North Star Writers Group

We are approaching another Independence Day holiday, the celebration of the anniversary of the Founding Fathers' declaration of the American colonies' freedom from England and, by extension, all mankind from all forms of tyranny. We tend to take this freedom for granted after some 231 years, but if we do not remain vigilant it can slip away, as unlikely as that may seem. Perhaps the corollary to the self-evident truths in the Declaration is that there is always a self-styled King George III out there trying to prevent the exercise of our Creator-endowed rights.

This can be seen in recent attempts to quash free speech, especially of the type that is insufficiently politically correct or which exposes the truth that incumbent politicians would rather not be told. The specter of government dictating or controlling or limiting speech in any way should be enough to offend all of us, from the most conservative to the most liberal. Would that we could put aside our focus on the content and simply defend the rights of those with whom we disagree the most. But sadly, it doesn't appear that some are capable of that level of magnanimity.

There is, at present, a three-pronged attack on the First Amendment. All of them serve to promote the interests of the liberal left, incumbent politicians or both. But even if that were reversed, these speech-silencing proposals would be just as wrong and unconstitutional.

Campaign-Finance Reform: Or as it should be called, the Incumbent Protection Act. It speaks to just how far down the slippery slope we've already gone that Congress could pass a bill outlawing criticism of them by name within 60 days of an election, get a president to sign it and a Supreme Court not to strike it down immediately. The sheer chutzpah of this brazen attempt at political censorship should not be ignored. Nor should the fact that the main writer of this Constitution- trashing bill is running for an office wherein he would swear an oath to "preserve, protect and defend" that very same document. How Sen. John McCain hasn't been disqualified from the campaign by default for this violation of the presidential oath before even taking it is beyond me.

Thankfully, the Roberts’ Supreme Court just struck down some of the most onerous provisions, but they still declined to throw the entire monstrosity out. This means it lies dormant but ready to be exploited to the maximum extent it can be. And it still has the effect of eliminating the 99.9 percent of us that aren't already millionaires from being able to afford running for office.

"Fairness Doctrine": Or as it should be called, the Muzzling Conservative Talk Radio Act. Never mind that the liberal bias of the mainstream media created the market for this genre in the first place. Had they been more respectful toward and accommodating of conservative ideas, perhaps the mainstream media would still have a large market share and Rush Limbaugh wouldn't have 20 million listeners. And now, precisely because the liberal near-monopoly of the mainstream media has been broken, politicians of that ideological ilk want to silence it by forcing any talk station to carry a matching number of hours of liberal programming. At the same time, they won't force CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Washington Post, et. al. to spend half their time on conservative subjects. And that fact should tell you what this is really all about. It's not enough for liberals to have virtually the entire mainstream media spewing their propaganda. The few outlets that espouse a countering view must be made to spew it too. Or if not that, tie the stations up in expensive litigation via the FCC and cause them to give up on the format as a result.

What should happen is that the broadcast spectrum should be sold off, the FCC seriously scaled back (if not abolished) and the free market allowed to sort out the rest. (The idea that government could ever hold the technological means of speech without inevitably attempting to abuse it for its own corrupt ends was silly from the start.) If there is an audience for liberal talk radio, it will survive if not thrive. Of course, the fact that Air America totally tanked suggests that perhaps there isn't. And liberal politicians know it, which is why their reaction is to attempt to force it upon us. We citizens and consumers hold the ultimate power by our willingness to ruthlessly utilize the remote control and/or off button. Finally, the idea of government passing anything called the "Fairness Doctrine" sounds more like something out of George Orwell's 1984 rather than reality. The pure creepiness of that phrase should be warning enough.

"Hate-Crimes" Legislation: This is the last prong of the attack, used to silence anyone who can be tangentially related to a crime, however tenuous the link. Or even when no crime has occurred at all and speech itself is considered a "hate crime". The most prominent example of this presently is the prosecution of Christian pastors in Canada and Scandinavia for preaching of the need to repent of the sin of homosexual behavior. The inevitable effect of legislation establishing special classes of citizens is that it will be used as a weapon against those not in those classes or in agreement with them. It is less about protection – as everything from discrimination to murder is already illegal – than a thinly veiled attempt at thought control. And much like the "Fairness Doctrine," it will run in one direction only. Don't hold your breath waiting for someone to be charged with a "hate crime" if it's perpetrated by black on white, female on male or unbeliever on Christian. In the land where "all men are created equal," we should not be trying to make some of them more equal than others.

So on this Fourth of July, as you enjoy a warm summer evening and watch fireworks light up the skies, remember the reason this is occurring. Then go find someone with whom you disagree and resolve together to keep government out of the censorship business, for both of your sakes.

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