Defending The First Amendment

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
-- Bill of Rights

People should recognize that as the first amendment of the United States Constitution. Read it again. I'd like to pay special attention to the part that says freedom of speech, because our freedom of speech is under attack and its time we stood up and defended it.

Let's start with the FCC. This government agency wants to block what you can say on television. They were given the power to do so under the reasoning that broadcast frequencies were rare commodities owned by the public, so to use them broadcasters had to play by certain rules. Guess what. That's no longer the case. Most people don't receive signals over those rare frequencies, they get them through privately owned cable and satellite transmissions. So if the FCC is no longer guarding these rare frequencies, by what right to they attempt to limit free speech? I know what you're thinking. The first amendment says Congress, it doesn't mention the FCC. But the FCC gets it's authority from Congress. It's just doing an end-run but trying to stifle free speech.

But the government isn't the only ones trying to limit free speech. Media Matters, a "watchdog" group stirs up controversy by excerpting parts of broadcasts and publicly attacking the people it disagrees with, regardless of the context of the comment.

But while it is important to note the context, it is ultimately irrelevant. What right does Media Matters have to try to stifle ANY speech. They are clearly politically motivated, as they will mangle quotes by Bill O'Reily, Don Imus, or Rush Limbaugh to give themselves ammunition for attacks, but they have no problem with a madman like Iran's president saying whatever he wants.

You don't have to like what people say. You don't have to listen to what people say. These precious instruments of radio and television that Media Matters feels they must monitor have these wonderful features called buttons. They let you change the channel and even turn the machine off. Media Matters, The American Family Association, The FCC, they all come from different points of view. All they have in common is that they have, at various times, tried to stifle conversation by censoring what people say. Neither they nor anyone else has that right.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire

Just The Facts Ma'am

Why do so many people have a problem believing facts? The interpretation of facts may be subject to debate, but the facts themselves rarely are. Yet people cannot accept facts that don't agree with their worldview.

The New England Journal Of Medicine published a research study that found mercury had no effect on a child's brain function. This has been a subject of furious debate among parents of autistic children because they believe the autism was caused by mercury in vaccines. The study has considerable scientific proof on its side. What is the basis of the parents' belief? The children were diagnosed after receiving a vaccine shot. Despite that timing, you can't prove cause and effect. The same logic could be used to say that all the children are food, therefore eating food must cause autism. But rather than accept the facts, autism groups are calling this a cover up and conspiracy.

The world has probably heard of Moveon.org's infamous ad slamming General Petraeus. The facts he presented to Congress didn't match what Moveon wanted to hear. So instead of debating the interpretation of the facts, or accepting that they were wrong, their decision was Petraeus must be lying. They simply can't admit that they don't know the facts. Here's a message for Moveon.org: just move on already.

Supporters of organic farming also blindly ignore the facts. There is, to date, no scientific evidence stating that organic foods are healthier. There is, however, substantial proof that organic farming methods cannot sustain a population the size of Earth's. By supporting organic farming, you are supporting people going hungry with no provable benefit.

Facts are facts. You can adapt your argument to take the facts into consideration, or you can face that if the facts don't support your view, it's your view that's incorrect.

Mike Richardson, Champion of the Obese

Presidential candidate Mike Richardson spoke last week at the Obesity Society conference (it's a group to study obesity, not a group of obese people). He was the only candidate who attended, though all of them were invited. The hypocritical nature of his speech there was laughable.

Richardson stood up and announced that obesity is a disease, not a behavior. That's funny because Richardson decided he was too heavy and lost 110 pounds. Was it through medical treatment? No, he started exercising and eating right. He changed his behavior.

While there are people whose medical conditions cause them to gain weight, it's too often becoming an excuse. What happened to personal responsibility? Not every obese person has a glandular disorder. Most of them suffer from too many jelly doughnuts (which, despite having jelly in them, don't count as fruit). Take responsibility for your own health. It's not that there are too many fast food restaurants, it's that you aren't mustering up the willpower to walk past them. And it isn't that you don't better. Nobody goes into McDonald's thinking it's healthy.

Welcome to the Home of the Free

Much has been made about allowing the president of Iran to speak at Columbia University. Since we have free speech in this country, I feel that he had the right to speak, no matter how depraved or evil it was. Columbia, as the host, also had the responsibility to not let his ravings go unchallenged. Columbia's president did a fair, not great, job at that.

Where Columbia has fallen down is allowing both sides to speak. They have no problem allowing a hate monger like Iran's president speak, but they refuse to allow a representative of the Minute Men to discuss illegal immigration. They refuse to allow ROTC on their campus. What is this supposed to lead people to believe?

One conclusion is that Columbia supports the terrorist policies of Iran. Despite the fact that they execute homosexuals and repress women regularly, it was still fine that their president spoke. If that's not true then why are opposing viewpoints from the right not allowed?

U.S. v Terrorists

In a discussion about whether or not Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should be allowed to speak at Columbia, I was confronted by the statement that "Bin Laden's videotapes are full of stuff that CNN doesn't report." It sounds as though the speaker believes Bin Laden is more credible than CNN.

Now I'm not a big fan of CNN, but I think they're a lot more credible than Bin Laden. But the exchange brought a quesion to my mind. After listening to the Iranian president and CNN and reading transcripts of Bin Laden's tapes, it sounds like they're campaigning for the democrats.

Why would terrorists want the Democrats to win?

I don't have an answer, I'm just putting the question out there.