Freedom of speech?

Sedition is Sadistic

This country is known as the greatest in the world for one lingering reason.  The inhabitants of this country are given the freedoms to live their lives in peace, without fear that they will be watched over by an all powerful government or monarchy.  America was founded based upon those simple freedoms, getting away from government control in England.  The founding fathers wrote a constitution with only 4,543 words, the constitution was meant to give the same freedoms to everyone and lesson the hold on the government over the citizens of the nation.  There have been many amendments enacted over the years that followed to enhance the freedom of Americans.  So one can ask, is it okay for the government to make laws that limit our freedom, and take away what America stands for?

In any society, there will be rules set into place to keep an order to things, and prevent chaos from ensuing.  When this country was founded, it was decided that too many laws were pointless.  Laws only prevented good people from doing bad things.  Bad people were going to do bad things, no matter what law was enacted.  So less law and more enforcement of good behavior was seen as the way to rule society.  However when our second president was elected into office, he was afraid that too much freedom would allow certain individuals to overthrow the government.  In 1798, John Adams passed an act called Sedition, which prevented anyone from speaking in a harmful way against the government (New world encyclopedia, n.d.).

This act would prevent anyone from making threats against the President, threats against the government, or to say or publicize words that may cause harm to the government in any way.  However the first amendment to the constitution was written and included in the Bill of Rights in 1789, in clearly stated that the government could make no laws that prevented the citizens’ freedom of speech.  The sedition act was in clear violation of this amendment, and was repealed under the very next president, Thomas Jefferson.  Jefferson claimed that this act was a violation of American citizens freedoms and a violation of what America stood for (Constitutional rights foundation, 2012).

Before Jefferson could repeal this act, however, there were cases of it being used to imprison certain parties who had spoken out against the government.  Thomas Cooper was a lawyer who happened to dislike President Adams.  He wrote an article criticizing the President, and he was not looked upon too favorably for this.  In 1800, the United States vs. Thomas Cooper went to trial and found Cooper guilty of violating the sedition act (National archives, n.d.).  However when Thomas Jefferson repealed the sedition act, he pardoned those who had been convicted of violating it, as he deemed the act unconstitutional (New world encyclopedia, n.d.)

Even though this act was repealed, it seems to come to light throughout the years still.  When there is an unpopular president, and someone makes an off color remark that may be taken the wrong way or be taken to mean the threatening of that President or of the government itself, this act is brought up again in various fashions.  Take for example the case of Benjamin Gitlow.  He was trying to ratify the government with what he published as a Left Wing Manifesto in a small newspaper (Case briefs, 2012).  This manifesto was designed to push ideas of socialist reform within the United States.  This was during a time of the Great Depression, when Calvin Coolidge was trying to reduce government control and government spending.  The socialist movement would provide more government services to those in need, or so Gitlow felt.  It is very similar to how the country is divided now, over government spending and larger government social services. 

Gitlow’s manifesto was, however, considered radical and also thought that if published widely would incited violence and a takeover of the government, ultimately leading to a socialist regime as seen in the likes of Russia and other less free countries.  The Supreme Court ruled that he was an anarchist, who was in direct violation of the government, and was trying to cause harm to the government and its people.  The state was in effect ruling against this one man’s freedom, to protect the freedom of the many.  Is this fair, or legal?

In one way or another, this law of sedition has been brought up since its inception.  As stated previously, it is usually when there is an unpopular president, who is trying to stifle those who disagree with them.  The president has technology and intelligence agencies to protect them and they are working tirelessly around the clock.  That is why the press and media can say hateful things against the President and the country, and get away with it, without fear of being prosecuted for treason or anarchy.  However one false move that is detected by the wrong agency at the wrong time, will land you a meeting with the law. 

Recently, rocker Ted Nugent made comments disagreeing with our current president.  He was visited by the Secret Service, and interviewed to ensure that his comments were not meant to threaten the President himself, nor the safety of the country (The Christian science monitor, 2012).  However with comments made on a daily basis about the president by the news media, and about the previous president when he was in office, one has to question if this was just a political ploy, or if it truly was an investigation in the interest of national security.  Has the act of sedition always been this way?  It seems when looking back throughout history that this has been the case.  It is not purely one-sided either, when it comes to politics.  Both political parties have been in the limelight of cases similar to this one. 

Did the original founding fathers of this country feel that the government could not be questioned at all?  It is true that they questioned the government from which they came, otherwise there would be no United States of America.  It is also true that they did not account for many of the gross injustices that have happened in the 20^th and 21^st centuries.  Slanderous speech, hateful racism and sexism, raucous acts filmed, all of these things that have been made public because of the television and Internet.  However when one act is brought about that limits freedoms in the hopes of protecting certain citizens, who is to say when enough is enough?  Who is to say when those limitations will be taken too far, and when our freedoms will cease to exist?

Look at what freedoms we have been given in this country thanks to the constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Each law that is passed into effect can either enhance our freedom, or take it away.  However changing the constitution to suit the needs of the President, and/or a political party, drastically changes the needs and the values of this country.  Is the act of sedition really a protection against government uprising?  Or is it a political ploy that fundamentally takes away our freedom of speech?  You decide. 

 

References

Case briefs. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/constitutional-law/constitutional-law-keyed-to-chemerinsky/first-amendment-freedom-of-expression/gitlow-v-new-york/

Constitutional rights foundation. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.crf-usa.org/america-responds-to-terrorism/the-alien-and-sedition-acts.html

National archives. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/sedition-case/

New world encyclopedia. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts

The Christian science monitor. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0420/Ted-Nugent-Motor-City-Madman-had-solid-meeting-with-Secret-Service

Treyvon Martin, in my words.

While I believe in the constitution and the amendments thereof, which includes not letting our government  make any laws that abridge our freedom of speech, I have to speak out in regards to a hot button issue of late.  Treyvon Martin was a young man who of course did not deserve to die.  No young man does deserve to die.  However, no man deserves to be convicted by the media, and before a jury trial has taken place none the less.  No one knows what happened the day Treyvon Martin was shot, except Treyvon, and George Zimmerman, the man with the gun.  The media has painted a very clear picture of an evil man, out for the blood of a young, black boy, simply because of his race.  However the more the facts are unfolded, the more this seems to be unlikely.

Mr. Zimmerman is a minority himself, being of hispanic decent.  The 911 call that he made to report someone threatening in his neighborhood show that he was not sure of the boys race, only that he was answering the question the 911 operator was asking when asked to describe the boy.  We do not know if he was attacked, and defending himself, or if he shot without provocation.  However we do know that Mr. Zimmerman is an American, and therefore he has the right to a jury trial before we convict him of anything.  Shame on the media for doing what they do best, sensationalizing a story to make a few bucks, while the fate of a man is already doomed from the start.  Now not only do Treyvon's parents have to live with the grief of what happened to their boy, but George Zimmermen's family has to live with the grief of what is happening to him as well.

I can only hope in this instance that, even with all of the media attention, the prosecution and defense can find an unbiased jury to try this man, to give him a fair trial, and to see that justice be done no matter what that justice is.  I want all of the facts to be heard on both sides, so that whatever happened that day may come to light for the sake of both of these young men's families.  And above all, if Mr. Zimmerman is found innocent, I hope the media will let him live in peace.  But this is, of course, too much to ask.  That would not make for a good story!

How bias came to be:

Picture yourself on a chilly winter evening curled up in your favorite chair.  You are reading an amazing book on an eReader, but the battery is low and in the back of your mind you know you will need to plug it in soon.  The IPOD doc is playing your favorite music in the background, and the television has a brilliant fire roaring to set the mood lighting.  The ambiance is incredible, and in your mind there is no better way to spend a relaxing evening at home, until the power goes out from the raging storm outside.  It is frustrating, to say the least.  You must get flashlights, candles, and any other means of light, as well as blankets and make sure that your home is warm.  Not to mention, you try to remember what entertainment actually was like before electricity existed.  In today’s society, media comes through so many avenues, and it coexists between the different media outlets.  But before electricity, media outlets were few and far between.

Media is actually a plural version of the word medium, or a way to convey some form of communication (Dictionary, 2012).  Media can date back through history, when cave men wrote on stone to convey messages to others.  However the original mass media was a bit more recent.  This term did not originate until the printing press came into being, and mass amounts of people were able to receive written words at the same time.  Most people associate this first instance of mass media happening when Johannes Guttenberg was the first person to print a book on a printing press in 1455 (Gutenberg Bible, 2008).  The Guttenberg Bible was printed in about 200 copies, which was a massive amount for its time. 

Printing presses became more popular over the years, and other than Bibles newspapers were a way or mass amounts of people to hear the news from their town, or even from around the country.  This was an incredible invention.  However throughout the 1700 and 1800’s when electricity was being invented and put into more machines, the printing press became automated and more newspapers and Bibles were able to be printed than ever before (Bellis, 2012).  Electricity also lead to more inventions, such as the radio, the television and the computer, which lead to communication on a massive scale (Museum T.V., 2012).  Once these other inventions came into play, the news and entertainment industries could expand from locally letting people know about what was going on in small towns, to nationally and world wide letting people in on current knowledge.  In the early 1900’s, people still listened to news individually through newspapers, or through television, or even radio.  Most people were not able to afford all three, especially coming out of hard economic times and a several large wars.  However in the late 1900’s this would change with one very clever, and essential invention.

The Internet was developed over quite a few years in the 1900’s, and was originally used to get intelligence information for the government.  However when it was brought to the limelight in the late 1900’s and given to regular citizens as the World Wide Web, this gave computers an edge in the mass media market (Media group, n.d.).  Television was still number one as far as news and entertainment during the first few years of its onset, but the Internet grew quickly and became the main source for a media outlet. 

In the 21^st century, with still more inventions to come, these different media outlets will converge, and become one with each other in a way that no one could have ever predicted.  This super media seems to be everywhere all the time and does not allow any privacy or unbiased opinion any longer when it comes to reporting stories.  Looking into how these media outlets came together and the craze to provide information to this super media can show us exactly why the media reports the way it does today.

In the 21^st century with the invention of social media, such as Facebook and Myspace, and with the invention of eReaders so that books and newspapers are now on one piece of equipment instead of being manually held, things became more convenient for the everyday consumer.  Cellular telephones and tablets can be used to stream television news, movies, music, phone calls, books, newspaper, immediate coverage of current events, games, and much more.  With one device, you can have the world at your fingertips, literally.  You can know what is happening on the other side of the world with a family member through social networking, or on the other side of the world in news with a newspaper on your eReader.  These inventions make the printing press and television seem antiquated and devices that will be only for the history books, yet they were not used that long ago, and it makes one forget that the newer technologies such as cellular phones and computers are relatively new (Poor Vago’s almanac, 2012). 

Now that news and entertainment can be found all in one place, it does not necessarily mean that there are less media outlets than before.  On the contrary, there are more news programs, web sites, blogs, viral videos, eBooks and more to keep more and more citizens abreast of current news every day, hour, minute and second that something happens, than ever before.  Because there is more competition for viewers, each media outlet must bring something new and different to the scene.  They must be the fastest to bring news or current event coverage to the forefront, even if the stories are not vetted properly.  Or they must sensationalize a story by putting their own twist on the issues.  Not to mention with the World Wide Web, anyone can upload a story or a video and call himself or herself a journalist or a reporter. 

The pendulum of media bias has swung around with the way the media has progressed as well.  In the 1950’s through the 1970’s, when the media was conservative and small, it was run by conservative journalists and television reporters who reported news and fact.  However during the anti-war movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s television and newspaper coverage of anti-war protesters, hippies and the peace and love movement were generally only negative.  They only showed drug overdoses and free sex, instead of the good things that hippies actually stood for.  Today, when media is more liberal and media has more outlets than ever before, it is run by a more liberal minded group.  Most media outlets today with only a minor few exceptions, put a negative spin on government control, conservatism, and fitting in (Special report, n.d.).  Being free and doing things your own way is what media outlets are fighting for and what they stand for on a daily basis.

In today’s society, the media has so much influence over how we see the world.  This era of instant news and the World Wide Web makes the old ways of finding out information obsolete.  High definition makes it so that everyone on Television or the Internet is scrutinized and dissected so closely that they have to be perfect.  If a crime is committed, a trial by ones peers is virtual impossible any longer, because the media makes up their mind if a person is guilty or innocent before a trail is even held.  Even if there is no crime committed, the media can make up their mind that someone has done something wrong, and ruin their reputation.  All this happens if someone is not popular by mainstream media standards.  This is not what the media was intended to do, and it is not good for society as a whole.  However this is how the media has to be run to compete for viewers, because there is so much competition out there.

We have inundated ourselves with media, so much so that we cannot go one day without being connected to the outside world.  Most of us in this day and age would not know how to go camping without an electrical device such as a cellular phone or a laptop computer.  Yes these media devices have brought us convenience in quite a few ways, but what happens when the electricity goes out?  Will we know what to do?  We all need to take a moment to remember when our media comes from and remember what life was like before all of this technology and electricity came into our lives.  Pick up a book.  Turn off the television and the cellular phone.  Take a walk.  If we do this once in a while, it will make us appreciate mass media that much more.          

         

       References

Dictionary. (2012). Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/media?s=t

Gutenberg Bible. (2008). Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg-bible.com/

Media group. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://247mediagroup.com/history-of-mass-media-and-what-it’s-become.html

Poor Vago's almanack. (2012). Retrieved from http://fuknus.chrisdamitio.com/the-damitio/assignments/a-brief-history-of-the-mass-media/

Museum T.V.. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=masscommunic

Bellis, M. (2012). Inventors. Retrieved from http://inventors.about.com/od/timelines/a/electricity_timeline.htm

Special report. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://archive.mrc.org/biasbasics/pdf/BiasBasics.pdf

On the bias

Media Bias:  Killing the American dream?

When we are very young children, our only cares in the world are that the other kids are nice, that they share their toys with us, and that at the end of the day our loved ones will pick us up and take us to a place called home.  We do not care about the color of the other children’s skin, whether they are girls or boys, if they are big or small, what they look like on the outside.  We only care if they are nice.  When does all of this change?  Is it when we hear our parents talk about certain differences?  Or is it when we get into older grades in school and children begin to bully and separate by classes and or societal arrangements?  Quite a bit of our opinions are shaped by the media, and how our parents, and how we, perceive the world as seen through the media’s eyes.   

Whatever the timing or the cause, we eventually grow out of that phase where we love everyone who is nice to us.  We start looking at each other with a fine-toothed comb, and picking apart what is or is not perfect with one another.  This person is too fat, this person is too skinny, this person has bad skin, and this person has bad hair.  Those are the thoughts that enter our mind because we are ingrained to look for perfection, nothing less.  This thought of perfection and holding society up in the spotlight has been taken a little too far, and it has marred our view of life, and of politics. 

The Unites States of America were formed over 200 years ago, relatively new as far as governments are concerned, to escape the tyranny and religious oppression of the English monarchy.  We took all of the mistakes made by older countries, and tried to make a better, more respectable one.  All men were to be viewed as equal and having the equal opportunity to find work and happiness.  While the country as a whole has made large mistakes over the years, and lets face it, what nation hasn’t, they have prospered and grown to become an amazing free nation which allows its citizens to be whomever they wish to be.  But that American dream is fading, and it is becoming harder to become a business owner, rock star, a rocket scientist or an American President. 

So why is it so hard these days to work and become stable in life, and what happened to the core values that helped shape America into the great country that we all know it can be?  Mostly, it has to do with our perspective of each other.  In today’s society, the media has so much influence over how we see the world.  This era of instant news and the World Wide Web makes the old ways of finding out information obsolete.  High definition makes it so that everyone on Television or the Internet is scrutinized and dissected so closely that they have to be perfect.  If a crime is committed, a trial by ones peers is virtual impossible any longer, because the media makes up their mind if a person is guilty or innocent before a trail is even held.  Even if there is no crime committed, the media can make up their mind that someone has done something wrong, and ruin their reputation.  All this happens if someone is not popular by mainstream media standards.  This is not what the media was intended to do, and it is not good for society as a whole.

Take the 2008 and 2012 political elections, for example.  So many great Americans were running for the ultimate American dream, to become President or Vice President of the United States.  Instead of telling the American public what ideas they could bring to the table, and how they could make a difference, both parties made empty promises and ran harsh campaigns against their opponents.  The American dream has turned into survival of the fittest, and not in a good way.  Because of the media view on politics, and the way they make people feel about the candidates, the political arena has become the equivalent of a gladiator ring, a fight to the death.  Why is there so much hypocrisy and hatred thrown around?  It is not all the candidates themselves, but how the media portrays them and reports on what they are saying.  This is where the fight begins.  The media takes regular stories, and regular American issues, and turns them into a political debate.  Here is a very real and current example of this.

Contraception

            Articles on political news can do what they were originally intended, which is to present facts about what is going on and let average citizens decide how they feel about the situation.  Or they can be written from the perspective of the writer, with a bias to them.  In this way, they are generally written to persuade the audience of one viewpoint or the other.  A very controversial issue right now is the debate over allowing contraception to be provided by every insurance company free of charge for females across the country.  This, at first, would not seem like a political debate, yet the roots of the issue run very deep and affect both parties separately and distinctly.  When searching the news media outlets for articles on this issue, we can see that every article paints a different picture of this issue, and can make the reader feel a certain way about it. 

            Providing a medication, that is not directly for an illness, free of charge to the general public is something new that has never been attempted in this country.  It would save women in this country money by providing a service, and it could possibly save insurances some money by preventing some pregnancies and health care concerns.  However it would also cost taxpayers quite a bit of money to provide contraception to millions of American women on a monthly or weekly basis.  Also, religious based hospitals and organizations, which provide medical services or insurance to their workers would be forced to provide a service that they fundamentally do not agree with. 

One article brings up the religious aspect of this issue, stating that Americans are feeling the pressures of the government and religion getting involved with one another.  A poll showed that Americans feel the threat of religious freedom looming larger than ever with this debate over contraception (The Christian science monitor, 2012).  While the article points out that Americans think that the decision for contraception should be left up to the individual, forcing some religious organizations to go against their beliefs is in direct violation of the first amendment. 

Another article takes the same stance of religious freedom, however they add a bias to the article by stating the President’s mandate for insurance companies to offer contraception to a woman if a religious hospital will not offer it is an even more forced issue and takes away the religion’s right to decline the contraception on principle (Green Bay press gazette, 2012).  The first amendment to the constitution states that no law shall be made prohibiting the free exercise of religion, yet it seems that is exactly what the government is doing in a sense (Early America, 2012).  This second article takes the stance that the issue of offering contraception for free instead of having individuals pay for it themselves is unconstitutional for that very reason.

A third article examined on the issue of contraception takes a completely different view of the situation.  This third article seems to think that any resistance to the issue of allowing free contraception is a women’s rights issue, and denying contraception is one step in denying all women’s rights again.  This article says that conservative politicians are trying to take away all women’s rights and waging a war on women, in a sense trying to take our time back to the early 1900’s.  They do make some valid points about the fact that contraception is not purely used for sex alone, and that it may be used by women for other health care needs (MSNBC, 2012). 

However they do make some errors in their article, which may lead to the persuasion aspect, but they are falsifications.  Looking deeper into the article would allow one to realize that this one was made to sway the reader into a certain way of thinking.  For example, they bring up the issue of radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh calling a women’s rights activist a slut.  This article says that he “called her a slut and a prostitute for speaking out as a birth control activist” (MSNBC, 2012, p5).  However they took his words out of context, and distorted the meaning to sway the audience.

  Rush Limbaugh, while controversial at times, was making a valid argument about contraception during his radio broadcast.  He stated that a woman asking for free services that are generally used for sex, and the amount of services this particular woman was asking for, was tantamount to her being a prostitute.  He felt she was calling herself a slut because of the way she was fighting for the contraception issue (Hopelessly partisan, n.d.).  This third article deliberately twisted his words and his meaning to sway their audience and make them think that he had slandered this woman’s name, making him the first person to publicly wage the ‘war on women’. 

With the media taking liberties with our feelings, and with the truth on news, it is no wonder that it is harder than ever to find the truth about a story.  It is also harder than ever to run for president, as any little issue becomes a political debate, with heated issues.  Each side has their own opinions, and the media takes their opinions about the subject and sensationalizes them to make the general public read their articles over another media source.  But in doing so, they also sway the way the audience feels, changes their opinion, and can in effect change the outcome of an election if they portray a candidate in an unsavory way.  Mass media has quite a bit of power over the general public, and they wield that power in order to obtain ratings.  However do they realize that controlling emotions and opinion can change the future of every American?  Do they realize that their bias is in effect killing the American dream?  

             

  References

Early America. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/freedom/constitution/text.html

Green Bay Press Gazette. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20120324/GPG0101/203240624/Contraception-law-sparks-rally-debate?odyssey=nav%7Chead

Hopelessly partisan. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://partisan.blogs.hopelesslypartisan.com/item_11709.htm

MSNBC. (2012). Retrieved from http://todayonthetrail.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/15/10703444-gillibrand-contraception-debate-will-cost-gop-votes

The Christian science monitor. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/From-the-Wires/2012/0322/Churches-and-politicians-should-stay-in-their-own-lanes-say-Americans