- "We must remember that a right lost to one is lost
to all."
- -
William
Reece Smith, Jr.
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- What did you learn in school today, Billy?
-
- Oh, just the usual stuff, Grandpa. The teacher told us
about the greatest people in American history. You know, people like
Malcolm
X and Hillary Clinton and John McCain.
-
- Do they ever talk about the Constitution in school
anymore?
-
- No, Grandpa, you're the only one who ever talks to me
about that. I asked my teacher about it and she got all mad. Why did she
get mad, Grandpa?
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- Well, Billy, it's against the law now for me to talk
about this, but I'm an old man and I don't care. You need to hear it. The
Constitution was a very old, very precious document that had a great deal
of meaning in our lives for the first two hundred years of our nation's
history. We believed in the words written by George Washington and Benjamin
Franklin and the others we once called the Founding Fathers.
-
- Yeah, my teacher called them the Founding Outlaws. She
said they all owned slaves and they beat them and I shouldn't talk about
them.
-
- Well, in a way I guess they were outlaws. They wrote
the Declaration of Independence and started a new form of government. And
while it's true that it was wrong of them to keep slaves, they gave us
all a better nation than had ever existed before. They wrote the
Constitution,
which guaranteed certain rights by agreeing that those rights were given
by God.
-
- Oh, we're not allowed to say 'God' in school. You could
get in so much trouble. My teacher says only fanatics talk about God. Are
you a fanatic, Grandpa?
-
- Yes, I guess in today's world I am, Billy. You see I
believe as those Founding Outlaws did that each of us is endowed by our
creator - God - with certain rights, and that among those rights is life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The writing of those words was the
most important moment in our history.
-
- That's not what my teacher said.
-
- I'm sure she didn't. What did she say?
-
- She told us the greatest thing to happen to the country
ever was something called Finance Campaign Reform...or something like that.
She said it happened about thirty years ago, in 2002, and that it cleaned
up government. She said before that government was open to the highest
bidder. I didn't understand it very well.
-
- Well, Billy, she was right about one thing. That bill
called Campaign Finance Reform was important all right, but not the way
she meant it. You see, that was the year the people lost the right to
criticize
our government. Before that, a person or a group could buy time on TV or
radio and talk about the record of a member of Congress. Or they could
distribute voter guides letting people know where their elected officials
stood on the issues.
-
- Wow! You used to be able to do that?
-
- Oh absolutely. But then something terrible happened.
That right was taken away and the only people allowed to talk about
government
officials were those in the news media. The big newspapers and the big
TV networks suddenly were in a position to decide who was a good
representative
and who wasn't. Soon they were the only ones allowed to publish their
opinions.
-
- Why didn't people fight against it, Grandpa?
-
- Oh, believe me, Billy, some of us tried. We could still
communicate with our elected representatives in those days, and we all
knew that bill would pass the Senate if it got that far, but we never
thought
it would. We assumed that the House of Representatives, which was
supposedly
controlled by Republicans, would reject it outright. But they betrayed
us, pure and simple, Billy. Some of them fought for the Constitution, but
too many Republicans joined the Democrats and took away our right to
criticize
our government. And then when the president signed it...Someone's at the
door, Billy. See who it is, will you?
-
- Mr. Patton, you're under arrest for sedition and
corrupting
the mind of a minor child. Good job, Billy...you can take off the
microphone
now.
-
- Sorry, Grandpa, but you really shouldn't say such nasty
things about the government.
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- http://gopusa.com
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