The United States Bill of Rights was ratified by congress in 1789. It continues to stand today as a roadmap to the freedoms that we enjoy as American citizens. Those rights which are most essential to our liberated state of existence such as freedom of religion, of speech, and of racial equality are clearly preserved in the Bill of Rights. Protecting this guide and the things that are contained within it is crucial in our struggle to remain an unoppressed and united nation. The greatest challenge associated with this goal is that as we uphold the laws which are laid out within the Bill of Rights, and accuse those who seek to destroy them, we must always remember that as equal citizens of the United States, they must be guaranteed the very same rights that we are striving to protect.
The decisions that we must make according to how we will defend ourselves against ensuing tyrannies are often clouded by unavoidable, preconceived, religious or moral biases. Although we may not desire legislation that legalizes abortion, or promotes Marxist philosophies concerning the redistribution of wealth, we can’t expect to silence advocates of these ideas simply due to our moral inclinations. We must always hold our adversaries’ freedom of speech in equal standing with our own; otherwise, we are just as guilty of destroying America’s legacy of equal opportunity as they are. Not to say that we shouldn’t stand boldly for what we believe, on the contrary, we must strive never to compromise what we know to be true. We must not resort to undignified tactics such as bullying or unjustly removing other’s methods of press or communication. Every view should be given equal opportunity for consideration as our forefathers originally intended when securing our first amendment rights.
This pursuit of equality is proving to be a truly challenging feat in today’s society. The balance of defending our freedoms as we exercise them is a delicate one. In our culture’s current state of media overload, we receive tidbits of information from an unfathomable number of sources every day. Seemingly antique methods of information dissemination, such as daily newspapers, are quickly being overshadowed by the cutting edge, lighting fast techniques of the present. Online news sites and the more personal blogosphere are quickly becoming the standard. Although television networks greatly broadened the array of sources from which news could be gathered, the internet has completely transformed personal and media communication. The internet provides an open forum to anyone, anywhere that wishes to voice their inner thoughts or public opinions. It seems that as events progress, citizens are more readily open to a personalized, average joe, approach to media.
Recent polls show that the people’s level of trust for “mainstream” media organizations is at an all time low. Talk radio is generally regarded as being dominated by hosts with conservative bias, whereas television news usually consists of a set of liberally biased anchors. When consuming media on the web, one can easily personalize their approach, selecting portals that provide information from viewpoints similar to their own. It was proposed in the recent Cybersecurity Act of 2009 that congress would provide the president with a startling level of control over internet traffic, perhaps giving him the option of “killing” all internet activity in case of an undefined “cyber emergency”. This idea was met with intense opposition by much of the tech savvy community such as those in silicon valley. A similarly grave idea was proposed by the FCC’s Chief Diversity Officer, Mark Lloyd. He suggested that extremely large taxes, possibly equal to one hundred percent of their operating budget, be extracted from private radio providers in order to fund public radio alternatives. Actions like these by our government, whether they appear large or small, can easily pose a dangerous threat to our basic freedoms. We should be quick to question what agenda truly lies beneath proposals like these. Would a universal internet “kill switch” truly provide heightened cyber security, or would regulated radio broadcasts truly promote diversity? Mark Lloyd, himself, has praised Hugo Chavez for realizing the importance of utilizing media in his socialist revolution of Venezuela. He claims to be promoting media “diversity”, yet he embraces examples of when media was used as a mode for propaganda to be distributed to the general population in pursuit of promoting a certain political ideology. Perhaps some media regulation or guidelines are beneficial for the prevention of technical issues or reasons of public decency, but I urge you to be weary of a government’s motives for regulating mainstream media resources. Although modern media outlets are hugely beneficial to our general communication, they do have the potential to gradually lead people towards believing a certain view, or to be used as a means of spreading political propaganda. For these reasons agenda driven activists are likely to view them as useful assets.
As we are careful to ensure that a particular group’s message isn’t silenced, merely by not imposing upon their freedom of speech, we mustn’t allow another group’s view to be quietly pushed into the shadows. This is surely a daunting task, and as humans we are guaranteed to fail once, perhaps numerous times, but our Bill of Rights constantly guarantees us the freedom to attempt to succeed. We don’t need additional government regulation to “aid” us in this pursuit. We simply need to realize the responsibility that we have to promote appropriate “media diversity” as equal members of a free and just nation. The government has done its job in securing our right to stand and allowing others to stand with or against us. Surely “we the people” can now stand for our beliefs, relying solely on our own strength which has been provided to us by our wonderful Creator.
Stand BOLD ~ Mike Vance
