Free speech, free nation

Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: April 9, 2008

A judge bans witnesses from using the words “assailant,” “rape” and “sexual assault kit” during a sexual assault trial.
A police officer arrests a woman for cursing inside her own house — and a prosecutor puts her through a trial.
A university president expels a student for protesting the construction of two campus parking garages.
Even though editors approved the cartoon, a university newspaper — our own Cavalier Daily — compels the resignation of a cartoonist whose work about famine in Ethiopia was castigated by readers as offensive.
A state political party bans a presidential candidate from a primary ballot because he will not sign a loyalty oath.
These are some of the abuses of free speech that earned Muzzle Awards for 2007 from the Charlottesville-based Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. The center makes its annual awards announcements on or near the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, champion of free speech.
Among the 14 “winners” was one that stood out as unique.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency last year tried to pass off a fake press conference as the real thing.
The set-up involved agency employees who posed as journalists and pitched softball questions to officials. Real journalists got last-minute notice of the “press conference” — and then were forbidden to ask their own questions.
The staged event was meant to allow FEMA officials to tout their response to California’s massive wildfires.
Said center director Bob O’Neil: “We haven’t [previously] had anything that fell into the falsification or disinformation category; this is a first.”
How far we have come from the Jeffer-sonian ideal of free speech — how frighteningly far.
Freedom of speech, the founding fathers knew, would be crucial to the life and health of our democracy. It was a freedom they were willing to purchase with their own lives, one they handed down to us both to enjoy and defend.
The Muzzles show how freedom of expression impacts democracy and how it relates to other constitutional rights.
The judicial system cannot operate with true justice if a biased judge is allowed to distort a trial by banning even basic descriptors and commonly used words.
Being subject to arrest for uttering swear words inside your own home violates the spirit of the Fourth Amendment, which protects your right to be “secure” within your home.
Banning a candidate from appearing on a ballot because he won’t toe the party line (in this case, won’t promise to support the ultimate party winner) tampers with the election process on which our democracy is based.
The right to protest is preserved in the First Amendment. Expelling a student for protesting violates that right.
All of these examples tamper with democracy.
As egregious as some of them are, it is even more frightening to think about where they might lead us.
If we fail now to preserve free speech as the Founders intended, we may all too soon find ourselves not only stripped of the freedom to express ourselves but also denied the ability to speak out in behalf of our other rights and liberties.
Free speech is the cornerstone. Without it, we cannot conduct the necessary business of our democracy — much less engage in the pursuit of happiness.