Limbaugh vs. Censorship: A Call For Action

Now Playing: "A Handful of Earth" by Lane/Hellborg/Baker, from Abstract Logic, 1995

Last Friday a letter signed by 41 Democrat-Socialist members of the United States Senate and sent to the head of Clear Channel Communications, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh's syndication partner, was successfully sold for $2.1 Million on Ebay in a brilliant counter-maneuver by Limbaugh. The letter, recall, had been issued by Reid et al. demanding that Limbaugh be reprimanded for an on-air characterization - which characterization turned out to have been misrepresented by the Honorable Senators in any case.

I'm an objectivist, not a conservative, so there are a multitude of core issues on which Limbaugh's beliefs conflict with my own. But in general he is an exemplary political pundit, activist, entertainer and advocate for Americanism - even though he generally gets the philosophic basics wrong.

The now-infamous letter by censor-wannabes Reid, Clinton, Obama, Boxer, Feinkenstein, Dodd, Wyden, Dorgan, et al. is the most direct and chilling attack on our First Amendment since John "Traitor" McCain launched what eventually became the Shays/Meehan First Amendment Arsewipe-Transformation Act of 2002.

This isn't an issue of the political leanings or philosophic shortcomings of Limbaugh, nor of what different people may think of him. Rather, it is the issue of a shocking, ominous act by a group of powerful government figures against our core Constitutional rights. To understand the magnitude of what that letter represents, simply swap in for Limbaugh any given newspaper columnist, editor, or publisher, any network news anchor, any given author, or... any given Founding pamphleteer.

Am I the only one willing to identify the implications of forty-one sitting United States Senators trying to intimidate into silence the political speech of an American broadcaster?

The complete list of the New American Censors:

Harry Reid
Hillary Rodham Umbridge Clinton
Blanche Lincoln
Richard Durbin
Kent Conrad
Bob Menendez
Charles Schumer
Christopher Dodd
Barbara Mikulski
Patty Murray
Byron Dorgan
Bill Nelson
Daniel Akaka
Dianne Feinstein
Barack Obama
Max Baucus
Tom Harkin
Jack Reed
Joseph Biden
Daniel Inouye
Jay Rockefeller
Barbara Boxer
Edward M. Kennedy
Ken Salazar
Sherrod Brown
John Kerry
Bernie Sanders
Robert Byrd
Amy Klobuchar
Debbie Stabenow
Benjamin Cardin
Mary Landrieu
Jon Tester
Tom Carper
Frank Lautenberg
Jim Webb
Bob Casey
Patrick Leahy
Sheldon Whitehouse
Carl Levin
Ron Wyden

That list of Senators is a veritable who's-who of people in dire need of targeting and ejection from American government by American voters of every political stripe.

Let me emphasize that: This is not about Limbaugh's politics nor even him specifically, it's about preserving the right of all of us to speak out on politics, however, whenever, wherever we want - without being threatened with retaliation by monarchic, power-mad politicians. This was not censorship in actuality, rather a censorship trial balloon to peel away another layer of resistance to the confiscation of our priceless First Amendment. Keep in mind that "trial balloon" is another name for "preparation for future action."

These 41 b*stards need to be sent back to private life on each of their next end-of-term election bids. Every single one of them, in signing that letter, has openly admitted to violating his sworn oath to "uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America."

As I've pointed out many times before, some form of political censorship has always been the first step - the miner's canary, if you will - of advancing totalitarianism. If we allow these creeps to confiscate our right to speak, print, advertise, assemble, demonstrate, petition and believe whatever we choose, then we're all just rightless serfs, marking time until the next dictator du jour decides he - or she - wants to dispose of us.

So far I'm not hearing a peep from any of the rest of Congress, those vaunted Defenders of the Constitution... I recommend calling/writing/rattling their cages. Hard.