Dakota Beacon

As the controversy rages on over impeachment and we are taken aback, horrified by the prospect of innocent children being “transgendered” with the approval of our courts and juries, there is another story brewing the the background - indeed, it is not new and has been quietly fermenting for quite some time.  I am referring to the twin stories of 1) a poll showing a huge margin of Americans believe we are headed toward civil war, a deeply unsettling prospect which I find totally possible and 2) a significant majority of Americans are in favor of “hate speech” prohibitions.  These could become fatally linked.

The appalling ignorance which would spawn the idea that we can’t afford to have freedom of expression is one of the reasons why I have consistently and persistently counseled against the insanity of calling for a “convention of states”, or “Article 5 convention” - or what it actually is, a constitutional convention.  We simply don’t have the brainpower that was available in the late 18th Century in America today. Who among us has even read anything by Mark Steyn or Rand Paul, to say nothing of Locke or Hayek or the Federalist Papers?  You might be surprised (or not) to find that many of the most vocal calling for tossing our our Constitution know nothing of its reasoning, its genesis, its inspiration.  Fools more interested in their pop book sales, like Mark Levin, are fine with this. I believe their cynicism reflects a collision of their lack of real answers, their frustration, and a fatalistic, “what the hell” attitude that we can’t continue any further in freedom combined with a need for commercial success.   I don’t know, and it really doesn’t matter. The bottom line is that we are in NO position at this juncture in our history to undertake a rewrite of our founding document. 

The present leaders of our nation, whether in thought (the media) or politics (our actual government) or our culture (our schools, our entertainment), are overwhelmingly in favor of a nouveau socialism.  Those whom we might look to to defend our Constitutional principles are very much weakened since 2012. The 2016 campaign, primaries and election, put a “pragmatic” person in charge of our party of opposition to the socialist trend.  A man incapable of thinking in terms of principles, really. It is what it is. He is not the real problem though. The real problem is that hundreds of thousands of hot-blooded Tea Party “patriots” decided that what they really wanted was to stuff someone the Left would find obnoxious in their faces.  That someone was Trump. There were a number, albeit a small number, of candidates who deserved to be given the chance to turn us around, Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal among them, and some like Tom McClintock, who could have lent a hand. But no. We got Donald Trump. I’m not here to say he has done nothing right.  Everyone does something right sometime - even a clown act like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is capable of stumbling on something right, as I have observed before. He hasn’t done enough right. 

But, as I say, it is the people who fell back on Trump as the answer when what we needed desperately was someone to help light the path back to our founding principles, not a reality show host whose chief asset was that he “wasn’t Hillary”.  We were not that hard up in the spring of 2016. We had choices. The people weren’t up to making a sound choice. It is these people who now want to rewrite our founding law of our land, our Constitution. If given the chance they will be easily shepherded into consenting to forfeiting our First, and Second Amendments without blinking.  They have already de facto abandoned our Fourth and Fifth Amendments through simply buying door security systems that spy on who comes and goes from our homes and when, vacuum cleaners that map our floor plans for “someone”, systems to turn on our lights, start our coffee and select channels on our TV’s, drones to “deliver packages”, even mattresses to record the use of our beds.  Don’t even talk to me about the protection against unwarranted search and seizure ``.when we are bringing these toys home on our own.

Regarding the First Amendment, there is no doubt that there were some Cotten Mather types who would have been comfortable with anti-blasphemy laws, or someone who had another reason for trying to shut down free speech but the thinkers who had vision realized that people had come to America because they required freedom of expression.  Pilgrims had founded their settlement on Plymouth Rock in a desperate claim of this fundamental right, denied them in their homeland.  Can you even imagine? Leaving everyone and everything you ever knew to make a perilous journey over largely uncharted seas to a strange and unknown shore with nothing?  This was more than just a leap of faith - it was an amazing act of courage prompted by the NEED for this freedom. The founders understood a fundamental truth - that if we are to have freedom of expression for ourselves we must extend that freedom to ALL.  

On a practical plane, we can also look at the problem of dealing with a country of 300+ million people with different ideas, experiences and goals.  Isn’t it far better to hear them out than have unrest festering like an infection unrelieved by the right to speak out? We see this kind of thing in other places.  Our soldiers were instructed to keep their mouths shut in Afghanistan when they saw little boys used as sex objects by Muslim men. People don’t speak out in those countries.  Some religions promote silencing of any expression conflicting with their tenets. Is this what we want? It is already becoming difficult for people to honestly speak out against ideas they think are wrong - such as transgendering children, for example.  Or promoting mass immigration when they think it is harming our social fabric and weakening our values. Do we want to institutionalize thought police? Besides the obvious pain it would cause thinking people, imagine the potential for revolution. On the other hand, free expression of many ideas can bring about solutions.  If we compartmentalize every thought and are afraid to share them we will achieve nothing. Sharing of ideas that are compatible as well as those which are in conflict help us to find the truth and deal with issues fairly and honestly. And we have the benefit of knowing information from someone else. I have always said that the freedom of expression is really the freedom to see or hear.  We already know what we know. I, for one, would like to hear what YOU or someone else knows.

Our country has existed for 250 years or so under our Constitution.  It hasn’t always been easy. We have had a few rumbles, including a tragic civil war, but overall, we have come through it all, to rise from the infancy of the 13 original states to the world leader we became in the 50’s and 60’s.  Many nations have attempted to follow our example but they never grasped the essential factor - freedom. A constitution which does not enshrine this front and center will not - cannot - prevail. A country which does not protect this right - call it a steam valve if you want - will have an empty and meaningless constitution.  There are a lot of would-be’s out there which sound a lot like ours. They were modeled on ours, mostly. But they have lacked this guarantee of freedom. If we cave in to the notion that speech is “harmful” and we need to curb the freedom of expression we are doomed.  

What is the worst thing that can happen if someone says something “offensive”?  Someone gets “offended”. So what? A lot of things offend me and I’ll bet a lot of things offend you as well.  We grow up. We learn to accept things we don’t agree with. We speak our own minds. If someone doesn’t appreciate our thoughts they, too, are free to say so.  What we are NOT free to do is silence others. Let’s keep this in view as we hear from these precious, fragile snowflakes.

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