. Denying us our First Amendment rights is not one of them. It is the Second Amendment, more than anything, that the government denies us�much to the delight of the very same people concerned about the First Amendment, wouldn�t you just know it.
I think Thomas Sowell can help explain, quite deftly, why liberals are so concerned about free speech:
�If nothing else, the time is long overdue to rethink tenure that allows such self-indulgence and �faculty self-governance� which has allowed the Left to blackball those who do not share their ideology, in order to keep people with different ideas from teaching and breaking their classroom monopoly.�
Now who appears guilty of violating free speech? I�ll give you a hint�not those on the Right.
Sowell provides examples: At Amherst College, students confronted protesting professors, and when left-wing students tried to get the Amherst student government to request that the professors �take 15 minutes of class time to discuss the war, the student government refused.� He reports that a columnist for the student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin raged against a professor who cancelled his class to protest the war and demanded a portion of all students� tuition returned to them. And, in great news for true advocates of free speech, Sowell announces that despite the heavy diet of the militant left-wing agenda fed to young people by their professors, they are aware of the presence of conservative talk radio, the precious number of conservatives in the media and balanced cable-news stations like Fox News. Moreover, they are listening.
And there you have it. People, refusing to be indoctrinated, are thinking for themselves and making their own decisions with the help of the plucky conservative presence in academia and in the media. They�ve determined that they don�t need the Left to think for them or turn their brains into mechanisms controlled entirely by emotion (as opposed to hard logic). You can publicly declare that you hoped that America would be humiliated in the war. That is the essence of free speech. But dare to suggest that the war was just and that all the anti-war airheads owe the troops and the leaders of this country an apology, and whatt�ya got? Ta-da�There�s no such thing as free speech in America anymore!
No. It simply means that no-one�s listening to your rubbish. Speak your mind. And take your abuse like � forget it. I was going to say �like a man,� but that would be a violation of free speech.
� M.E.M.
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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
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