Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
The headline above reflects the state of free speech and communication in the
United States today. And if you are anti-gay marriage then you are homophobe. If
you are in favor of supporting the police then you are a racist. And lastly if you’re
anti-Hillary you’re sexist. I have written several pieces dealing with this issue of
free speech and communications in the United States and the significant decline of
open and free discussion of opposing views.
You may recall the incident last spring, when Brendan Eich the CEO of Mozilla was
forced to resign, because he made a contribution to a ballot initiative in California,
that was banning gay marriage. The gay community sent out e-mails, instant
messages, and tweets encouraging their followers not to use the Mozilla search
engine. The company board met and decided that the Eich had to resign in order to
protect their company. In essence the gay community use blackmail to get their
way. The gay community did not want anybody saying anything against gay
marriage, any thoughts their opponents had were not of value, and so they should
just shut up.
Mr. Eich of Mozilla never had a chance to discuss openly and freely why he was
against gay marriage, his opinion didn’t matter. He was opposed to what they
believed and therefore he had to be destroyed. My guess is that he will never be able
to work in this industry again for he will always be tainted as a homophobe. I
believe that in the 6+ years that Obama has been president that this idea of anti-free
speech has accelerated. Any time somebody challenges of policy or decision of the
president he or she is called a racist. Even Hillary, when she was running for the
presidential nomination of the Democratic Party in 2008 said that it was
appropriate that people should have right to criticize President Bush. But when it
came to Obama, we do not have the right to criticize him for his policies or his bad
judgment because if we do we are called racist.
Now the president finds himself at odds with many of his fellow Democrats in the
House and Senate over issues that are important to them. The Senate recently voted
98 to 1 in favor of requiring President Obama to bring the Iran treaty to be reviewed
before it is effective. Now the junior senator from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren
is challenging the president on his foreign trade bill. The president when asked
about Senator Warren’s objection said, “She is just wrong.” There was no discussion
where she was wrong she was just wrong.
One last example of the problems with communication is what happened in
Baltimore. In almost any other City in America if the events would’ve happened that
took place in Baltimore the race mongers would’ve been out in force. Baltimore has
a black mayor; a black chief of police, black states attorney and a police force that
was at least 50% black and the mayor suggests racial prejudice was still an issue.
The mayor raised the question of racism and bias in the police force, she requested
an investigation of her own police force, by the Treasury Department. If anybody
raised the question about what happened to the 1.8 billion dollars given to the City
of Baltimore from the president’s stimulus package, they were called racist.
We have a new word when we talk about freedom of speech, that word is but. The
people in Texas had the right to hold their meeting in private. When people were
asked should they have held a meeting? Do they have the right to hold the meeting is
it free speech? A growing swell of people responded to the question. “Yes they do,
but.” I have studied the Constitution for a long time and as I read the section
concerning free speech I can’t seem to find the word, yes we have free speech but, is
not in there. Whenever we put a qualifier on speech that is not free you might
disagree with gay marriage but that doesn’t automatically make you a homophobe.
You may believe that the police charged in the incident in Baltimore are innocent
until proven guilty under the law but you’re not a racist. You should be able to
question the qualification of a person running for President without being called a
sexist. If a society cannot have an open and free exchange of ideas without labels
then a society is not truly free. What we as a nation must decide is how free do we
want to be, or do we want a small minority of people thinking for us because we are
to bigoted?
Dan Perkins is an author of a trilogy on nuclear terrorism against United States. He
work has appeared on the Hill.com and the Daily Surge. Dan is a Registered
Investment Advisor with over 40 years of investment experience. He has appeared
on over 500 radio and TV shows in the last 12 months speaking about current
events.