Freedom of Speech

The insight of the founding fathers into the nature of man and man’s government inspired them to enshrine into the fabric of the federal government the right to free speech, for they knew that there would come a time, even within the free country they had just brought into being, that those in government would seek to suppress the voice of the people. The First Amendment was meant to be a safeguard against the tyranny of a central government intending to rule rather than govern. It would prevent anyone from being fined or thrown in jail for crying out against the establishment. To that end, the fathers were largely successful. 220 years after the ratification of the Constitution freedom of speech still endures; the boiling, political debate which now rages is testimony of that.

Yet despite the founder’s protection of our liberty, our modern tyrants are designing to use the First Amendment itself to curtail the speech of their opponents. The issue at hand, as I am sure you have guessed already, is the construction of the mosque near Ground Zero.

There has been a terrific outcry against the creation of the Islamic center so close to where a group of radical Muslims crashed airliners into the World Trade Center in an overt attack against us, the American people. For many, the project is salt in an open wound. Those who protest it do so for this reason, and not because they believe that Islam is in any way less protected by the First Amendment. The outcry is not a legal challenge, but a challenge of Justice. They believe it is wrong for the Mosque to be built too near the place where 3,000 of our brothers and sisters perished for no reason other than being American. The right of religious freedom has nothing to do with it.

President Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, however, either do not understand this or do not care. Seeing those protesting the creation of the Mosque as the same sort of “racist” rabble that shows up at Tea Parties, they are throwing in with those building the Mosque for the sake of further criticizing those who they are increasingly seeing as their enemies. They seek to silence the opposition by labeling them bigots. Freedom of Expression is to be trumped by Freedom of Religion. Nancy Pelosi’s desire to investigate those who are opposing the mosque is ample proof of this.

The worst thing about this entire situation is it is the Islamic community which will ultimately suffer the most. The many good Muslims who are ashamed of what happened on September Eleventh are being used as a pawn by the Socialists in power to add another crime to the list of accusations being leveled at the opponents of big government.