Obama has staked his presidential aspirations on "change" and being the advocate for the middle class, i.e., the people. Yet it appears that one of the primary changes he will exact is to strip the "people" of their constitutional right to freedom of speech by ensuring that they pay a painful price for daring to exercise same.
WFTV-Channel 9, a Florida TV station, was told by Laura K. McGinnis, the Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign, that as a direct result of Barbara West, the station's news anchor, asking Joe Biden tough, probative questions pursuant to Obama's redistributive comments and Biden's own comments "[any] further opportunities for [their] station to interview with [Obama's] campaign [were] unlikely." In short, the campaign penalized the station and voters, because the station had the audacity to ask tough policy questions.
Obama's campaign tried to have Stanley Kurtz of radio station WGN in Chicago fired, because Kurtz dared to shed light on Obama's long relationship with Bill Ayers, the radical Marxist and unapologetic domestic terrorist. The campaign also organized their supporters to protest the station.
Witness the attacks on "Joe the plumber." In what Obama called an "unplanned door-to-door campaign stop in Joe's neighborhood, Joe dared to question Obama, the potential future president, about his tax plan. Because he exercised his right to question and speak out, Joe has suffered the politics of personal destruction aimed at both himself and his family.
The Obama campaign and its surrogates invaded every facet of this ordinary citizen's life – specifically for the purpose of discrediting him. When did it become acceptable in America to discredit a person for asking a question of a purported leader? If he is willing to attack (in a free society) our freedom of speech in order to ascend to power, how far is he willing to go to retain power should he attain it?
In their continuing attempts to silence all criticism, Obama's camp has, in the truest definition of the word, used demagoguery to crudely and maliciously blunt criticism – especially criticism that could expose his true ideology. Questions about Obama's long allegiances with those he has defiantly called his mentors are called racist. New York Gov. David Patterson used the race card to quell any reference to the specifics surrounding Obama's stint as a community organizer. Democrats actually argue that not voting for Obama is racist
The law school at the University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC) posits that there are seven values that are served by the protection of free speech ("Exploring Constitutional Conflicts – Introduction to the Free Speech Clause"):
- The discovery of truth
- Facilitating participation by citizens in political decision-making
- Creating a more adaptable and stable community (the "safety valve" function)
- Assuring individual self-fulfillment
- Checking abuse of government power
- Promoting tolerance
- Creating a more robust and interesting community
While I may reasonably disagree with UMKC's explanation of said values, I in no way disagree with the values themselves. Rather, I place a different reasoning on each pursuant to their applicability.
I argue that the importance of the second value, as listed above, must remain free and unabridged to allow for the citizenry to have full disclosure of those seeking political office.
Most important of the seven stated values is the first listed above – that being the discovery of truth. It is precisely this value that Obama seeks to have abrogated under the guise of the notion it's unfair to be critical of him and/or question his background, mentors and allegiances.
Few candidates suffered harsher personal critiques than former President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush. The importance of the open, and at times vitriolic, critique of both is that the voters, i.e., the American people, knew exactly what kind of man they were electing. Of course, the other point worth noting is that neither could play the race card. And for the record, Hillary's attempts to silence those women accusing Bill of sexual impropriety is not synonymous with Obama trying to hide what could potentially be his Marxist ideology.
Obama has much to hide and is determined to do so. I reiterate: If he and his surrogates are willing to go the extreme measure of blunting the free speech of those who question and/or disagree with him – through the use of demagoguery and racial intimidation – in a vain attempt to win an election, what lengths will he and his minions employ to retain power?
The constitutional right to freedom of speech is a sacred right. Can a candidate for the highest office in America, and the most powerful office in the free world, truly be trusted when he attempts to violate said right? No matter what veneer of acceptable reason Obama uses to explain his rationale for same, in the final analysis, his actions are contrary to that which the Founding Fathers intended, and they smell of Marxism.