The Cornerstone To a Free Sociaty Part 2

With the abundant number of channels available on cable TV& Radio. Without scarcity, or with many other voices in the marketplace of ideas, there are perhaps fewer compelling reasons to have a Fairness Doctrine reinstated , with stations such as MSNBC and Air America the Liberal view point has a viable outlet to get the message they want put across and with the inception of the Internet there is no lack of availability for diverging view points.

So we need to look back at what the right of Free Speech means and why it is so crucial to forming the corner stone to a free society , and why such an act as the Fairness Doctrine is actually just the opposite to the essential freedom of allowing a free allowance to express views that might be considered controversial to the powers that be. Whenever government limits speech because of it’s content or viewpoint , the restriction usually is unconstitutional unless the government can show that it has a compelling interest in limiting that speech, and that limitation is tailored narrowly to serve that interest.

One must remember the reason that the First Amendment was put into the Bill of Rights and was placed at the for front was in part to ensure American citizens and media had the right to criticize government policy and public officials. When the Constitution was being written many such as Patrick Henry , Sam Adams , George Mason , and Richard Henry Lee feared that without a list of personal freedoms, the new national government might abuse its powers.

The First Amendment is perhaps the most important part of the Bill of Rights. It protects five of the most basic liberties. They are freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition the government to right wrongs. Freedom of Speech entitles American citizens to say what they think, provided they do not intentionally hurt someone else's reputation by making false accusations, it enables people to state their opinions openly to try to convince others to change their minds and also gives you the right to disagree with what others say without fear of punishment by the government authorities


Freedom of the Press makes it possible for Americans to keep informed about what is going on in government. It helps them to be responsible citizens. Reporters and editors can criticize the government without the risk of punishment , Radio , TV , Newspapers , Magazines , Internet , Books , and Movie Scripts do not have to be submitted for government inspection before they are published. This censorship would violate the First Amendment it does not state anywhere in the constitution that the government has the right to impose upon any of these mediums that they be required to share equal time with the opposing view points of any particular political party or Ideological group or person this is exactly what we are seeing when those in government and those that have differing view points want to impose their will over any particular medium for gains that they seem would be beneficial to their agenda .

What is most alarming the call for this type of act and the end around policy that might be enacted such as the so called “Hate Crime” legislation is being brought forth by those that at one time considered the rights of liberty and freedom of speech to be of the utmost importance , these same groups that take the name of Liberal Left are some of the biggest purveyors of this type of speech and divergence views when it suits their purpose , take for instance these quotes from those in the left :

"When I see an American flag flying, it's a joke." -- Robert Altman

"While the rest of the country waves the flag of Americana, we understand we are not part of that. We don't owe America anything - America owes us." -- Al Sharpton at the "State of the Black World Conference" in Atlanta

"My daughter, who goes to Stuyvesant High School only blocks from the World Trade Center, thinks we should fly an American flag out our window. Definitely not, I say: The flag stands for jingoism and vengeance and war." -- Katha Pollitt, The Nation


"This president is trying to bring to himself all the power to become an emperor to create Empire America. If you go along like sheep that is what will happen." -- Jim McDermott (D - WA)


"Anthrax did not come from a cave in Afghanistan," but from "[t]he same people who blew up the building in Oklahoma City, Ruby Ridge, the terror attack in Atlanta, Georgia - those same anti-union forces....'Ashcroft is using the FBI as one weapon, the IRS as another weapon, and leaks to the right-wing media as another weapon' to 'destroy the leadership' of organized labor." -- Jesse Jackson at speech to AFL-CIO in Dec, 2001


"We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly." -- Bill Maher, Politically Incorrect

"We've been treated to some astonishingly vile images over the last two weeks: Office workers hurling themselves into a 100-floor-high abyss. A gaping, smoldering hole in the financial center of our greatest city. George W. Bush passing himself off as a patriot, even as he disassembles the Constitution with the voracious glee of piranha skeletonizing a cow. ... It may have seemed meaningless at the time, but now we know why 7,000 people sacrificed their lives: So that we'd all forget how Bush stole a presidential election." -- Cartoonist Ted Rall, Philadelphia City Paper


"Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of California--these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!" --Michael Moore, Michaelmoore.com, September 12, 2001


As we can see these people were allowed the right and freedom to express their selves and their opinions as they deemed fit , some will agree and some will disagree with what they had to say , but no one was or is calling for their right to say it to be taken away or impeaded in any way regardless if some will take offense or consider it hatful in any way.

The exercise of Freedom Of Speech as guaranteed to these individuals should be respected just as much as it should be for those that have differing view points that those that would agree with the statements listed above . That is why a divergence of views and the Right to Criticize those in Government and the policies they make is the Corner Stone Of A Free Society and should remain as such without further impediments to those Rights.

On a final note we should consider these two quotes when we think about the Implications of what The First Amendment means to be able to express ourselves without any undue or unjust restraints placed upon any Citizen whether they be in the Media or in the general public.

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
Noam Chomsky

And most of all

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
George Washington

It is too clear freedom of speech and of press had specific meaning and that meaning could only have been freedom !

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This is something that I wrote and I don't expect all to agree with the views that I expressed in this but I wrote it to invoke thought. And I do hope all can find some meaning in it.