Once again, our freedom is under siege

Jewish World Review ^ | Dec. 31, 2001 | Nat Hentoff

[SJackson]

ON the eve of the New Year, it's good for a columnist's soul, or its equivalent, to confess error, and the impetus almost invariably comes from readers.

For one example, Thomas Wilson of Washington, D.C., notes that I missed a vital point when I praised the late Supreme Court Justice William Brennan for opposing capital punishment on the basis, as Brennan said, that "the most base criminal remains a human being possessed of some potential, at least, for human dignity."

But, Mr. Wilson noted, Justice Brennan voted with the majority of the Court for Roe v. Wade which, in essence, says Mr. Wilson, "declared unborn children to be nonhuman and, although innocent of any criminal wrongdoing, not entitled to the fundamental protections contemplated by the Constitution."

That was Justice Brennan's major error as a jurist. He was a practicing Catholic. I have no religious beliefs, but I know scientifically that once the sperm and egg are united, there has come into existence a human being, distinct from all other human beings.

That a majority of the Supreme Court has chosen to rule that these human beings are not "persons" under the Constitution, is of the order of the Dred Scott decision which cast an entire race of human beings -- black Americans -- out of the Constitution. Another of my Supreme Court heroes, William O. Douglas, also failed, in Roe v. Wade, to protect the most vulnerable of his fellow human beings.

Another reader, Richard Dixon of Virginia, caught me in a flat-out historical error. My correction is particularly pertinent in this time of national danger. I had written that the Constitution was not ratified by the states until the Bill of Rights (the first 10 Amendments), were added. I was wrong. The Bill of Rights was added after the ratification.

What I had jumbled up in my mind was that a key part of the initial resistance to ratifying the Constitution was the absence of a Bill of Rights protecting individual Americans from violations of their fundamental liberties by the new federal government.

Virginia's George Mason, who drafted his state's Declaration of Rights in 1776, from which Thomas Jefferson drew in writing the Declaration of Independence, was a delegate to the Federal Constitutional Convention. Opposing the ratification of the Constitution which, when ratified, had no specific protections of free press or free speech, among other basic liberties, George Mason emphasized that "freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty."

Alexander Hamilton disagreed because, he said, such basic liberties "must altogether depend on public opinion, and on the general spirit of the people and of the government. If the people want those freedoms, it will have them."

However, James Madison pointed out in a letter to Thomas Jefferson that rights solely dependent on majority public opinion could be curbed, and even extinguished, when public opinion changed. As our history demonstrates, he was right. Jefferson had already agreed.

Consider the state of public opinion as revealed in the First Amendment Center's First Amendment Survey, released on July 4, before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In this national survey, 46 percent believe the press has too much freedom, and 71 percent believe "it is important for the government to hold the media in check." Moreover, only 53 percent strongly agree that "newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of a story, and only 57 percent agree strongly that "newspapers should be allowed to criticize public officials."

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[DWSUWF]

"...That was Justice Brennan's major error as a jurist. He was a practicing Catholic..."

There may yet be a Judge, presiding over a court with more power, authority and legitimacy than the 'Supreme Court', who rules that Brennan's co-authorship of megacide amounts to rather more than mere judicial error and that the words 'practicing Catholic' did not apply to him in any way whatsoever.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

". . . 46 percent believe the press has too much freedom, and 71 percent believe "it is important for the government to hold the media in check." Moreover, only 53 percent strongly agree that "newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of a story, and only 57 percent agree strongly that "newspapers should be allowed to criticize public officials."

But this is the natural outgrowth and implication of the way journalism traditionally (since the 1830s) positions itself. Namely, journalism puts frank opinion in the ghetto called the editorial page and the op-ed page, and either implies or says that the rest of the paper is "objective." Journalism also makes a huge fuss over journalistic "ethics," and loudly declaims how terrible it would be if the power of the press were "biased".

If you compare that with "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . ." you should realize that the spirit of "ethics of objectivity" is in direct conflict with the "let a thousand flowers bloom" approach mandated by the First Amendment.

Whoso pretends to be other than a fallible human, even (and perhaps especially) when writing a newspaper, is a self-righteous fraud. And we-the-people have been indoctrinated by such self-righteous fraudulence since memory of living man runneth not to the contrary.

We have been indoctrinated, that is, to believe that we are free to speak and publish whatever we believe--and yet that it is wrong to seriously question the perspective which claims special authority to the publisher of a high-circulation newspaper. Without such indoctrination, already well-developed by the 1930s, it would have been impossible to think that an arm of the Federal Government could be given the authority to judge whether individuals publishing in a then-novel forum were doing so "in the public interest."

Nothing the FCC does would be constitutional if applied to print. That the FCC is incompetent to judge "the public interest" is manifest by the egregiously erroneous reporting of false signals which was done in real time on election night 2000. It was only because of that the election was thrown into question for a month--yet the FCC seems not to have any intention to change its procedures--or discipline its licensees to significantly change theirs.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

Had George Mason, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and others not successfully lobbied for adding the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, our liberties would be uncertain, as they were during the time of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 (which were denounced by Jefferson), the First World War, the 1920's Red Scare, and the reign of Joe McCarthy.

....And the Presidency of Bill Clinton.

[wingnuts'nbolts]

Freedom of the press one of the great bulkwards of liberty

As long as this country has had a press they have been key players in forming public opinion, using any and all means,to push a political agenda.

Since WWII the press has moved further and further away from reporting the news of the day to outright fantasy and deception in forming public opinion.

The public has indeed formed an opinion; that nothing the press says or prints is believable and is mostly seditious. They are tired of being manipulated and lied to, when what they can figure out on thier own has little in common with what they are force fed. The public is looking for truthful information. Hence the fall of the big three and the elite print outlets that is happening right before our eyes.

Enter the internet, where most with computers go for information. Fox news, Rush, Hannity and other right wing TV and radio programs provide common sense truths for the seekers. The people have the power to tell the press to go to hell, and they are!

Liberals think that freedoms and rights are things given them that are static and will stay they way they are unless they whine constantly about more freedoms, free access to drugs without legal penalty, forinstance, or the right to display disrespect to the flag, pledge of allegience, national anthym, etc. What they don't seem to understand is that no matter how good the political system or the greatness of the freedoms the malcontents will always want it another way.

The intellectuals and elites want it all for themselves, the great government in the sky will be directed by THEM,from thier lofty heights, who are immune to it's oppressiveness.

Freedom has always been man's goal. It always has to be fought for. Complacency is the enemy of freedom, and petty issues fog the way. The basics have to be preserved as outlined for us by the men and women who fought for these uncommon freedoms.

The Press as it exists today is the enemy of the people who love this country for it's freedoms. They fancy themselves as elite, immune to the constraints of truthfulness and decency and to be of the ruling class above all the regulations applying to the little dim witted folks out there they think they control. They are the POWER along with the Politicos they pander to. They are above Patriotism, as that is for the worker ants. They answer to a higher power, thier own.

Rant over!