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                       The Wrong Side of the Candle:

                         Free Speech or Censorship?

            Jerral Sapienza, SysAdmin & Corporate Poet, LLX.COM

Democracy is a basic part of Life in these United States, or at least was
for a lot of years before the Telecommunications Bill came along. And now
we've got a question here or two about whether or not it's going to
continue as Democracy & Free Speech, or if it's going to end up as
Censorship...

When you think about it, it's a little bit like arguing about a candle.
These great Keepers of our Souls who choose to protect us all from
ourselves with the Telecommunciations Bill are just afraid. It's like
they're a bit afraid of a candle. To them it represents the possibility of
fire, of foment, of a torch which might be raised in rebellion in some
great Battle Cry of the Net. Defenders of the government as Status Quo,
then, look upon a candle as serious weaponry. (While, mind you, not putting
up near so much noise about the hundreds of thousands of automatic &
semi-automatic handguns in our society.) No: It's the candles they worry
about more.

Because with a candle, children run the risk of seeing. They run the risk
of lighting an ambition to learn, to grow, share their ideas. They might
begin to think more for themselves, to question what they see around them,
perhaps even ask something more of themselves and their government.

Dangerous stuff, this Free Speech. Puts dangerous twinkles in people's
eyes. Light the wick of a few candles here and there and you can see it in
their eyes. They get all excitable and hard to manage and hard to control,
and who knows what illuminating ideas these subversive-type citizens might
come up with. They might even consider reading the U. S. Constitution or
the Bill of Rights again. And then we're seriously in trouble. Why, they
might actually demand freedom from governmental intervention, freedom from
taxation without representation, freedom of speech or some other equally
absurd idea.

Then who knows? We might have to be dealing with another of those vile
Abraham Lincolns who may have disagreed with status quo. Or one of those
Martin Luther Kings who may not have transparently fit in so well with some
of his fellow citizens of the time. Or perhaps we'd have to endure another
Gandhi whose peaceful revolution stood down an entire government.

History is no doubt in the process of being made. It always is. . . And
this time, right here in America, we're setting a precedent of being a
supposed world leader in Freedom and Democracy while at the same time
empowering our leaders to begin to start chipping away at the roots of the
very tenets of Freedom and Democracy. There's a darkening revolution
here... it's turning out the lights, blowing out the candles, snuffing out
ideas whether they are good or not... just because an idea, like a candle,
might be dangerous.

It is unfortunate that because a government doesn't understand some of its
people, it chooses to censor all of its people. But it's more than just
unfortunate: It's a dangerous precedent to set in a nation founded on the
initial premise of Freedom. Clashes of ideas built this nation, and formed
the foundation of its very being. But suppression and censorship of
opposing ideas is dangerous business for the work of a government. Ask the
British their side of the story from a couple hundred years ago! This is
the stuff Revolutions are made of.

When we don't understand someone: We can tell them we don't understand. And
then sit back and listen a bit until we have a chance for opening to the
possibility that we may both be looking at the same candle; One of us sees
it as a potential torch; the other is merely reading by the light.

It doesn't have to come down to Right & Wrong. It might just be a
misunderstanding and we may just be sitting on the wrong side of the
candle!

-Jerral Sapienza

Write me with Your Side of the story if you like...

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