The Price of Free Speech Must Remain Free

 

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

 

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

 

 

One of history’s greatest accomplishments has been the creation and implementation of the United States Constitution. It embodies the freedoms that had eluded people for millennia. Enshrined within its pages, it establishes that certain rights are firmly in the grasp of the individual, and no person or entity can infringe on those rights.

 

Perhaps no right is more fundamental to a free people than the right of free speech. Remove or hinder that right, and democracy perishes right before our eyes.

We are precipitously close to the point of no return where free speech is concerned.

 

Consider:

 

The internet has no real physical foundation. The hardware may be tangible, but its implementation resides in the thoughts and beliefs of the individual.

 

There are of course numerous sites around where one must pay a fee or membership to gain access to the content. That is capitalism in action and the Madison Conservative fully supports such endeavors.

 

The concern is with the concept of cancel culture and free speech on the internet.

 

There are a multitude of social media platforms, from Facebook, Twitter, and their like, that charge no fee to their clients but exist in a nebulous environment as it relates to their content. They create no real original anything, they merely offer an opportunity for people to provide material for their platforms.

 

You do not have to pay a fee to be on those platforms, merely part with some personal information. Providing such data is the consumers choice; if you don’t want to share personal info, you don’t have the opportunity to tweet.

These platforms do not pay for their spot on the information superhighway, but make a large amount of money from advertising.

 

In other words, they are monetizing the internet infrastructure for their own profit without having to pay for that access.

 

There is an argument to be made that such a scenario is mildly bizarre, but that is for another post.

 

The central question here is how do social media platforms justify ‘banning’ users from their sites?

 

On one hand, they claim to not be responsible for the content posted, that they are merely a vehicle for others. They make that claim while undertaking the process of censuring speech they deem to be false, misleading, or not in line with ‘their values’.

 

If they are editing content, they should fall under the laws and regulations of the media and the accompanying liabilities.

 

The most prominent example of course has been the removal of former president Donald trumps social media accounts. They deemed his content to be all sorts of bad.

 

Utter nonsense. They first tried labelling his content as other types of bad. Editing and labeling the thoughts and opinions of others seems awfully close to shutting down free speech, or rather speech that the tech industry deems dangerous.

 

The case of Hunter Biden is an excellent example. In the months leading up to the 2020 election, the New York Post reported that Hunter Biden’s laptop had information that could be problematic for Joe Biden. The tech industry shut down the Post’s social media accounts and labelled the story as absolutely false. A letter from 50 former national intelligence officers claiming the story was Russian disinformation was freely circulated. President Trump tweeted often about it, and his account was temporarily suspended.

 

Free speech was cancelled.

 

Of course, the nation has learned that the F.B.I. had the laptop and that the Department of Justice has opened an investigation of Hunter Biden.

 

While obviously not complete, the search of posts by the tech industry conducted by The Madison Conservative has yet to find any acknowledgement from those responsible that they actively engaged in the censuring of free speech, while lying.

 

This is a dangerous step in the devolution of American freedoms.

 

Those responsible must be held to account by their subscribers – the American people.

 

The Madison Conservative does not believe in boycotts, or for the firing of people. We do ask the citizenry to consider where they put their support. We believe such reflection will be of great concern to the world of social media.

 

Which is as it should be.

 

No one, no enterprise, should ever have the ability to silence your voice, especially while making a profit from your personal data.

 

 

 

 

Preserve, Protect & Defend.

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

 

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

 

 

On April 8^th, 2021, President Joseph Biden, leader of the free world and a man who swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, made the following statement:

'No amendment is absolute'.

The comment alone should be enough to break the heart of any citizen who holds the Constitution in any type of regard.

 

He made the comment while attempting to explain that executive actions he took with respect to gun related issues was preceded by his belief that any disagreement on his executive actions was, to quote, “phony second amendment arguments”.

 

The Madison Conservative will be discussing the second amendment actions taken by Biden in a later post.

 

The more immediate issue is what must be taken as a blatant move by Biden and the political left to transform America in their own warped image, the sacrosanct governing document be damned.

 

This is not hyperbole. There is no other explanation to be had if the chief executive officer of the nation declares that the rules are malleable to his individual whim. If no amendment is absolute, then they have lost any validity.

 

Consider the ten commandments for a minute.  If no commandment is absolute, what value do they have? Does ‘Thou shall not commit murder” mean unless your neighbor’s lawnmower runs too early on a Saturday morning, which then makes the murder not so much an act against God and man, but more of a local noise dispute settled out of court. They are not the 10 Suggestions for a reason.

It seems to rattle the political left when they are told this nation was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic.  They try to argue against it, but the facts are the facts.

 

The founders and framers did not configure their new country with a rough outline. They wrote a process for future generations to follow as America pursued its mission to “form a more perfect union.”

 

The Constitution has not a single word within it that speaks of a president’s unilateral opinions becoming edict into law.

 

In a single fell swoop, Joe Biden tipped his hand that following a legislative process means nothing. He sees the Constitution as somebody else’s idea, of which he is not constrained to follow.

 

Free speech? Only if approves. Repealing slavery? Maybe. One has to wonder if Kamala Harris understands the import of all this. There is the 25^th amendment dealing with presidential succession. In no amendment is absolute, maybe Kamala can pull off a coup.

 

It was not that long ago that Donald Trump was portrayed as a dictator wanna-be. Few presidents in recent memory have so closely followed the limits of power in the Constitution than President Trump.

 

Given his propensity for acting on his own view and whims, his statement about amendments not being absolute, the American electorate must remain highly vigilant.

 

The Constitution can be open to interpretation, hence the existence of the Supreme Court, designed to wrestle with issues of constitutionality.

 

If Joe Biden governs under the delusion that his opinion alone is paramount, America will fall.

 

The Constitution must be preserved, protected and defended at all costs.

 

Which is what Biden swore an oath to do.

 

 

 

 

 

NO.

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

 

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

 

 

There is a well-worn turn of a phrase that goes something along the lines of every revolution begins with one person saying ‘NO’. History has proven the axiom true, but in these most interesting of times, amid the cancel culture and government/media/corporate overreach, each and every citizen has an inannihilable right, has the absolute right of ‘NO’, courtesy of the founders and framers.

When constructing the United States Constitution, they had experienced tyranny firsthand and understood the failings of overreaching power.

The Madison Conservative is woefully unqualified to delve into a Constitution doctoral thesis within this blog, but we do ask you to consider several quick points.

President Obama, a constitutional educator, spoke regretfully that our defining document was, in his opinion, a list of ‘negative rights’, what the government was prohibited from doing to its citizens.

He was exactly correct in his belief, but we believe he failed to understand what he was saying.

Yes, the Constitution does limit what the government can do, and thank God for that. What the Biden administration is attempting to do in limiting freedoms is exactly what the Constitution prohibits Biden from doing.

Consider, in the briefest of overviews, the singular right given by the framers and founders.

 

To wit:

 

The FIRST AMENDMENT –

You have the right to express your thoughts and beliefs, whatever they may be. If anyone, even the government, tries to limit, forbid, or censure that speech, the Constitutions gives the right to use a single word response.

NO.

You have the right to practice your faith however you choose. Before someone tries to inject nonsense into this point, the expression of religion is isolated to you specifically. Your right of religious expression is limited to you and you alone. Again, if that right is infringed upon by any person or government entity, your constitutionally protected response is the same.

NO.

The government is NOT allowed to prevent your right of free assembly. The government cannot limit the performance of a free press. As an aside, the current state of mass media seems content surrendering this right. The American people should stand up and collectively say NO.

 

The SECOND AMENDMENT. – This seems to be a perpetual thorn in the side of the political left. As of this writing – 4/8/2021, President Biden signed executive orders with regards to limiting the right to bear arms. He spoke almost dismissively that these executive orders had nothing to do with ‘that phony second amendment argument”. With all due respect Mr. President, they actually do, and it is the hope of the Madison Conservative that you will soon hear 75 million voices strong deliver a NO.

 

The FOURTH AMENDMENT – The government wants to take your stuff without warrant or cause.

NO

 

The FIFTH AMENDMENT – The government wants you to tell them what you know. Telling them may incriminate you. Look the government directly in the eye and tell them NO.

 

With our apologies, we will jump to the 10^th amendment. The 4^th, 6^th, 7^th, 8^th and 9^th are not subordinate to those discussed, but brevity takes priority here.

 

The TENTH AMENDMENT – The government can only do what the Constitution allows it to do. If it is not delineated within the Constitution, the rights in question fall to the states and the citizens. Given the Biden administration’s apparent overreach on almost everything, this right is particularly significant. The news is replete with stories about states taking the federal government to court over this action or that policy. In almost every report, it is presented that the state in question is behaving like a spoiled child.

Actually, the state is doing what is its constitutional right.

Saying NO.

It is their, and our, most important right.

The Madison Conservative endorses the electorate to avail itself of NO as often as they feel the need.

NO is as American as it gets.

After all, this nation started by telling England NO.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trump 2022

 

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

 

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

 

 

April 1^st, 2021.

(Please note the date as it may enter into things.)

 

It can be stated without any equivocation that America, as a nation, is living through interesting times. Each new day it is reported that a single word, spoken by citizens for decades with no thought of injury or malice is now part of a white supremacist, racist lexicon.

Individuals who merely ask questions around events, organizations, and even legislation are beaten down on social media platforms and labelled conspiracy theory agitators who, the media explain, must be shunned by society.

Never an organization to miss the opportunity to be ostracized for merely asking a question, The Madison Conservative offers this solution to the cancel culture.

Trump 2022!

We understand that many will question how this would be possible given that the next presidential election is not to be held until 2024.

No doubt, many will claim, that we have gone off our faith and belief in the United States Constitution and supplanted that belief with some wild-eyed theory.

Trump 2022? Surely, we jest!

 

Actually, the Constitution provides an easy and rather benign process for President Trump to return to the oval office.

 

Consider this.

 

The Constitution does not require the speaker to be an incumbent member of the House of Representatives, although every speaker thus far has been. The Speaker is second in line of presidential succession after only the vice-president.

 

It is conceivable that given the Democrats narrow majority in the house, and how they have forced the nation to the hard left, that the political right could assume legislative power in the 2022 mid-terms.  Given his personality and rather substantial administration accomplishments, Trump could be elected Speaker of the House.

 

The House could then impeach Joe Biden for being incapable of performing the duties of the office. It would certainly put the Democrats in an intriguing position. Support a man clearly in decline by blocking the possibility for the first woman president. It is a fair bet President Joe will be packing his belongings and returning to Delaware for a nice long rest.

 

President Trump was impeached twice, once for a phone call that was innocuous at best, and a second time for words he did not say on January 6^th. To those who would claim the Madison Conservative is perpetuating the ‘big lie’, we suggest they go watch the footage of his speech. It is readily available.

 

The Democrats held no hearings, brought no witnesses, simply impeached him, adding language that he could never hold elective office again. The measure failed, but it does make one wonder if they had concerns about this Madison Conservative proposal.

 

With the nonsensical reasons for both of Trump’s impeachments, finding something of note with Kamala Harris should be a breeze. After voting to remove Biden, given an abundance of evidence against Harris, the Senate will have to act and remove Harris.

 

That would bring up the Speaker of the House, Donald J. Trump. With majorities in the house and Senate, Trump can finish the work he started.

 

Seems a fairly balanced concept.

 

Enjoy the day, and remember to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

 

 

 

The Rules Still Matter

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

 

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

 

 

There is legislation moving through Congress which is a blatant attempt by the political left to circumvent the United States Constitution and establish single party rule in America, the precursor to a socialist state.

H.R. 1 –(the House) and S.R. 1 (Senate) aim to federalize elections in this country. The (1) denotation in each bill demonstrates that this was the first priority of the Democratic party. To bolster their argument for passage, they are employing a multi-layered strategy.

In no particular order, they say that COVID-19 necessitates the need for mail-in balloting. The party that decried President Trump’s pattern of ‘not following the science’ is now willfully ignoring the science that says things can open up again, while following certain reasonable accommodations. In stead of being honest with the electorate about COVID, the Democratic party is instead attempting to force the citizenry into fearing any outside contact. People can go to restaurants, supermarkets, malls, etc., but going to vote could kill them. This is the sum total of their COVID ballot strategy.

The Democrats also contend that requiring some form of ID is racist, and would disenfranchise minority voters. People have to show ID if they’re trying to return an item at most stores. If you want to get into the People’s House, the House of Representatives or the Senate, do not even attempt to do so without a valid ID.  Folks who wish to do their banking in person, it is not an option if you have no valid ID.  If you choose to drive any type of vehicle, you best be carrying valid ID. The Democrats keep making the racism claim, but never get questioned as to how they come to that conclusion. Proof of who is casting a ballot seems a reasonable request for one’s civic responsibility. Of course, given the flood of illegal immigrants flooding the country, perhaps there are other reasons why the democrats want to send out millions of untraceable ballots that will require no authentication. In some ways, such a proposition brings into greater clarity which political party is exhibiting racist tendencies.

 

There is perhaps little doubt that given their congressional majorities the political left will succeed in their attempt at election appropriation.

 

Of course, they seem to be overlooking one minor flaw in their grand scheme.

 

The rules still matter, and the rules always seem to find a way to upset such nefarious plans.

 

Consider this troublesome little clause in the United States Constitution, Article. 1, § 4, that reads as follows:

 

“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but Congress may at any time make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Place of chusing Senators.”

 

Before somebody tries to point out that Congress can change the regulations, it is important to understand there is no prescribed methodology for doing so, and that Congress will need to explain its reasoning in court. There will no doubt be lawsuits filed in protest of such passed legislation, and saying they can just do so will not be successful in any federal court. In addition, such lawsuits will linger into the next Congress, and it will prove a much bigger lift once the facts are presented to the American people.

 

As a quick, and we mean very quick, proof of this belief is that Roe v. Wade was a Supreme Court decision on personal privacy that the left posited as a ruling on legal abortion. In almost 50 years, why has no Congress ever codified that belief into law? Because they knew it would never pass. This is why the are trying to break the rules to get their agenda passed.

 

The founders and framers constructed the Constitution in such a way as to prevent such actions. For almost 234 years, the process has worked.

 

Why?

 

Because the rules still matter.

 

 

Whither A Free Press?

 

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

 

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

 

 

President Joe Biden gave his first press conference, as president, this past week. The reviews of it seemed to center on his style rather than content. The political left was enthralled with how ‘presidential’ he appeared, while the political right gleefully aired clips of Biden’s forgetfulness, blank stares and reliance on prepositioned notes and responses.

Such partisan views would be all well and good if it were not for the content of his responses, the presentation be damned.

The Madison Conservative is troubled by many of the Presidents responses, but none more than his comments on a free and open press. Even more troubling was the stenographic and sycophantic media’s silence on the Biden administration’s apparent strategy to remove the first amendment’s protection of a free press.

What seems almost regularly required first, however, is a need to clarify another Joe Biden outright lie about the Trump administration. Biden specifically noted that no previous administration left unattended minors alone on the border to die of thirst or hunger, until the Trump administration, which Biden claimed, had a policy of killing migrant children. Trying to justify his own incompetence in dealing with the caravan crisis on the United States southern border by making such disgusting claims mandates that Biden be called out publicly, often and as loudly as possible.

The Madison Conservative is more than happy to oblige.

 

Moving on, there used to be a universally held belief that the press existed to bring truth to power. The founders and framers knew that a government-controlled press was a giant step towards the death of democracy. A free and open press was intended to be the watchdog of government, to bring light to the process of government. While the press is sadly limited to staffing itself solely from the human race, this intent, while imperfect, mostly worked as intended for the first 240+ years of the greatest nation the world has ever seen.

Somewhere around the day Donald Trump was elected, the mainstream media decided to be advocates whose sole purpose was the destruction of the Trump administration and the man himself. The fact record is clear; if Trump supported something, it was hourly described as racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and any other phobic they could imagine. The facts were never an issue; everything he did was wrong and hateful. At some point the Madison Conservative will discuss in great detail the impartial facts of President Trump’s successes. The record is clear and one Trump and Americans should value.

 

Upon taking office, Biden spewed the common line that they would be as transparent an administration as the nation had ever seen. Biden stated he would always be direct with the citizenry, be honest with them no matter the facts. The lie to that statement was proven during his press conference.

He was asked, point blank, if he would support transparency and allow the press access to the migrant centers, so that the American people could see what the government was doing in their name. He responded with a resounding yes, he would support said transparency and allow the media in.

He was asked when that would happen.

In a response that should appall all Americans, and no doubt bring the founding fathers to rage from their respective cemeteries, President Joseph Biden, sworn to protect, defend and preserve the United States Constitution, said this:

 

He would grant access once his plan to address the issue was implemented.

 

He was asked when specifically, that would be. His response:

 

“I don’t know”.

 

In other words, the President of the United States, leader of the free world, and supposed defender of the United States Constitution unilaterally dismissed the concept of a free press. He told America, her allies, and her enemies that a free press would only be permitted by his fiat.

 

The deafening silence from the media was total and horrifying.

 

In broad strokes, the liberal media noted how great it was that Biden was bringing ‘normalcy’ back to Washington after four years of the Trump terror, while the right leaning media, led by Fox News, kept beating the point that the Fox White House correspondent was not selected to ask a question.

 

Neither side seemed bothered by the apparent dismissal of Constitutional rights.

 

This should alarm the American people and be a warning of what is to come.

 

The Biden administration declared that the press could operate only within its declared limits, and report only what the administration decided was acceptable.

 

And the media accepted the Biden whim of press censure.

 

The people need to have their voices heard. This is no longer a partisan fight, but rather a call to action under the guidelines set forth in our most sacrosanct document, the Constitution. A free press is an extension of free speech. Once the press has been subjugated to governmental whim, it is a guarantee that free speech will soon fall.

This is not hyperbole; look at autocratic regimes around the world. The first thing to be controlled was the media, and then speech.

 

A nation of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall certainly perish from the face of the earth if they willingly surrender their rights.