The War Against Speech

The Democrats plot to steal our First Amendment rights.

From The Federalist:

First Amendment rights under attack
Democrats in the Senate and the House are preparing a full-frontal assault on the First Amendment rights of conservative groups in parallel legislative moves. The Senate ethics bill, passed Thursday night, contains a provision that will hold grassroots groups that attempt to ``influence the general public`` to the same rules as Washington lobbyists. This means that basically any group that suggests you write your congressman about an issue, from the humble editorial shop of The Patriot to the pastor of your local church, needs to file financial reports or face a $200,000 fine. In addition, any such group aside from liberal-loving unions that spends or collects more than $25,000 in three months would also be required to file.

The debate will continue, though, while House Democrats move to reinstall the ``Fairness Doctrine`` in an effort to silence conservative talk radio. The doctrine, which was allowed to die a quiet death during the Reagan administration, for years forced television and radio stations to give equal time to conservative and liberal opinion. Though it was never actually made law, now Democrats want to enforce the Fairness Doctrine in the proposed Media Ownership Reform Act. Under the guise of giving people a choice in the political views that they absorb in the media, Democrats are actually looking to force conservative talk radio stations to cede time to lousy liberal programming like Air America (which recently declared bankruptcy for lack of listeners). So much for the marketplace of ideas. The only programming choice liberals want to give the public is left and further left.