Sunday, May 31, 2009

Sunday Reflection - Freedom Of Speech

From the White House Blog, we find some disturbing information. Speaking of changes being made to the process of restricting influence toward the Administration, here is one of the more critical points raised:

...we will expand the restriction on oral communications to cover all persons, not just federally registered lobbyists. For the first time, we will reach contacts not only by registered lobbyists but also by unregistered ones, as well as anyone else exerting influence on the process. We concluded this was necessary under the unique circumstances of the stimulus program.

Another disturbing bit of information can be found here. According to the report, a Tea Party organizer was visited by the FBI after being turned in by a Democratic U.S. Senator, as a possible domestic terrorist. (Hat Tip on this one: Carol)

Loved and revered by the Left, the Obama Administration and his supporters in the federal legislature are attempting to chisel small pieces of freedom away, unnoticed. These are the same people that cried out for dissent when they were the minority and Bush sat in the White House.

Let's take a walk back down memory lane and review what the current Secretary of State once said during the Bush Administration:

"I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic and we should stand up and say, we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration..."


Listen to it here for yourself:



She was right. Despite the fact her voice cuts right into my spinal cord, that statement resonated with truth back then. And it still does today.

Also loved and revered by the Left is Noam Chomsky, whom I disagree with about 85% of the time on most topics. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and so does a Leftist get it right occasionally. He is credited with this quote:

If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all.


The Left is forever quoting this man. Let's just see how often this quote gets used during the time this Administration and Democratic Congress are firmly in power.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As usual, a thought provoking essay, Sir. If we support our Constitution, then we must support each of its tenets, and this would involve every element of the First Amendment, not just one or the other. Freedom of speech means exactly that, even and especially involving speech with which we do not agree. But freedom of speech does not obligate us to “agree,” nor even listen. We can turn the channel whenever we want. We can choose not to purchase an offensive magazine. We can decide not to listen to your YouTube video of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

We cannot maintain our unique nation if we do not maintain our Constitution. For too many years, both parties have engaged in the systematic dismantling of our founding law. The erosion of the Constitution is usually effected in tiny, nearly indiscernible steps. When presidents seek to enlarge government, they act un-Constitutionally because it was the purpose of our founding law to limit government.

Our society has been involved in an internal debate for eighty years; it is a debate of tolerance for others, and the socialist concept of “unearned entitlements.” The argument has taken us far beyond the intent of the Constitution; it has led us to multiculturalism, a long series of accommodation that I believe is systematically destroying the United States.

When we pursue multiculturalism, we expand the notion of “citizens’ rights” to levels never imagined by our founding fathers. For example, for hundreds of years, immigrants came to America to become American. Today, people come here from Mexico to remain Mexicans. They refuse to learn our language they refuse to become part of the fabric of our society. They take, but never give anything back. We can make the same parallel with regard to those from the Middle East, particularly among Muslims. They aren’t here to become Americans; they are here to conquer the infidel.

Let us continue the debate —in English. I have the right to offer my opinion that Obama is a jerk, but foreign language speakers do not have the right to demand the translation of my opinion into their language.

That said, however, culturalism is dangerous, too. We have to be wise enough to understand that “freedom of religion” means exactly that. We founded our country on Judeo-Christian principles, which include the Ten Commandments, a belief that God granted us free will, and that every person is free to choose his own path in life. Not every American accepts this premise, however. Nor does every immigrant. Muslims do not believe this; and if this is true, we ought to ask, if they cannot support the Constitutional guarantees afforded to every American, why do we allow them to come here?

LA Sunset said...

//I have the right to offer my opinion that Obama is a jerk, but foreign language speakers do not have the right to demand the translation of my opinion into their language.//

Herein lies one of the most telling signs that a nation is headed for a divisive fall, from within.

I have yet to have anyone explain to me in an intelligent and rational manner, how requiring immigrants to learn the language of the land is racist. I say this because, when the nation that most of the accomodatees hail from require me to speak their language if I want to live there, it is not.