The Week In Review

This week in review is going to be a bit different. I'm breaking away from my usual dissection of the weeks events to talk about a few that I think are perhaps more important than poll numbers and who's the new communist in Obama's group of advisers, although we did learn of two new ones.

Instead I thought I might pose a simple question and expand from there.

Here it is:

Of the original ten amendments to the Constitution, which would you say is the most important?

The answer has always been easy for me personally but think for a moment before you answer for yourself. There are critical issues of freedom and liberty locked inside each one and choosing only one might be a tad on the difficult side at first. There are issues of search and seizure, fair trials, gun ownership, religious freedom etc. that appeal to each individual in a very personal way. One's own life experiences may make one more important than an another or perhaps being a hunter or a clergyman may inform that decision. I have several friends who are lawyers who might say that bit about a fair and speedy trial is the key to a polite and civilized, free society.

One has always stood out more plainly and grandly than all the others for me, for many years. I regard it with reverence and sanctity. I've written and spoken on it at length on many occasions, much to the annoyance of those who have been made to suffer through it. I love it for it's beauty it's simplicity, and it's strength. It is the iron upon which all the rest were built and there is a reason it was placed highest in order. So there would be no doubt as to the foundation of what constitutes freedom and liberty. It's tucked neatly between two other rights but it stands out as my favorite.

"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."

Freedom of speech and of the press to me is the keystone of freedom, even above the right to bear arms. While it's true that the framers intended to put freedom of religion, speech and assembly first, due largely to the horrors they had suffered under King George, it does nothing to diminish their importance in my mind. Leaving aside the history lesson that we're all familiar with, let's instead take a look at the right I consider to be the most important.

The right to free speech was arguably the most contentious of all of the original ten. The "Alien and Sedition Acts", signed into law by John Adams in 1798 was, on it's face, designed to prevent alien powers from interfering with a fledgling government and was intended to prevent such powers from speaking ill of the government. Thomas Jefferson allowed them to expire or repealed them in 1802. One, the "Alien Enemies Act" is still in force today and is meant to be used in times of war. This was the first attempt at silencing speech and drove a wedge between Adams and Jefferson that lasted for many years. Jefferson argued that the acts were designed to silence criticism of Adams and should never have been enacted at all. In the early years of the republic, speech was an important thing to the founders. They learned the hard way the consequences of not being allowed to speak out against what they perceived as a tyrannical king bent on forcing the colonies to submit to his mad whims.

Throughout the years, the burning of the American flag came to symbolize the ultimate in political speech. Agree or disagree with the idea, it is a form of expression of displeasure with the government that is protected. There have been battles over whether or not money can be construed as "speech" in todays modern society. It's logical to assume that in the media age, it takes money to get a message across any of the varied medium available today. The advent of the Internet has allowed the free flow and exchange of ideas but without the gravitas of the traditional media outlets. Remember, just because you read something online doesn't make it true.

Walter Cronkite once said, "Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy." Never has that been more true than today. You may argue the motives and the end effects but the recent attacks on speech send a chill up my spine. I call them attacks just as I would call burning or censoring library books in our schools attacks on free speech.

In the last few months, I've read article after article about those in government and on the periphery who seem to want to "level the playing field" where talk radio is concerned.

I personally despise that term. It presupposes that one concept should be lowered to allow a weaker concept to flourish. Too bad we can't level the playing field in baseball...then the Yankees wouldn't be such a threat come October. The idea of "leveling the playing field" is foreign to our republic insomuch as we applaud those who aspire to greatness.

But I digress...

Mark Lloyd wants to level the playing field in radio, the "Net Neutrality" rules are meant to level the playing field online. Both ideas are nothing more that a "fairness doctrine" meant to weaken what the market has determined is successful and replace it with an opposing viewpoint...that doesn't sell advertising. There's a reason that Al Franken ran for the senate...his radio show on Air America had no audience to speak of.

The website that the White House put up to rat on your neighbors about health care springs immediately to mind as well. That was a gem that the Pillsbury Spokesboy, Robert Gibbs had a hard time explaining. For being the smartest press secretary ever, this guy can really be a dunce sometimes.

John Morley, prominent British politician and thinker of the late 19th century once wrote, "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him."

The White House's recent attempts to marginalize Fox News and to call it "not a news organization" is another example of the assault on speech. Again, agree or disagree with Fox News, you cannot deny that they disseminate information for a vast number of viewers and listeners every day. Since the inception of the idea of a press pool, the shared responsibility of all the major news networks, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and FNC, never has the White House sought to exclude a member of the press from interviewing a member of the cabinet.

That is, not until last week when the White House decided that since they had determined that FNC is not a news outlet and should be excluded from interviewing the "Pay Czar" Kenneth Feinberg concerning his decision to cut the pay of the top execs at companies that took bailout money. President Obama sent out his pit bulls, David Axelrod, Anita Dunn and Rahm Immanuel to the Sunday shows to decry the unfair treatment the president had been subjected to at the hands of FNC. Rahm Immanuel even went so far as to issue a tacit yet understood warning to the other networks not to treat FNC as a news outlet, lest they suffer the same fate. Right after hearing Anita Dunn talk about the lack of journalistic fidelity of FNC, we learned that Mao Tse Tung was her favorite political philosopher.

Maosketeer Anita reporting for duty!

In the 70's and 80's the press used to act like a watchdog over government, skeptical of those in power and always asking the tough questions., Now they act like lapdogs cowering at the feet of power for a taste of the scraps after dinner. To their chagrin, the White House lost the short battle with FNC as the bureau chiefs decided that if FNC was excluded, then none of them would interview Feinberg. Perhaps they see the writing on the wall after all.

These attempts will fail in the end but the thought of seeing the government trying to silence speech fills me with such mistrust and disgust that at times all I can do is ask myself where my republic scampered off too. It was here last night when I went to sleep but it seems to have gotten misplaced when I wasn't looking.

I find the words of Jefferson comforting when all else seems to spin out of control.

"He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors."

There are days when I'm not sure which one I am.

Which one are you?