Precedent. Vehicle. Comfort. These three words are the building blocks to the single greatest threat to a society rooted in freedom. The road that winds between freedom and totalitarianism has many steps and shades of grey, but only one of these is irreversible. The beating heart of a free society is the freedom of speech and expression. True freedom abhors the word \u201cexcept\u201d. When a single \u201cexcept\u201d exists, a rule, a constriction against freedom exists. Once written, once \u201caccepted\u201d, this rule, no matter how innocuous or minute, becomes a precedent. Once in existence, a precedent, even if later rejected, can and will be used as a reference in future arguments. Once you can say the words, \u201cRemember when\u2026\u201d, you can never remove that capability. Thus, our greatest weapon against the sinister threat of censorship is the lack of precedent. We simply do not do that. The First Amendment is, and must remain, philosophically inviolate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once we take a single step on that path, it is inevitable that a vehicle will be established. No matter how strict, no matter how convoluted, and no matter how well intentioned, a vehicle, once established, can, and will, eventually be misused. Consider this scenario: As a reaction to increased desire to remove Southern \/Confederate memorials, State Legislature member Joe Random puts forth a bill establishing a \u201cpublic works committee\u201d consisting of 10 members and a head, who are to investigate and vote on whether a specific work, \u201caccessible in the public domain\u201d, ought to be removed. Sounds reasonable, right? Not only reasonable, but it also sounds realistic. This is a vehicle, a method, to allow censorship. It\u2019s just too bad Representative Random did not consider that libraries are also accessible in the public domain, or he might have realized he just created a way for 11 people to prohibit libraries from having copies of the Quran. The danger in making a vehicle for any form of censorship is that it is impossible to tell who will control, or even have access to it, in the future. Consider this: If a simple 30% vote of the population of the US could remove, or ban, anything by declaring it offensive, how much would we actually lose? 30% or 40% is still attainable by both Trump and anti-Trump supporters. So, think of the things you fear to lose and ask if you want your political opposites to be able to use censorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When a vehicle is established, it is, inevitably, put to use.\u00a0 As this occurs with greater frequency, we become accustomed and desensitized to these uses done \u201cfor our own good\u201d.\u00a0 Maybe, you think someone would stop things before they went out of control.\u00a0 Perhaps, you have faith that Americans are \u201cbetter than that<\/a>\u201d.\u00a0 If this is the case, I challenge you to consider the most recent \u201cwitch hunt\u201d in American history.\u00a0 No, not Trump.\u00a0 If you thought of him, I encourage you to learn what that term actually means.\u00a0 Trump had a habit of using Doublespeak<\/a>, as well as just misusing words for his benefit.\u00a0 The most recent \u201cwitch hunt\u201d in American history is also called \u201cThe Red Scare<\/a>\u201d.\u00a0 The primary feature of the Red Scare was an inquiry in which the committee interrogated and threatened American citizens until they either \u201cconfessed\u201d or \u201cgave up\u201d more names to put before the inquest.\u00a0 It was a self-perpetuating vehicle, for the public good, that actively encouraged perjury.\u00a0 Sound awful?\u00a0 America not only accepted it but became accustomed to it.\u00a0 It was \u201csafe\u201d and comfortable.\u00a0 As observed by Ben Franklin:\u00a0 any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. \u00a0\u00a0Once we become comfortable with any censorship, we open the door to more censorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A simple truth often quoted from Aesop\u2019s Fables, is \u201cyou cannot please everyone\u201d. I\u2019ll take that a step further, and suggest, \u201cEvery idea offends someone.\u201d I hate racism, intolerance, ethnic superiority, and prejudice of any kind. The concepts disgust me. However, the solution to them is not prohibition. Its taking away the power of their ignorance. Monuments need not be celebrations; they can be warnings. A society that removes every reminder of its moral failures risks repeating them under a different banner. As Santayana expressed, \u201cThose who forget history, are doomed to repeat it.\u201d By trying to remove \u201coffensive monuments\u201d we have created over a hundred positions for them to rally around. By taking the fight \u201cto them\u201d, we give them someone to fight. By trying to censor their ideas and beliefs, we inherently acknowledge the right of censorship to ideas and beliefs in general. Precedent. Vehicle. Comfort. There is only one absolute defense against censorship. Not. One. Step. We do not walk that path. We do not even acknowledge it. We cannot. We must not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Precedent. Vehicle. Comfort. These three words are the building blocks to the single greatest threat to a society rooted in freedom. The road that winds between freedom and totalitarianism has many steps and shades of grey, but only one of these is irreversible. The beating heart of a free society is the freedom of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-33","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cscage.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cscage.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cscage.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cscage.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cscage.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cscage.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83,"href":"https:\/\/cscage.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33\/revisions\/83"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cscage.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}