Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson, FloydReports.com
Free speech has always been one of our most cherished rights. It has come under attack repeatedly by those who find it to be an inconvenient and unwanted obstacle to the attainment of their political goals. Sometimes, those in positions of power ignore the First Amendment and issue laws and regulations to silence their opponents. Other times, politicians or citizens work on an unofficial level, resorting to influence or intimidation to achieve censorship.
President John Adams signed the Sedition Act to criminalize “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” against the government or its officials. Americans didn’t like the federal government censoring expression or presuming to determine truth, so they canned Adams in the next election.
Abraham Lincoln jailed newspapermen whose comments on the Civil War were not to his liking.
In 1935, Franklin Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act, effectively curtailing employers’ freedom to talk with their own employees about their company’s financial condition and the affordability of wages and benefits.
Both Roosevelt and Richard Nixon imposed various wage and price controls. Since prices are the language through which present value is communicated between potential buyers and sellers, they essentially banned a form of free economic speech.
The assault on free speech seems to have accelerated in recent years. Freelance censors on the Left have prevented dozens of conservatives from giving scheduled speeches on college campuses by shouts, chants, and even physical aggression.
A favorite tactic of….