The American Standard Bearer

Here’s more proof that when the left yells about First Amendment free speech rights, they’re only talking about their speech.

Lefties across America have gone apoplectic over ABC TV’s upcoming miniseries, “The Path to 9/11.” Leftist bloggers like the commie dupes at The Daily Kos are deep in a campaign to force ABC to pull the plug, and now a gang of Senate Democrats, in their usual thuggish manner, are threatening ABC’s broadcast license.

So what’s all the hubbub about? The Democrats have launched a campaign to claim the security-from-terrorism issue for their own, charging that the Bush administration has actually made America less safe. “The Path to 9/11″ is bound to remind Americans that the ground work for the attacks was laid long before Bush took office. Mohammed Atta and friends were moving freely about within our borders and receiving flight instruction from U.S. aviation schools during the Clinton administration, a fact that will make the current Democrat claims ring false.

This latest attempt by the increasingly far-left Democrats to eviscerate the free speech rights of anyone who stands in the way is shockingly blatant, but they are likely to get away with it because the media and those champions of free speech at the ACLU will be silent.

An estimated crowd of 1,000 illegal Mexicans Marched in Phoenix Monday, many literally wrapping themselves in American flags.

Here are some of the protestor’s comments, as reported in the East Valley Tribune:

“We don’t want to secure our borders. We all want to have fair and just pay for the work we do.” – Maria Mancinas.

“We want to get out of office the people who are antiimmigration.” – Maria Munoz.

“The U.S. thinks it’s right to invade other countries. Yet we’re supposedly invading this country to work for our kids.” – Tony Diaz.

“They just want to take the immigrants and send them back to Mexico. It’s not right.” – Mirna Iniquez.

“We are all immigrants in reality. I don’t think anybody here in the U.S. is a native, except maybe the Indians.” – Victor Garcia.

Besides having illegally entered the United States, the one thing all these protestors have in common is the pervading attitude of entitlement. None of them is a U.S. citizen, yet they speak as if they are being denied rights as Americans. Can you imagine being arrested for breaking the law in Mexico and demanding your rights. They would laugh at you – just before they stand you up against the wall and shoot you.

Counter-protestor Fran Garrett puts it this way, “The majority of Americans are led to believe these people are here to take jobs others won’t do. But their goal is to take over the southwest part of the United States. They say they’ve owned it before and want to take it back — well, not without a fight.”

If ever there were a case for insurrection against an ignorant, vain, and arrogant Congress, Alaska’s Senator Ted Stevens would fit the bill. Stevens introduced a bill in the Senate that would allow telcom companies to charge websites for access to the internet. It essentially amounts to a tax based on the erroneous idea that web based companies are swimming in money. I can tell you from personal experience that a web-based business is no easier or more lucrative than any other type of business.

Of course, like all taxes, the consumer ends up footing the bill, but unlike other taxes, the government would not benefit – at least not directly. The beneficiaries will be Verizon, Qwest, etc., as well as the politicians who will be receiving huge campaign donations in exchange for passage of this bill. The result will be that internet-based business creation will come to a standstill and the U.S. economy will take the hit in a big way.

That Stevens is in the pocket of the telcoms becomes painfully obvious when you realize how colossally ignorant he is about the internet that he is attempting to stifle. Here is just one passage in a much longer justification Stevens gave for his bill:

“I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

So you want to talk about the consumer? Let’s talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren’t using it for commercial purposes.

We aren’t earning anything by going on that internet.”

Is he kidding? Here’s a guy who is so out of touch that he can’t differentiate between an email and the internet, telling the American people that the internet is “all tangled up” with commerce. Tell that to the millions upon millions of Americans, including corporate and government buyers, who are buying online. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Does anyone “earn” anything when they go to the supermarket, or to Starbucks, or to Walmart? Judging from his appalling lack of knowledge about the subject of his own bill and his arrogant ignorance of economics, it’s a fair guess that he is merely acting as the front-man for the greedy telcoms, and is deserving of an investigation into his finances to try and determine if he is on the take.

One of the groups that is pushing hard to maintain net-neutrality (against Steven’s bill) is SaveTheInternet.com. Visit their site and you will find a list of how all 100 Senators line up. It’s disheartening to me to see that so many Republicans support the bill while Democrats by-and-large support net-neutrality. Stevens bill is all about government regulation and restraint of trade. In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that SaveTheInternet.com is an offshoot of MoveOn.org, a fact I find distasteful. But hey, even a broken watch is right twice a day!