First Principles

The Gun Guy, in a recent post, discussed his reaction to the recent defeat of a bill in the House of Representatives. This bill (H.R. 1606) sought to exempt online free speech from the effects of the McCain-Feingold Law in the same way mainstream journalists are protected. The gist of the Gun Guy’s post was “Damn the Torpedo’s, full speed ahead”; he will continue to exercise his free speech rights, law or no law, regardless of the potential consequences.

We at the Ten Ring wholeheartedly concur with The Gun Guy's attitude and will continue to write about what we see fit. We will not allow a bunch of two bit politicians, who are not fit to shine the shoes of our country's founders , to decide who has Constitutional Rights and where and when those rights are to be exercised.

We realize that the powers that be have been chipping away at the Constitution for many years, at the Second Amendment in particular, as we have discussed over the past year. But in our opinion, this infringement is the final straw. We will not be silenced, pre election or post election.

We find it interesting that Congress, in its infinite wisdom, only sees fit to dole out free speech rights to those in big media, comprised of huge conglomerates that the founding fathers could never have imagined.

We suspect if Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin could be around today, they would think it more important to guarantee the free speech rights of bloggers, who are much closer to the people who printed bills in colonial days, than the free speech of huge media corporations that have their own agendas and know or care little about the lives of ordinary citizens who work and struggle from day to day.

History has shown that the free speech of the powerful and well connected (as the mainstream media is) is never really much in jeopardy, but the rights of the ordinary man or woman must be vigilantly guarded and exercised. Denise and I are ordinary people and we will exercise that right.