9/01/2015 Sheep Led To The Slaughter: The Muzzling Of Free Speech In America
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-01/sheep-led-slaughter-muzzling-free-speech-america If the freedom of speech be taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.George Washington
http://www.mountvernon.org/research-collections/digital-encyclopedia/article/national-gazette/http://www.amazon.com/Battlefield-America-War-American-People/dp/1590793099/ref=asap_bc?Battlefield America: The War on the American People.
In Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the follow-up to his award-winning book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead paints a terrifying portrait of a nation at war with itself and which is on the verge of undermining the basic freedoms guaranteed to the citizenry in the Constitution. Indeed, police have been t***sformed into extensions of the military, towns and cities have become battlefields, and the American people have been turned into enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process.Yet this police state did not come about overnight. As Whitehead notes, this shift into totalitarianism cannot be traced back to a single individual or event. Rather, the evolution has been so subtle that most American citizens were hardly even aware of it taking place. Yet little by little, police authority expanded, one weapon after another was added to the police arsenal, and one exception after another was made to the standards that have historically restrained police authority. Add to this mix the merger of Internet mega-corporations with government intelligence agencies, and you have the making of an electronic concentration camp that not only sees the citizenry as data-bits but will attempt to control every aspect of their lives. And if someone dares to step out of line, they will most likely find an armed SWAT team at their door.The architects of the American police state must think were i***ts.With every passing day, were being moved further down the road towards a totalitarian society characterized by government censorship, violence, corruption, hypocrisy and intolerance, all packaged for our supposed benefit in the
Orwellian doublespeak of national security, tolerance and so-called government speech.Long gone are the days when advocates of free speech could prevail in a case such as Tinker v. Des Moines. Indeed, its been 50 years since 13-year-old Mary Beth Tinker was suspended for wearing a black armband to school in protest of the Vietnam War.
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/04/do-students-still-have-free-speech-in-school/360266/ In taking up her case, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that students do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.
Were Tinker to make its way through the courts today, it would have to overcome the many hurdles being placed in the path of those attempting to voice sentiments that may be construed as unpopular, offensive, conspiratorial, violent, threatening or anti-government.
Consider, if you will, that the U.S. Supreme Court, historically a champion of the First Amendment, has declared that citizens can exercise their right to free speech everywhere its lawfulonline, in social media, on a public sidewalk, etc.as long as they dont do so in front of the Court itself.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/protesters-have-no-free-speech-rights-on-supreme-courts-front-porch/2015/08/28/f79ae262-4d9e-11e5-bfb9-9736d04fc8e4_story.html What is the rationale for upholding this ban on expressive activity on the Supreme Court plaza?Allowing demonstrations directed at the Court, on the Courts own front terrace, would tend to yield the
impression
of a Court engaged with and potentially vulnerable to outside entreaties by the public.
T***slation:
The appellate court that issued that particular ruling in Hodge v. Talkin actually wants us to believe that the Court is so impressionable that the justices could be swayed by the sight of a single man, civil rights activist Harold Hodge, standing alone and silent in the snow in a 20,000 square-foot space in front of the Supreme Court building wearing a small sign protesting the toll the police state is taking on the lives of black and Hispanic Americans.
http://rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_front_lines/first_amendment_setback_federal_appeals_court_upholds_60_year_old_ban_on_ex My friends, were being played for fools.The Supreme Court is not going to be swayed by you or me or Harold Hodge.
For that matter, the justicesall of whom hale from one of two Ivy League schools (Harvard or Yale) and most of whom are now millionaires and enjoy such rarefied privileges as lifetime employment, security details, ample vacations and travel perks
are anything but impartial. 1.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-supreme-court-diversity-ivy-league-20141028-story.html 2.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/06/20/supreme-court-justices-financial-disclosure/11105985/ If they are partial, it is to those with whom they are on intimate terms: with Corporate America and the governmental elite who answer to them, and they show their favor by investing in their businesses, socializing at their events, and generally marching in lockstep with their values and desires in and out of the courtroom.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/08/us-scotus-advocates-specialreport-idUSKBN0JM11E20141208 To suggest that Harold Hodge, standing in front of the Supreme Court building on a day when the Court was not in session hearing arguments or issuing rulings, is a threat to the Courts neutrality, while their dalliances with Corporate America is not, is utter hypocrisy.
Making matters worse, the Supreme Court has the effrontery to suggest that the government can discriminate freely against First Amendment activity that takes place within a government forum. Justifying such discrimination as government speech, the Court ruled that the Texas Dept. of Motor Vehicles could refuse to issue specialty license plate designs featuring a Confederate battle f**g because it was offensive.
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/walker-v-texas-division-sons-of-confederate-veterans-inc/ If it were just the courts suppressing free speech, that would be one thing to worry about, but First Amendment activities are being pummeled, punched, kicked, choked, chained and generally gagged all across the country.
The reasons for such censorship vary widely from political correctness, safety concerns and bullying to national security and h**e crimes but
the end result remains the same: the complete eradication of what Benjamin Franklin referred to as the principal pillar of a free government. http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2015/01/16/history/great-american-thinkers-free-speech.html Officials at the University of Tennessee, for instance, recently introduced an Orwellian policy that would prohibit students from using g****r specific pronouns and be more inclusive by using g****r neutral pronouns such as ze, hir, zir, xe, xem and xyr, rather than he, she, him or her.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/08/28/call-me-ze-not-university-wants-everyone-to-use-g****r-inclusive-pronouns.html On many college campuses, declaring that America is the land of opportunity or asking someone
Where were you born? Are now considered microaggressions, small actions or word choices that seem on their face to have no malicious intent but that are thought of as a kind of violence nonetheless. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/ Trigger warnings are also being used to alert students to any material or ideas they might read, see or hear that might upset them.
More than 50 percent of the nations colleges, including Boston University, Harvard University, Columbia University and Georgetown University, subscribe to
red light speech policies that restrict or ban so-called offensive speech, or limit speakers to designated areas on campus. The campus climate has become so hypersensitive that comedians such as Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld refuse to perform stand-up routines to college crowds anymore.
What we are witnessing is an environment in which political correctness has given rise to vindictive protectiveness, a term coined by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and educational First Amendment activist Greg Lukianoff. It refers to a society in which everyone must think twice before speaking up, lest they face charges of insensitivity, aggression or worse.
This is particularly evident in the public schools where students are insulated from anythingwords, ideas and imagesthat might create unease or offense. For instance, the thought police at schools in Charleston, South Carolina, have instituted a ban on displaying the Confederate f**g on clothing, jewelry and even cars on campus.
Added to this is a growing list of programs, policies, laws and cultural taboos that defy the First Amendments safeguards for expressive speech and activity.
Yet as First Amendment scholar Robert Richards points out, The categories of speech that fall outside of [the First Amendments] protection are obscenity, child pornography, defamation, incitement to violence and true threats of violence. Even in those categories, there are tests that have to be met in order for the speech to be illegal. Beyond that, we are free to speak.
Technically, Richards is correct. On paper, we are free to speak.
In reality, however, we are only as free to speak as a government official may allow.Free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, h**e crime laws and a host of other legalistic maladies dreamed up by politicians and prosecutors have conspired to corrode our core freedoms.
As a result, we are no longer a nation of constitutional purists for whom the Bill of Rights serves as the ultimate authority. As I make clear in my book Battlefield America:
The War on the American People, we have litigated and legislated our way into a new governmental framework where the dictates of petty bureaucrats carry greater weight than the inalienable rights of the citizenry.It may seem trivial to be debating the merits of free speech at a time when unarmed citizens are being shot, stripped, searched, choked, beaten and tasered by police for little more than daring to frown, smile, question, challenge an order, or just breathe.
However, while the First Amendment provides no tangible protection against a gun wielded by a government agent, nor will it save you from being wrongly arrested or illegally searched, or having your property seized in order to fatten the wallets of government agencies, without the First Amendment, we are utterly helpless.
Its not just about the right to speak freely, or pray freely, or assemble freely, or petition the government for a redress of grievances, or have a free press.
The unspoken freedom enshrined in the First Amendment is the right to think freely and openly debate issues without being muzzled or treated like a criminal.Just as surveillance has been shown to stifle and smother dissent, keeping a populace cowed by fear, government censorship gives rise to self-censorship, breeds compliance and makes independent thought all but impossible. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/06/201362574347243214.html In the end, censorship and political correctness not only produce people that cannot speak for themselves but also people who cannot think for themselves.
And a citizenry that cant think for itself is a citizenry that will neither rebel against the governments dictates nor revolt against the governments tyranny.The end result: a nation of sheep who willingly line up for the slaughterhouse.The cluttered cultural American landscape today is one in which
people are so distracted by the military-surveillance-entertainment complex that critical thinkers are in the minority and frank, unfiltered, uncensored speech is considered uncivil, uncouth and unacceptable.Thats the point, of course.The architects, engineers and lever-pullers who run the American police state want us to remain deaf, dumb and silent. They want our children raised on a vapid diet of utter nonsense, where common sense is in short supply and the only viewpoint that matters is the governments.
We are becoming a nation of i***ts, encouraged to spout political drivel and little else.In so doing,
we have adopted the lexicon of Newspeak, the official language of George Orwells fictional Oceania, which was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought. http://artcontext.org/remote/newspeak.html As Orwell explained in 1984, The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the dev**ees of IngSoc [the state ideology of Oceania], but to make all other modes of thought impossible.
If Orwell envisioned the future as a boot stamping on a human face, a fair representation of our present day might well be a muzzle on that same human face.
If were to have any hope for the future, it will rest with those ill-mannered, bad-tempered, uncivil, discourteous few who are disenchanted enough with the status quo to tell the government to go to hell using every nonviolent means available.However, as
Orwell warned, you cannot become conscious until you rebel. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79n/chapter1.7.html From George Orwells fictional Oceania:
Two bloated women, one of them with her hair coming down, had got hold of the same saucepan and were trying to tear it out of one anothers hands. For a moment they were both tugging, and then the handle came off. Winston watched them disgustedly.
And yet, just for a moment, what almost frightening power had sounded in that cry from only a few hundred throats! Why was it that they could never shout like that about anything that mattered?
He wrote:
Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious. That, he reflected, might almost have been a transcription from one of the Party textbooks.
The Party claimed, of course, to have liberated the proles from bondage. Before the Revolution they had been hideously oppressed by the capitalists, they had been starved and flogged, women had been forced to work in the coal mines (women still did work in the coal mines, as a matter of fact), children had been sold into the factories at the age of six.
But simultaneously,
true to the Principles of doublethink, the Party taught that the proles were natural inferiors who must be kept in subjection, like animals, by the application of a few simple rules. In reality very little was known about the proles. It was not necessary to know much. So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance.