Freedom in Peril ?

This Post First Ran in March of 2005!






Please take another look at the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Read it carefully. (Especially the part about free speech.)

Good, you have read it. Now… how the heck are the courts and the government putting journalists in jail for not revealing their sources? And how the heck are the courts, the FCC, the Congress, and the Federal Elections Commission going to legally silence Bloggers? Oh, I forgot. These days, the law is what the Courts and the various “Commissions” of the government, who have the authority to make rulings, which have the force of law, say it is.

A couple of days ago when I first read the FCC and other government agencies are sharpening their long knives to go after Bloggers, my blood boiled. Bloggers have a constitutional right to do this, to blog. It is speech and it is PROTECTED FREE SPEECH! (No, I won’t apologize for the giant letters!)

Bloggers have put the fire to the feet of the establishment and now they are striking back. Never mind that their actions are unconstitutional. They expect the Courts to uphold their actions and I believe they are correct to expect that.

Here is how the Merriam-Webster dictionary http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary defines a journalist:

Main Entry: jour·nal·ist
noun
1 a : a person engaged in journalism; especially : a writer or editor for a news medium
b : a writer who aims at a mass audience
2 : a person who keeps a journal

How is it possible to define Bloggers as anything other than journalists? How?

These actions against Bloggers, and threats against Bloggers, are a manifestation of the fear of the establishment. Bloggers are putting the truth out there, for anybody to see, and read, and become more knowledgeable. Knowledge is power... and power, in the hands of the masses, must be controlled because it threatens those who hold the reins of power.

We have become a threat to them so they must silence us. You can burn a flag, in America, and that is protected free speech, but you’d better darn well keep your opinions to yourself!! Brings to mind and old phrase from the 1930’s: “You have, perhaps, relatives in Berlin?”

What have we allowed our country to become? We did this. I mean…my generation did this. All for security!

Security my Aunt Fanny!

It is a sorry breed of people who had rather suffer slavery, and be secure, than be a free people. Freedom is just too damn much trouble!

You know the idiots in Washington couldn’t find their collective behinds with both hands and a bird dog! They don’t have a clue that they cannot regulate the Internet! It’s like a balloon. You squeeze it here and it just pops out somewhere else. That’s what will happen to the blogging community. All this does is throw fuel on the fire.

The government does not understand us, and as I said before, they fear us. And, you know what people do when they fear something… they destroy it.

The debates, on the blogs, are about as healthy a thing as could ever happen for democracy. But the more people participate in blogging, the more knowledgeable they become. That's power and that kind of power must be stamped out, at all costs, before it becomes a problem for the government.

Too late!

Bloggers are a problem for government! Now bloggers have to dodge the government’s mailed fist!

Do they not understand that Bloggers will go underground, and by going after Bloggers they will imbue them with way more power than they ever had before?

It’s just plain dumb!

Longstreet