A Free Speech

Nothing is more sacrosanct to our freedom than our right to freely voice our opinions, our beliefs, our thoughts. Nothing. Shortly after declaring our independence from the tyrannical grasp of the English king, our founding fathers, our Nation chiseled this precept in the stonework of our law of the Land. So important is this principle, that it was positioned in the first of the amendments to the Constitution.

Why then are the basic tenets of the Constitution, our most revered freedoms, at odds with the ideas of our Nation’s leaders and those maybe wannabe leaders? Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, would have us take a second look at the protection of free speech citing what has become a time worn phrase - “war on terrorism”. Mr. Gingrich suggests that in light of the terrorists’ use of the Internet to convey a message, we should “impanel people to look seriously at a level of supervision that we would never dream of, if it were not for the scale of this threat”. Sounds to me like another circumvention of the legal system .

Proponents of Gingrich would cite another time worn cliché - “If you have nothing to hide, it shouldn’t affect you”. But ultimately it can affect anyone, anyone who dares to dissent on policy issues set forth by the powers who be. Dissent and you chance being branded as unpatriotic or even worse as aiding and abetting terrorists. While the former may impinge on your character, the latter plunges deep into the abyss of criminal behavior subjecting you to unparalleled scrutiny by an Orwellian government now freed from the hamstrings of Constitutional protection.

As an advocate of free speech, am I now in jeopardy of sliding down the slippery slope and being labeled an enemy of the State? If Mr. Gingrich should run for the Presidency in ‘08, should I place any credence in what he says knowing that he really hasn’t a clue about what this Country is really supposed to be all about? Would he simply carry on business as usual as it has been carrying on for the last six years?

Mr. Gingrich, I am a dissident and this has been my free speech.