FREE SPEECH
Don't you love it though? Our governor and Representative Dunwell have accepted the Wiccan celebration in the capitol as a symbol of free speech and their own acknowledgement that we as a people have the right to speak freely even if we don't agree with them.
Very touching, I must say, from a group of people who have spent the last several legislative sessions banning books, limiting alternate lifestyles, and otherwise ensuring that their particular view of life and learning is the only one available. You just have to give them credit in knowing how to manipulate their supporters and to maintain this novel idea that they are here to protect our freedoms when they spend most of their efforts curtailing them.
Our State government the past few sessions have increased the number of crimes one can commit in the Great State of Iowa including those consisting of protesting, a manner of speech afterall; they have passed laws that require schools to discard books that they do not believe reflect the values that they themselves hold; they have made it significantly more difficult to vote; but yet, they are in favor of free speech pursuant to the First Amendment. They believe that prayer is the answer to this violation of common decency, not legislation.
What they do understand is that they can't stop someone from saying something they don't agree with - - not yet anyway. So let's not give them a lot of credit over their public announcements of their belief in the freedom of speech. They don't. They are simply using this situation to enhance their public persona and once again to provide their supporters with some additional outrage against whomever they deem a threat to their future re-election.
It's all really very simple. Our current crop of legislators and governor understand perfectly well the level of comprehension of the general public in this State. It is minimal and for their purposes, shall remain so. The last thing that any of our legislators or governor desire to see happen is a public arising from the mist of some long ago era to comprehend and possibly deal with the world they actually inhabit.
The world is changing as are the people in it. This has always been the case and it will always be the case. Change is not something that our legislators and governor can simply legislate into non-existence. What really would be nice, and comforting, is that our elected officials actually recognize that the world is not the same as it was in their childhood imagination and begin to find methods by which we can meet these changes and still have a viable society.
Richard E H Phelps II
Mingo
