{"id":3421,"date":"2012-04-03T05:00:14","date_gmt":"2012-04-03T11:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=3421"},"modified":"2012-04-03T01:17:41","modified_gmt":"2012-04-03T07:17:41","slug":"conservative-principles-assaults-on-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=3421","title":{"rendered":"Conservative Principles &#038; Assaults on Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/E9buEI8SgwU\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\nWith Texas (and a little sliver of Oklahoma) to our east and Arizona to our west, New Mexico is stuck in the middle of those more populous states. That&#8217;s okay. As far as geography goes, there&#8217;s much to be said for being in the middle. <a title=\"A Road Trip &amp; Quest for Good BBQ in Dallas\" href=\"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/2012\/02\/18\/a-road-trip-quest-for-good-bbq-in-dallas\/\">I like\u00a0to visit Dallas <\/a>and Phoenix (although the only time I&#8217;ve been to the latter, <a title=\"Blogging From Phoenix: ONLY If the Lord Wills!\" href=\"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/2011\/06\/17\/blogging-from-phoenix-only-if-the-lord-wills\/\">I was sick as a dog throughout the SBC Annual Meeting last year<\/a>), but I wouldn&#8217;t want\u00a0to live in either of those places. Whenever I say something like this, my wife tells me that&#8217;s where God will end up moving us. I should know better by now.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to where I personally stand on issues &#8212; theological, political, social, and economic &#8212; \u00a0I am most certainly not a moderate. In fact, the word moderate and some of its derivatives &#8212; like moderation &#8212; are words that I now look at through a different lens. Too often, it seems, people want to <em>&#8220;moderate&#8221;<\/em> their own views and to even help others <em>&#8220;moderate&#8221;<\/em> their views.\u00a0In and of itself, that&#8217;s not a problem. However, too many people &#8212; politicians and preachers &#8212; want to so <em>&#8220;moderate&#8221;<\/em> views that they don&#8217;t like so that the political, social, or religious landscape is scrubbed of all things annoying.<\/p>\n<p>We see that philosophy at work, even among self-professed conservatives. In Arizona,\u00a0our neighbor to the west, the Republican-controlled legislature has passed a bill that would radically regulate and censor online communications. Don&#8217;t you just love it when conservatives, who should know better, start enacting radical policies that assault one of this country&#8217;s most precious freedoms? But, that&#8217;s exactly what is happening in Arizona. According to the Comic Book Defense Fund (that sounds funny, but I&#8217;m not making that up):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThe (Arizona)\u00a0bill is sweepingly broad, and would make it a\u00a0 crime to communicate via electronic means speech that is intended to \u2018annoy,\u2019\u00a0 \u2018offend,\u2019 \u2018harass\u2019 or \u2018terrify,\u2019 as well as certain sexual speech. Because the\u00a0 bill is not limited to one-to-one communications, H.B. 2549 would apply to the\u00a0 Internet as a whole, thus criminalizing all manner of writing, cartoons, and\u00a0 other protected material the state finds offensive or annoying.\u201d <strong>(full article<a href=\"http:\/\/www.infowars.com\/arizona-passes-sweeping-internet-censorship-bill\/\" target=\"_blank\"> here<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As a conservative, I find this bill to\u00a0be an absurd attempt to regulate speech, which in itself is a violation of and, full-frontal assault on, the First Amendment.\u00a0You would think that conservatives would understand that the First Amendment protections for<em> &#8220;freedom of speech and of the press&#8221;<\/em> would be something worth\u00a0fighting for and\u00a0preserving. Instead, you have a\u00a0Republican-controlled legislature\u00a0censoring speech all in the name of an <em>&#8220;anti-bullying&#8221;<\/em> campaign. No one likes to be bullied, so this move to protect citizens from <em>&#8220;bullies&#8221;<\/em> sounds nice in theory, but those nice theories\u00a0usually do not go over\u00a0so well once they have been tested in the real world. Who gets to define speech that is intended to <em>&#8220;annoy&#8221;<\/em> or\u00a0 <em>&#8220;offend?&#8221;\u00a0<\/em> Would my <em>&#8220;cousin&#8221;<\/em> CB Scott&#8217;s rubbing it in that SEC powerhouse Kentucky prevailed in the NCAA basketball championship be annoying? On second thought, maybe you shouldn&#8217;t answer that question.<\/p>\n<p>Of course,<em> &#8220;annoying&#8221;<\/em> or<em> &#8220;offensive&#8221;<\/em> speech is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder. I suppose it all comes down to whose ox is being gored. Most people find it hard to tolerate &#8212; much less defend &#8212; speech that\u00a0they find annoying. It goes without saying that\u00a0some are easily offended, usually by\u00a0words\u00a0which\u00a0they\u00a0don&#8217;t like\u00a0uttered by speakers or bloggers\u00a0they don&#8217;t like. But, that&#8217;s the\u00a0double-edged sword of\u00a0the First\u00a0Amendment.\u00a0With one edge\u00a0we will sometimes\u00a0have to be subjected to speech that will annoy us or offend us. (If you&#8217;ve ever been around a Dallas Cowboys&#8217; fan, you know exactly what I mean \ud83d\ude42 ).\u00a0Just think. As Christians, every time we share the Gospel of Jesus Christ,\u00a0there is the very real possibility that we will<em> &#8220;offend&#8221;<\/em>\u00a0people. Do we really want the state to pass laws which would censor all speech that anyone at anytime for any reason might find offensive? That edge also calls us to defend\u00a0speech that we might find abhorrent and even un-Christlike (<a title=\"Westboro\u2019s Free Speech Win: Repugnant Yet Right\" href=\"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/2011\/03\/03\/westboros-free-speech-win-repugnant-yet-right\/\">here<\/a> and\u00a0<a title=\"First Amendment: What Is Legal Ain\u2019t Always Right!\" href=\"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/2010\/08\/19\/what-is-legal-aint-always-right-first-amendment-expression\/\">here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>But, the other edge of the sword is that which allows us to speak and write with freedom unlike\u00a0any other country in the world. It is a freedom that\u00a0allows us to share the Gospel with our neighbor on Saturday and to preach\u00a0in the name of Jesus Christ &#8212; His Crucifixion and Resurrection\u00a0&#8212; on Easter Sunday and throughout the year. It is a freedom that\u00a0allows us to take a stand on the pressing moral issues of the day. It is a freedom\u00a0that allows us to write blogs that question the judgment (and sometimes arrogance) of leaders, both within the political and religious worlds. It is a freedom worth fighting for.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps Barry Goldwater, then U.S. Senator from Arizona and Presidential candidate, said it best\u00a0in his 1964 acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Conservatives in\u00a0political bodies like the Arizona legislature and conservatives in religious bodies like the Southern Baptist Convention would do well to remember Goldwater&#8217;s words.\u00a0For true conservatives, these\u00a0will be words to live by!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With Texas (and a little sliver of Oklahoma) to our east and Arizona to our west, New Mexico is stuck in the middle of those more populous states. That&#8217;s okay. As far as geography goes, there&#8217;s much to be said for being in the middle. I like\u00a0to visit Dallas and Phoenix (although the only time&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,20,21,22,30,34,35],"tags":[1884,1886,100,1888,1880,1881,1885,250,1882,408,3380,3381,450,552,1883,712,1887,1889,3391,965],"class_list":["post-3421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-freedom-of-speech","category-freedom-of-the-press","category-freedoms","category-government","category-law","category-politics","category-religion","tag-1964-republican-presidential-nomination","tag-annoying-speech","tag-arizona","tag-arizona-h-b-2549","tag-arizona-law-to-censor-internet-communications","tag-barry-goldwater","tag-comic-book-defense-fund","tag-conservatives","tag-extremism-in-defense-of-liberty","tag-free-speech","tag-freedom-of-speech","tag-freedom-of-the-press","tag-gospel","tag-jesus-christ","tag-moderation-in-the-pursuit-of-justice","tag-new-mexico","tag-offensive-speech","tag-oklahoma","tag-politics","tag-texas"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-Tb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3421"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3427,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3421\/revisions\/3427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}