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Shut Up, They Explained
Opinion Journal ^ | 1/25/2006 | Brian C. Anderson

Posted on 01/25/2006 3:59:15 AM PST by saveliberty

TAKING LIBERTIES

Shut Up, They Explained
The left's regulatory war against free speech.

BY BRIAN C. ANDERSON
Wednesday, January 25, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

The rise of alternative media--political talk radio in the 1980s, cable news in the '90s, and the blogosphere in the new millennium--has broken the liberal monopoly over news and opinion outlets. The left understands acutely the implications of this revolution, blaming much of the Democratic Party's current electoral trouble on the influence of the new media's vigorous conservative voices. Instead of fighting back with ideas, however, today's liberals quietly, relentlessly and illiberally are working to smother this flourishing universe of political discourse under a tangle of campaign-finance and media regulations. Their campaign represents the most sustained attack on free political speech in the United States since the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts. Though Republicans have the most to lose in the short run, all Americans who care about our most fundamental rights and the civic health of our democracy need to understand what's going on--and resist it.


(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 109th; briancanderson; censorship; freedomofspeech; intolerance; loseelections; petulance
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To: saveliberty

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1563824/posts


21 posted on 01/25/2006 9:07:37 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters but PR.)
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To: Just mythoughts; derllak

"Seems we have need for freedom right here in the good USA."

We need far more than freedom. We have a real need for another revolution.

Politically if possible

Violently if necessary.

We weren't given the 2nd amendment to hunt deer or kill criminsals.


22 posted on 01/25/2006 9:10:07 AM PST by Leatherneck_MT (An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.)
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To: Leatherneck_MT

Your last statement is right on the nose - which is why they'd like that taken away from us too!


23 posted on 01/25/2006 10:05:15 AM PST by derllak
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To: derllak

I have a little something to send you. It's titled "The Real Intent of the Right to keep and Bear arms" if you're interested.


24 posted on 01/25/2006 10:11:47 AM PST by Leatherneck_MT (An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
The Plot to Shush Rush and O’Reilly
Front Page Magazine ^ | 24 January 2006 | Brian C. Anderson

Same article, different title.


25 posted on 01/25/2006 10:25:21 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters but PR.)
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To: saveliberty
What's really happening is that the left, having lost its media monopoly, has had trouble competing in a true "marketplace of ideas" and wants to shut that marketplace down.

According to the essay, HR1606 had been introduced in the House, a bill that threatens our free speech rights. Everyone should learn more about it. I intend to do so.

26 posted on 01/25/2006 6:59:52 PM PST by Simo Hayha (An education is incomplete without instruction in the use of arms to defend oneself against harm.)
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To: Simo Hayha
Note to self: Actually, HR1606 was introduced to protect free speech. The article talks about other legislation (ie. Rep. Slaughter; fairness doctrine) that is the problem, along with the vote agaisnt HR1606 on 5 NOV 05.

Recognizing that McCain-Feingold is out of control, liberty-minded Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling introduced the Online Freedom of Speech Act (HR 1606) in the House last April. (Harry Reid has sponsored identical legislation in the Senate, showing that not all Democrats are lost on the issue.) The bill reinforces the Internet's current regulation-free status by excluding blogs and various other Web communications from campaign-finance strictures.

The House Democrats torpedoed HR 1606, but they had surprising help from about three dozen Republicans.

Incumbents all. The first inclination or power is the retention of power.

27 posted on 01/25/2006 7:45:31 PM PST by Simo Hayha (An education is incomplete without instruction in the use of arms to defend oneself against harm.)
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To: saveliberty

Good one... thanks for the post.


28 posted on 01/25/2006 9:54:32 PM PST by GOPJ
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To: saveliberty
"If Congress thought this was a Pew effort," he confided, "it'd be worthless. It'd be 20 million bucks thrown down the drain." At one point, late in the congressional debate over McCain-Feingold, "we had a scare," Mr. Treglia said. "George Will stumbled across a report we had done. . . . He started to reference the fact that Pew was playing a large role . . . [and] that it was a liberal attempt to hoodwink Congress. . . . The good news, from my perspective, was that journalists . . . just didn't care and nobody followed up."

OMG

29 posted on 01/25/2006 10:04:08 PM PST by GOPJ
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To: GOPJ

:-) You're welcome


30 posted on 01/26/2006 3:45:30 AM PST by saveliberty (Proud to be Head Snowflake, Bushbot and a new member of Sam's Club)
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To: GOPJ

Exactly


31 posted on 01/26/2006 3:46:02 AM PST by saveliberty (Proud to be Head Snowflake, Bushbot and a new member of Sam's Club)
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To: xcamel

Perhaps this fall, once Machine Gun Sammy is installed, we need to shop a test case to the right federal judge and send CFR back to the Supremes before the 2008 elections. And no, it doesn't bother me at all to use their own tactics against them.


32 posted on 01/26/2006 3:57:36 AM PST by Flavius Josephus (Enemy Idealogies: Pacifism, Liberalism, and Feminism.)
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To: Gritty

I know what you're saying, but my fear is that the cartridge box will be invoked by the left first as their tenuous hold on even minority representation further slips.


33 posted on 01/26/2006 4:14:14 AM PST by Flavius Josephus (Enemy Idealogies: Pacifism, Liberalism, and Feminism.)
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To: saveliberty

When they are talking about Slate or DailyKos, the "new media" is "brilliant" and "promising." When it's FR or Powerline, it's "dangerous" and "irrational."


34 posted on 01/26/2006 4:21:20 AM PST by Larry Lucido
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To: Larry Lucido

And this surprises us why?


35 posted on 01/26/2006 4:37:12 AM PST by saveliberty (Proud to be Head Snowflake, Bushbot and a new member of Sam's Club)
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To: saveliberty
From the article:

"Mr. Treglia urged grantees to keep Pew's role hush-hush.

"If Congress thought this was a Pew effort," he confided, "it'd be worthless. It'd be 20 million bucks thrown down the drain."

At one point, late in the congressional debate over McCain-Feingold, "we had a scare," Mr. Treglia said. "George Will stumbled across a report we had done. . . . He started to reference the fact that Pew was playing a large role . . . [and] that it was a liberal attempt to hoodwink Congress. . . .

The good news, from my perspective, was that journalists . . . just didn't care and nobody followed up." The hoaxers--a conspiracy of eight left-wing foundations, including George Soros's Open Society Institute and the Ford Foundation--have actually spent $123 million trying to get other people's money out of politics since 1994, Mr. Sager reports--nearly 90% of the spending by the entire campaign-finance lobby over this period."(emphasis mine)

SO that's it in a nutshell. Just a few good ol' liebrals trying to maximize their propaganda dollar -- and save a few million here and there--by shutting the opposition up.

And waaaay to many 'useful idiots' (or collaborators) in Congress.

36 posted on 01/26/2006 4:50:18 AM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly.)
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To: Smokin' Joe

It's hard to imagine that kind of skulduggery except if you are in the practice of doing it yourself (ala HRC).


37 posted on 01/26/2006 4:51:49 AM PST by saveliberty (Proud to be Head Snowflake, Bushbot and a new member of Sam's Club)
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To: saveliberty
The irony is in how Capitalistic the Socialists can be --when it is their money!
38 posted on 01/26/2006 5:20:30 AM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly.)
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To: Smokin' Joe

I don't see it as capitalism, but feudalism with a mask


39 posted on 01/26/2006 5:27:08 AM PST by saveliberty (Proud to be Head Snowflake, Bushbot and a new member of Sam's Club)
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To: saveliberty
From a serf's perspective, it is. But among the lords of the manor, within that priveledged class, it's just 'bidness'.

In their minds, they are the elite, the only real humans.

The rest, the 'great unwashed' and 'unenlightened' mean nothing to them--less, even than livestock, which can be sold for a profit. The lower class, the sub-humans, exist solely as a useable resource, to be managed, worked, and taxed, and cajoled or even flogged into submission if necessary.

40 posted on 01/26/2006 5:43:15 AM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly.)
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