It's worth noting, as Jesse Walker does in the latest Reason magazine, that Trinity Church, the controversial church Obama attended for many years, is heavily involved in the media-reform movement, having sought to restore the Fairness Doctrine, prevent media consolidation and deny licenses to stations that refuse to carry enough children's programming.The name, Fairness Doctrine, is as Orwellian as that of the Employee Free Choice Act.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Guess Who Doesn't Support Free Speech?
From the New York Post:
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They came for Jessica, and I will not be silent
Jessica's husband had heard Jessica's side of the original phone call and verified the actual quote. To which the female agent replied, "Oh? Well why would she (the Obama volunteer) make that up?"
Jessica replied that the Obama volunteer was probably unhappy about what Jessica had said about her candidate. The female agent then said "That's right, you were rude!"
The male agent then displayed a file with Jessica's full name prominently printed on it and asked her how she felt about Obama. At this point, the former Marine told the agent "in no uncertain terms" (as she later recounted) that this was America and that the last time she checked, she was allowed to think whatever she wanted without being questioned by the Secret Service. And was being "rude" a federal crime now too?
The agents then admitted they had no tape of the conversation, just the quote from the Obama campaign.
Responding to Jessica's questions, the agents would not identify themselves by name, nor reveal the name of the Obama volunteer who had made the complaint. The agents did indicate that Jessica was not in a court of law yet, and that they were trying to not embarrass her "by going to all her family and neighbors."
To these implied threats, Jessica invited the agents to speak to whomever they wanted, and stated she would happily go to court since she had done nothing wrong.
Jessica asked the agents, "Look, someone calls me unsolicited on my cell phone to ask me to support their candidate, and I can't tell them why I don't?"
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Jessica wrote later, "The fact that the volunteer lied, the fact that the Secret Service came to my house to question me about my thoughts and feelings and threaten to embarrass me to my neighbors and go to court if I didn't cooperate is not the tragedy here.
"Because that girl on the phone doesn't have the pull to send the Secret Service to my home. Someone high in the ranks of a campaign working for a man who may be the next President of the United States of America felt comfortable bringing the force of the Federal Government to bear on a private citizen on nothing but the word of a partisan volunteer."
Taken together with the intimidation campaign against WGN Radio because it aired an interview about the Obama-Ayers connection, the use of local criminal prosecutors to intimidate TV stations in certain states to not run ads critical of Obama, and the use of race to rally black voters and shame white voters, the Obama campaign's M.O. in Jessica's case is a warning.
The pattern is unmistakable. The drumbeat of jackboots echoes now faintly, but persistently, in the fall breeze.
It truly is rather disturbing. I had an incident just yesterday where another teacher decided to air what she claimed were my political views to mutual students. The result was that I ended up teaching a class in the nature and intention of the Electoral College, the nature of the freedom of speech, and the fact that while up until that date they had no idea of my views, showed that conservatives are capable of equanimity and true freedom of ideas. It's a heckuva a way to run an art class.
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