Academia: A Captive Audience

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides for freedom of speech. It was first and foremost in the minds of the founders and it should today be as much our focus. Without this, all other freedoms are in jeopardy. The statement, “When they burn books they will soon be burning people’ is not just a ethereal expression, it is a terrible truth. Because of that amendment we can generally get up on a soap box, radio station, the internet, and express our ideas freely without government interference. The emphasis of this is, “government interference.” For over two hundred years the only real exceptions to this were limits set by national security in time of war, advocating the overthrow of the government and the historic Supreme Court ruling that “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” was not protected speech.

The last sixty years have brought some strange ideas and limitations that I am sure the founding fathers would have not supported. There have been many Supreme Court rulings that have been claimed to protect free speech but they have really opened the door for lewd and filthy speech, public display and presentation of perversion and pornography and acceptance of age inappropriate teaching in school. It allows images that are just plain pornographic and the “f” word and others in every part of speech. And more interesting, it allows the “n” word only if some people use it. I am reminded that the document that founded our government says “all men are created equal” and although it took over a hundred years to attain that legally and even more to bring it to common practice, what right do we have to ever turn back the clock? We should be advancing the idea of freedom, not retrenching.

Today free speech is under assault from many factions! It has been limited by bureaucratic rulings, laws that would have been stricken by courts just a few decades earlier and legislation from the bench, a violation of the constitutional separation of powers that cedes the writing of laws to the legislative branch. The judiciary is to interpret, not write what does not exist into the law. It is ironic that that liberal wing of the government which was the advocate for filthy speech as the way to guarantee free speech is now the reactionary group that wants to limit speech! Among these rulings was the fairness doctrine which was not only unfair, it violates the first amendment because it kills outlets that would allow free speech. It sounds great, if a radio station carries a program that presents one side of the argument it must provide equal time for anyone who wants to comment. But is it great? No. This ruling kills anything but pap in the news. The fairness doctrine has killed free speech once in the sixties and it has reared its ugly head again in recent years. Liberal legislators have determined that talk radio has become a threat to the liberal power base and it must be stopped. Let me explain, there is no significant liberal talk radio, it has been tried but nearly every attempt has failed in the marketplace, an indication of the bankruptcy of the liberal ideas and the lack of discussion of ideas by liberal groups. There is no room for disagreeing with liberal ideas, even for liberals! Free speech is really suppressed by the party in liberal circles. Look at what happened to Bob Casey Sr. some years ago for questioning a liberal sacred cow, abortion. Look at Joe Lieberman. Liberal ideas are so bankrupt that they cannot countenance the discussion of opposing views which might wreck the whole party. All must bow at the liberal alter.