2/21/96, argyll@earthlink.net, Irvine, California USA Freedom from Fear By Hal O'Brien, argyll@earthlink.net. "If men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences that can invite the consideration of mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." -- George Washington Letter to his officers, 15 March 1783 -------------- "The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right." -- Chief Justice John Marshall Marbury v. Madison, 1803 -------------- "The loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury." -- Justice William Brennan Elrod v. Burns, 1976 -------------- "There is no hate without fear. Hate is crystallized fear, fear's dividend, fear objectivized. We hate what we fear and so where hate is, fear is lurking. Thus we hate what threatens our person, our liberty, our privacy, our income, popularity, vanity and our dreams and plans for ourselves. If we can isolate this element in what we hate we may learn to cease from hating. Analyse in this way the hatred of ideas, or of the type of person whom one has once loved and whose face in preserved in Spirits of Anger. Hate is the consequence of fear; we fear something before we hate it; a child who fears noises becomes a man who hates noise." -- Cyril Connolly The Unquiet Grave, 1945 -------------- Hello, Mr. Washington. As one citizen to another, allow me to introduce myself on this, your 264th birthday. My name is Hal O'Brien. I am thirty two years old, and I live in Irvine, California. I'm the editor and publisher of Pacific Edge Magazine. Let me make a big jump here, Mr. Washington. I think that the cornerstone of all freedoms is the freedom from fear. What do I mean by that? When we say "freedom of speech", what we really mean is the freedom to speak our minds without fear of the government locking us up in prison. When we say "freedom of assembly", we really mean the freedom to gather together without fear of the government's troops coming along and busting up the meeting. When we say "freedom of religion", we really mean the freedom to worship whatever deity we please, in whatever way that isn't harmful to others, without fear of the government forcing somebody else's beliefs upon us, and our children, and without fear that we'll be persecuted for our own beliefs. When we say "freedom of press", we really mean the freedom to publish our thoughts through our writings, so that others may know of them, without the fear of crossing the criminal threshold of "intending... to annoy" found in Senate Bill S.652 (aka the Telecom Bill). What's that, George? You say that the Constitution that your friends John Adams, and John Madison, and Alexander Hamilton drafted, and that you were the first President to serve... You say that it says, "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"? You're right, George. It does say that. Still. ("For now", I whisper, when I'm depressed about my fellow man.) But, apparently, your successors didn't believe you guys meant it when you wrote those words. Even though they've sworn an oath to either "preserve and protect" (the President) or "support and defend" (Congressmembers) the Constitution that John and Alex wrote. No, I don't understand how supposedly literate people can misunderstand such simple sentences either. There are people, George, who call me a First Amendment absolutist. And I tell them, I'm not the absolutist on the subject... The Amendment is. And I believe in enforcing our Constitution as written. See, it's a funny thing... I don't see the word "except" anywhere in there. I don't see it say, "Congress shall make no law... except when they think it's a good idea." Or, "Congress shall make no law... except when the moral platitudes of the week seem to demand it to get good ratings". What are ratings? Hmm... Let me get back to you on that, George, it'll take a while to explain. As I see it, when you combine the Clipper chip initiative, and the White Paper on electronic copyright issues, and the Digital Telephony bill with its wiretap provisions, and the National Security Agency's attitude towards encryption by citizens, and the Telecom Bill's censorship provisions, and... It seems fairly clear to me: They hate us citizens on the Net, George. Which means, as Mr. Connolly pointed out, that they fear us a great deal. They would not be trying to use a set of ten ton hammers to tear away the Constitutional protections of US citizens unless they were very afraid. But this is the strange thing. Because, in the system you and the other Founders established, we are the government, and they are us. Which means that when the US government fears its citizens, it's really a form of self-hate. No, George, I don't quite understand it either. I merely observe it. But I know, from having studied your life and the lives of your contemporaries, that what really got the Revolution started was the fact that you all thought your rights as Englishmen were being denied to you merely because of where in the Kingdom you happened to live -- the Colonies. Today, it seems the US government is determined to make the mistake of denying rights to citizens as Americans merely because of the medium in which they happen to live, think, and write -- the Internet. And it seems to me that they're running a terrible risk to the country, and to the rule of law, by doing that. What do I see happening on the Net that they're so afraid of? There's lots more people in the country now. So the press have become "gatekeepers" when it comes to public perceptions of what happens in government. But the Net lets ordinary citizens look at such things as the Congressional Record, and the text of bills, and other similar primary source materials, without press intervention. It's been getting very expensive to publish anything in this country with wide distribution. But the Net makes it possible to self-publish widely and cheaply, not unlike what Tom Paine, and the authors of the Federalist Papers were able to do. And, like the Federalist authors, one can remain anonymous doing it. (Even back then, remailers were a big thing.) Citizens can use the Net to organize themselves into voting blocks, without any intervention from the major parties. These days, George, many officeholders get elected by so digusting their opponents' voters, that more of the opponents' voters stay home and don't vote, than the officeholders' voters clamp their nose, go to the polls, and do vote. The Net makes it possible for people to organize to vote for somebody again, rather than against someone. The Net makes it possible for people to talk in the equivalent of a Town Square, with all speakers being equal in the eyes of their readers, until the force of their arguments is presented. People can be judged by the soundness of their ideas, instead of the accident of their charisma. Yes, George, I know it sounds like the Net might make politics more closely resemble the public life of your day than anything else has been able to do for over a century. In my darker moments, that's what I think they're afraid of, rather than being a bunch of old men and women scared of that which happens to be new, which is the most likely theory. What can be done? Hmm... you could send a dollar over to the American Civil Liberties Union, to help defray the cost of bringing their court challenge to the bill, ACLU v. Reno to trial... Here... Here's a dollar bill... Yes, that is you on the front. No, George, I don't think it's a very good likeness eith-- [sigh] Well, I'll send a letter to the Treasury Department, and see what I can do... Happy Birthday, George. -- Hal O'Brien