Thinking Outloud: How Long Can Free Speech Last?

Rush always says "words mean things". We know that very well in this electronic forum. Words can inspire others to act in a physical response to the emotions brought about by reading the thoughts of another person.

So, Rush is right, words are powerful, and it is because they have power that Hillary once said that something was going to have to be done about the excessive freedom the net offers those who are engauged in anti-government free speech.

In the political realm, free speech is most vital, so said our founding fathers. We must be able to talk about our elected officials even if they don't like it, and you know that they do not want us spreading around information about them, their votes, or their adulterous lifestyles, in the case of Comrade Clinton.

Since 9/11/02, government has been having a party. Never before in the history of America has government be given such a free reign over the country. The Patriot Act, and other similar pieces of legislation have allowed government officials to spy on US citizens. It is very likely that every word you say on the telephone, and ever word you type in an email, or anywhere else is being processed by some alphabet agency that is looking for certain phrases, or key words.

We are living in a time where we've placed incredible trust in our federal government. We are told that thought they've been given all kinds of new power, we can trust them not to abuse it. But, that is today, or right now, maybe they've already begun to misuse that power, we have no idea.

Your words mean things, rmemeber? You have power because you can say what you think. That kind of power is a threat. You could easily inpire others to turn against a government program, or official. You, a single person in a country of many millions, could bring down a president. Ask Matt Drudge about how its done. The clinton admin. wanted to open up the Internet, formerly a communications medium used for research between Universities, scientists, and government agencies. It was this very medium combined with Free Speech, and one Mr. Matt Drudge that began the process that led to the eventual impeachment of bill clinton.

As we drift away from liberty-no one really talks about increasing our freedoms, nor is there serious conversation about limiting the power of government to those contraints listed in our wonderful Constitution, won't we someday accept the following words, "For the good of the country....Free Speech can no longer be as free"?

We've empowered government in ways government only dreamed of in decades past. Government officials can and probably already do monitor your every word in any electronic medium in which you speak. Maybe it won't be this administration, and maybe we are not far enough down the brainwash road to accept the above statement, but the day is coming when, "For the good of the country", your speech will be limited by government.

Many of you here are not at all surprised by this suggestion. You see where we are headed as a country. You know that liberty is an anathema to government, and the government has gained the upper hand over "We the People". Yes, we live in the era of not big government, but Monsterous Government power. Words are powerful. Government wants all power.

Wife: "Arrest him!"

Moore: "For what?"

Wife: "He's dangerous."

Daughter: "Father, that man's bad."

Moore: "There's no law against that."

Roper: "There is. God's law!"

Moore: "Then God can arrest him."

Wife: "And while you talk, he's gone."

Moore: "And go he should if he were the devil himself, until he broke the law."

Roper: "So. Now you'd give the devil benefit of law."

Moore: "Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil?"

Roper: "Yes! I'd cut down every law in England to do that."

Moore: "Oh? And when the last law was down, and the devil turned ‘round on you; where would you hide Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, man's laws not God's, and if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes. I give the devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake."

Never before in the history of America has government be given such a free reign over the country.

Really? Lincoln suspending habeas corpus, Japanese Americans thrown in camps, federal troops firing on protesting war veterans, heck even as recently as the 1970s the government had freakin' wage and price controls.

And you're saying that none of those stack up to how much free reign the government has right now. Because they've, uh, arrested some dudes in Afghanistan and shipped 'em off to Cuba and stuff. And made airport workers federal employees.

Yup, "never before", all right.

The Patriot Act, and other similar pieces of legislation

Such as? Specifics.

have allowed government officials to spy on US citizens.

You mean like the government was doing to people like MLK in the '60s? Yes, it's only because of the Patriot Act that the government can do this....

It is very likely that every word you say on the telephone, and ever word you type in an email, or anywhere else is being processed by some alphabet agency that is looking for certain phrases, or key words.

This story came out a year or two ago, it's called "Echelon". What's not very likely, of course, is that anyone in government is actually assigned to actually listen to you call the pizza place on the phone and order that anchovy-and-onion. Most likely your conversation is run through some algorithm to try to find the word "bomb" or something similar, and if it's not found, the data is tossed away. Hardly cause for panic.

We are told that thought they've been given all kinds of new power, we can trust them not to abuse it.

Who's telling you this? Don't buy it. I don't claim we can "trust" government not to abuse power. But let's not jump the gun. Do you think the government is abusing their power in some instance? If so, tell us all, we'd like to know.

But, that is today, or right now, maybe they've already begun to misuse that power, we have no idea.

Heck: today, or right now, maybe an asteroid which will destroy mankind is headed our way. We have no idea.

Do you have some actual information to give us, or are you just here to spread baseless scare-mongering?

won't we someday accept the following words, "For the good of the country....Free Speech can no longer be as free"?

Some people have accepted this long ago - they are called leftists and they created laws about so-called "hate speech" and "hate crimes". Go talk to them about this issue. You're barking up the wrong tree.

Government officials can and probably already do monitor your every word in any electronic medium in which you speak.

Actually, they cannot and probably don't. Do you have any idea how much data you're talking about? It's one thing to gather this data and filter it through some algorithm to try to catch certain words, it's quite another to assign an army of "government officials" to actually pore over every last bit of data manually. What a lousy job that would be.

but the day is coming when, "For the good of the country", your speech will be limited by government.

Again, the day is already here. You can be prosecuted, or prosecuted differently, merely for saying certain words. I suggest you start focusing your efforts on repealing all "hate speech" and "hate crime" laws.

won't we someday accept the following words, "For the good of the country....Free Speech can no longer be as free"?

Define we.

I would think some may, many won't.

Makes one wonder which amendment should have been the first.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

THe source of the conflict is governmental paternalism. When you recall the origins of this republic -- of, for, and by the people -- any deviation from the will of the people is a contradiction in terms. It is only when Government becomes a separate entity, which it does through magnitude, that it becomes able to differ with its creators.

Therefore, the larger the Government, the more likely -- some would say inevitable -- it is that that Government will eventually develop along lines that serve IT, not the people. And that is the Government we have today. It exists for ITS ends, not ours. It serves only itself, not its citizens. And it is our master, not our servant.

The only way to stop that is to go to war with that Government, to consider it as much an enemy as an invading army. For invader it is. Although it doesn't invade our borders, being within them already, it invades our homes, our lives, and our futures.

So we take the war to Government. Not violently; our weapons are not guns and explosives! But in the form of protest, vote, and vigilance. Most of all, we refuse to endorse a government that embodies all those things we protest, even if they benefit us. One thing we cannot be is complicit in our own demise. We cannot sustain the Parliament of Whores.

Yes, and no. The source of the problem is government. Our founding fathers knew too well that man is fallen, and subject to sin, greed, selfishness, hatered, envy, and a lust for power and control.

It is because of the nature of man that our Constitution set forth a system of laws limiting the power of government to rule over We the People. So, abuse of power is common to government. It is the one common denominator between all governments.

Paternalism is just an excuse for government abuse of power. In Cuba, it is for the good of the state, or "equality". In England, abuse of power is rising as government spies on every citizen, for peace and security.

One universal rule applies to all governments: They all endlessly seek more power until they have full control over every citizen.

-There ought to be limits to freedom
George W. Bush, discussing a parody site.

Uh, there are limits to freedom. The First Amendment does not grant freedom to libel. The Second Amendment does not grant freedom to step out the door of a rowhouse and empty a clip at the neighbor's cat that just pooped in your flower beds (as much as I might think it should). I belive that Bush's quote in this case had a point, but was also intemperate. The website in question did not present itself as a parody site of Bush, but tried to claim it was an official Bush website, as I recall. As such, it would have been committing slander, except for the fact that Bush is a public figure, and Bush should have realized that he would be the target of slander as a presidential candidate. But that still doesn't make what that website was doing rightous...

"the right of the people peacably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances" is, quite explicitly, the right to talk to each other about politics.
"the freedom of speech, and of the press" must accordingly be understood to include political speech and printing.
The internet didn't exist in the founding era, but its distinguishing characteristic is low-cost, high-accessibility publishing. The press was the lowest-cost way of publishing in the founding era, and the internet arose as a mass medium just as Bill Bradley started caterwalling about "the poor man's soap box" being overwhelmed by "the rich man's wallet." To suppress the internet, therefore, would be precisely counter to the patent intention of the First Amendment.
The case is otherwise, however, with broadcasting. The FCC created the broadcast spectrum ("the public airwaves") by censoring the public at large. The FCC promotes the ability of the people at large to receive but not to send broadcast transmissions. The right to "receive"--to read or listen--is implicit in the right to print or speak. But there can be no "constitutional right" to a clear-channel oligopoly license to broadcast.
Consequently the FCC's mission of endorsing certain licensees and not we-the-people is constitutionally illegitimate. A powerful case can be made (e.g., Slander) that journalism is anticonservative. The New York Times has the constitutional right to be anticonservative (even while claiming to be objective); that frees the courts from any obligation to vet its pages for "fairness" or "objectivity", or any such formulation.
But with its scheme of preferences for the speech of the few, the FCC takes on exactly that burden. And if taken seriously it is a Sisyphusean task, because absence of bias is an unprovable negative. Accordingly the FCC has never truly taken its obligation seriously.
The "Fairness Doctrine" simply took mainstream journalism as gospel, as if The New York Times had taken an oath to publish "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." The trouble is, of course, that the First Amendment protects the Times from any such obligation--and that, even where such obligation prevails, sometimes people are found guilty of perjury.
In addition to presuming to regulate the print press other than journalism, M^cCain-Feingold essentially institutes that form of broadcast "fairness" during the climatical period of an election. It cries out, not merely for SCotUS rebuke, but for a finding that broadcast journalism is an illegitimate political Establishment. That is, journalism should lose influence during the crucial stage of an election, rather than being promoted to an unchallengable Establishment during that period.

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