September 05, 2004

NOT SINCE JOHN ADAMS have we seen the suspension of free speech on the orders of magnitude we are experiencing in America today. It's a terrible experiment in tyrany, and it's shocking to see the American free speech "frog" boiling its guts out as the temperature goes past 200� in the crock pot of "campaign fiance reform" -- which in truth is nothing other than a gag in the mouth of Americans who wish to exercise their 1st Amendment rights.

N.Z. Bear has the lowdown on the Campaign Finance Reform 60-day window black- out curtain. The idea that we have in this country a 60 day black-out on free speech is an incomprehensible shocker -- the more so when that event is actually up us. I feel sick. I hope others do as well.

A reader writes:

.. that rhetoric makes good copy but it isn't true. I'm sure you've heard the cliche about yelling fire in a crowded theater. That derives from an early 20th Century case in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a conviction of a commie who got busted not for criticizing the draft, but for criticizing the very fact that other people were imprisoned for criticizing the draft in the midst of a war. That's right - criticizing the draft was "yelling fire," and the existence of a war was the "crowded theater."

Not that this makes today's CFR a good thing, or even acceptable, but it does put things into perspective.

I'm know this history, but somehow the new restrictions on speech seem more all-encompassing than what Wilson and co. did during and after WWI. This is shutting up everyone on any topic. Wilson and crew didn't go that far. Posted by Greg Ransom | TrackBack