Two little words found in the Pledge of Allegiance seem to be coming under heavy enemy fire of late: not just “liberty and justice,” but the words “for all.” The Founders intended a nation designed to foster opposing points of view in these United States be they majority or minority views. In a culture where progressives parse out everyone and everything into an intersectional society occupied by separates which are not equal, perhaps it is time to acknowledge that battle lines are drawn, skirmishes are being fought, and a digital war is being waged in America today to limit and ultimately remove political speech from the public square.
The Road to Hell
As the Democratic-Socialist Party careens down a minacious road to marginalize and regulate political speech, it is vital to recognize the conflict that is being played out in the body politic. Do we fully comprehend that we are traversing a highway to hell fraught with dangerous assaults to one of our most sacred and foundational constitutional liberties?
This road was initially carved out and paved when Congress passed laws designed to restrict campaign contributions. But the Supreme Court came along with a bulldozer and thwarted these efforts in a landmark decision known as Citizens United. In this ruling, the majority maintained that corporations should be able to use political donations to voice their opinions. Looking back this decision may represent a pyrrhic victory that signaled the beginning of a great and ugly crusade by the left to ratchet up the war on independent political speech.
Today, more than a dozen Democratic-Socialist candidates for president support overturning Citizens United. Several promote the concept of fully-funded government campaigns – no personal or corporate donations allowed. Such a contrivance would have been anathema to those who wrote our founding documents.
The Battle of Gettysburg Looms
Having lost that skirmish, the Democratic-Socialists moved into the digital information arena and have largely been gaining ground in their efforts to limit political speech. If you are not part of the progressive machine, you can expect to undergo some form of having your opinions and thoughts quarantined, throttled-back, shadow-banned, demonetized, or ultimately removed from the digital airspace. So many ways to shut up those with whom you don't agree and such little time. With a dominant media largely sharing the political views of the Democratic-Socialists, those with a conservative political outlook have had to scrap and wrestle against the insidious algorithms of media mega-platforms who aim to remove their voices from the national political dialogue.
This battle of digital liberty for all represents the Gettysburg in the fight for equality. That is, the bloodiest conflagration with the most casualties looms in the not-too-distant future. Few options are left for conservatives to beat back this insidious trend.
Should we continue to play what has thus far proven to be a losing game? Perhaps we need to establish new modes of digital platforms that will allow for freedom of expression? Could we be hopelessly too late to stage an assault against these mammoth cyberspace entities with new ones? Or do we lobby for government intervention a la the Standard Oil breakup of 1911?
As the political right tries to find its footing on this new and perilous battlefield, one wonders if those of us who often lobby against government intrusion are left with little option but to call in the national guard. Liberty Nation’s Chief Political Correspondent, Graham J Noble, made this point when he wrote: “Liberty and equality go hand in hand – neither can exist without the other. A fundamental American value is the government’s solemn duty to protect and promote both ideals. As the 17th-century English philosopher John Locke said: 'The [purpose] of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.'”
As citizens of a free society, we must recognize the most precious of rights -- that of political speech -- isn’t merely eroding but rather under vicious attack. Indeed, we are engaged in a costly conflict and cannot wait to be rescued.
The time is now to rally the troops. For as the great World War II general George S. Patton once said, “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
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