Ted Cruz deserves a
standing ovation for protecting our right to freedom of speech. Without him, the Senate Democrats would have
gutted the first amendment; they would have allowed the government to place
“reasonable” limits on free speech. I’m
glad he had the common sense to realize “reasonable” is a slippery slope. What
would stop Congress from banning books, movies, or even different political
groups from speaking? This resolution, S.J.
Res. 19, is clearly misinformed or malicious, and I can’t believe that the
Senate Democrats want to do this. To
show you just how bad this resolution is, I’ll copy what it does, from here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/19/text
.
``Section 1. To advance democratic
self-government and political equality, and to protect the integrity of
government and the electoral process, Congress and the States may regulate and
set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and
others to influence elections.
``Section 2. Congress and the States shall
have power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate legislation,
and may distinguish between natural persons and corporations or other
artificial entities created by law, including by prohibiting such entities from
spending money to influence elections.
``Section 3. Nothing in this article shall
be construed to grant Congress or the States the power to abridge the freedom
of the press.''.
Wait
a minute, that sounds nothing like the malicious, free-speech hating resolution
that the article was talking about.
Shockingly enough, the article from the Tea Party News Network had a
conservative slant. They conflated money
with the idea of free speech, and from them on, ran with the idea that the
Democrats were trying to limit all forms of free speech such as books or
movies. Regardless of your views on
whether or not money equals free speech, I believe we can all agree that the
resolution does not have any provisions for banning books, movies, or anything
else in the future besides political expenditures. This article is just one
example of a growing problem in our nation.
The
problem in this day and age is that people get their news media from a few
websites and television shows that are slanted heavily in favor of one side or
the other. If one only gets their media from one side, then they only see one
side of the picture, and are sometimes even mislead, like with the article I
showed. Someone reading only that
article (such as my Republican father) would believe that the Democrats were
trying to ban all forms of free speech, even though that can be objectively
disproven by just reading the text of the resolution. That would be okay, if people were exposed to
more points of views, but in the internet age, they aren’t. For example, my dad only reads things from
Fox News, The Conservative Tribune, The Blaze (Glenn Beck), The Tea Party News
Network, and other conservative websites and blogs. Because people like this never see the
contrasting arguments or experience dissoi logoi, they believe that they are
correct, and that the other side and their politicians are ignorant, malicious,
or both. This only serves to further polarize each side as their opinions
become more and more like the articles that they are reading, because they
never see the articles rebutted. They
also tend to see the other side as
either ignorant or malicious, making it so that they can never see the other
side’s point of view.
This
polarization is a serious issue and a huge flaw that is hurting our democracy. It’s creating a situation where these “news”
websites only attack the other side in a horribly biased way. They take minor gaffes, such as the Latte
Salute, and blow them up to a ridiculous conclusion, i.e. “Obama doesn't respect the military”. Beyond the little
things, this polarization is deeply affecting Congress and creating the
“do-nothing-Congress”. Instead of
focusing on the merits of the bill, the news networks and parties (who are
influenced by the news networks) focus on which side the bill came from. From there on, they decide to vote it down
based solely on whether it’s a Republican or Democratic bill.
A
recent example of this comes from the Heritage Action Foundation, a
conservative policy advocacy group. A huge source of their strength comes from
conservatives who are very strong in their beliefs (presumably stronger in
their beliefs because of their one-sided media) and willing to call their
congressmen and have their friends call their congressman. Heritage Action tells
congressmen how they want them to vote on bills, and then rates the congressmen
based on how often they went with
Heritage Action; this helps demonstrate if a congressman is a bonafide
Republican or just a “Republican In Name Only”.
Because Heritage Action ended up being very big, their “vote” ends up
being a very influential factor that controls a lot of Republican votes. During the debt ceiling debate, they issued a
“No” vote to all of the Republicans, despite having not seen the text of the
bill or even knowing any details. They
just decided that anything coming from the Democrats couldn't be good enough
and decided to kill it. This is a great example of polarization blocking any
sort of productive political activity.
When groups like this, with support from people fed on only one-sided
articles act in this way, it further polarizes the nation.
Simply
enough, articles are getting more and more slanted. This is creating a situation where people are
becoming more and more convicted in their beliefs, which creates situations
where there is no common ground, because the opposing side appears to be
clearly wrong according to all of the articles that an individual is reading. This
lack of dissoi logoi creates polarization which is one of the huge reasons why
there is a do-nothing congress, and groups like Heritage Action can succeed at
killing all productivity.
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