It's about Free Speech
Regardless of your feelings about politics or politicians. Regardless of whom you support for President. I think we'd all agree that the freedom of speech is one of the liberties we all hold dear. Especially those of us who blog. Freedom of speech is vital to bloggers. Suppose that Blogger, Moveable Type, Upsaid, or whoever host your blog, decided that 'blogging is about personal affairs', not about jokes or politics or pictures. Then they said if you use our hosting services you cannot post these things in your blog. Even if you pay for hosting, you still may not discuss politics, jokes, or pictures. Suppose they said you can no longer use swear words. All blogs must be PG rated. They can do that you know. All of these are privately owned companies and can decide what they allow to be published. The freedom of speech is vital to us.
CBS is hosting the Super Bowl this year. Commercial air time is expensive, but if you have the money ( I think it's something like $3 million) you can have your ad aired during the Super Bowl. That is unless CBS doesn't like your add. When the political group MoveOn.org approached CBS about running their ad "Child's Play", they were told "The Super Bowl is about football, not politics...". Okay, fine, then no political ad's should be aired , right? Then it is discovered that CBS WILL be airing the ad that we've all seen lately that links the use of drugs to terrorism. This ad imply's that if you buy drugs (even marijuana) or you use drugs (even smoking a joint) you are supporting terrorism. The implications of this in conjunction with 'The Patriot Act' are truely frightening, but more on that later. When ask about why they would allow this ad to be run but not MoveOn.org's ad, the response was, this is not political (?) this is public service. Okay so then why did they also decline to allow PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to run an add? Is that not a public service announcement? CBS has taken censorship to a new level. If we allow this to go unchallenged we are taking one more step toward the loss of this vital freedom. It's not about politics anymore, now it's about freedom of speech.
If you feel this is an infringement on the freedom of speech click on the banner below and sign the petition. I have, and even some of my very strong Republican friends.


The choices we make today will be the choices our children and grandchildren will have to live with tomorrow. It's up to us.