The First Amendment – Only applies to Obama supporters

Sadly, this is not news. As the president of the First Amendment Center Ken Paulson  has pointed out, it is necessary to call attention to cases where conservatives are being targeted for speaking out against Obama. Unfortunatelty, the targets are in the classrooms – teachers and students alike.

The primary argument, in the case of the teachers, appears to be that they should be held to a higher standard. That statement in itself is disconcerting, considering that it isn’t in the context of suggesting that teachers should be competent at teaching. (That wouldn’t fit in well with the modis operandi of the teacher unions, that have built a long history of protecting incompetent educators from permanent dismissal from the classroom.) Of course, this begs the question – what does this teach our youth?

Other than trampling the right to free speech, the arguably more troubling lesson is that the people, in the minds of the liberals, are no longer charged with holding their government accountable – for anything. That is not surprising, given the fact that the media has essentially stopped its role as watchdog. But, that does not justify setting up the next generation for a lifetime of subjugation.

Conservatives often bandy about the term “socialism” in reference to the Obama administration, and when cases like this come up, we are literally handed proof of our contentions on a silver platter. One of the primary goals of leaders in a socialist society is to control communications of the people. Individuals that do not submit to the will of the state disappear – literally, and historically. They are written out of history, airbrushed out of the collective memory. The attacks we are seeing now against conservatives that dare to speak out against this administration are merely the beginning of that sort of systemic censorship.

In the case of the students speaking out on social media, we are already on the slippery slope. Courts have started ruling against their right to speak freely, offering the thin excuse that social media interactions can lead to disruptive behavior in the classrooms. There is no mention of the possibility that these situations could become teaching moments, but that would require that public schools actually attempt to encourage students to engage in free and critical thought exercises. Obviously, that doesn’t fit into the curriculum anymore.

Paulson suggested that perhaps it is time to have a website devoted to tracking these violations of the First Amendment. Perhaps that is a good idea. However, I humbly suggest that if such a thing would come into existence, it would also need to create a resource for individuals that are targeted in these insidious attacks by the left. Whoever creates this clearing house of information also needs to recruit attorneys to represent these people – particularly the students, since they are the most vulnerable targets involved. (Yes, that is a hint to conservative lawyers to start helping fellow conservatives!)