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The Executive Branch Must Act Within Its Authority

Pretvious Providence or Dumb Luck	Free Speech, A Central Issue in the 2024 Election	Next To Be Determined
Published in The Galveston Coumty Daily News October 3, 2024 Once during our history, rights to openly practice freedom of speech dominated a presidential election. In the 1800 campaign John Adams and Thomas Jefferson battled bitterly for the office, dividing their friendship and the nation. Accusations were levied against both and Adams (a Federalist) even arrested some of his opposition through the extremely controversial Sedition Act, claiming they voiced false or scandalous opinions. Fast forward to today, we have seen ordinary people, moms and dads, put into solitary confinement for expressing themselves -- most without serious offenses -- on January 6th at the US Capitol against government's narrative. Jefferson saw Adam's actions as attacks on the first amendment with hopes of silencing his political enemies. Jefferson's party won in a landslide. Freedom, and in particular freedom of speech, won! A non-Republican and highly respected constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley said recently that our nation is, today, facing serious challenges to the first amendment. He argued that the election of a Harris/Walz ticket would be a "perfect nightmare for free speech." Today's leftists view the Amendment as a privilege like a driver's license revocable at their will, but that wasn't the intent of our founders. Turley says this right is the central 2024 campaign; just as it was in 1800. Deep concerns have been expressed over the DOJ's past efforts to bury reports about the Hunter Biden laptop. Knowing it was real, they told Facebook and others to censor such reports as Russian disinformation. Later, they admitted they lied. Recently we have seen arrest warrants issued in France against the Telegram' CEO for allowing free flows of messaging. Brazil is moving to ban Twitter from its country because it allows posts against its tyrannical Supreme Court. In our country, we see similar examples to band free speech. Users of Facebook ended in "Facebook jail" for posting well-founded claims of election shenanigans. The White House coordinated with big tech about which damning truths should be deleted. The White House, helped by the leftwing media, hid the true state of Joe Biden's health until it could no longer do so. Without free speech, real fact checking isn't possible. Example: Harris in her debate with Trump made a series of lies, approximately 25. If the ability to counter such falsehoods is taken away, we lose an essential freedom. Open speech/dialogue is the antidote for oppression and slavery. Without it, strong central governments will gain absolute control, forcing compliance to their will, truthful or not. Truth and open dialogue are critical for survival in a productive and free society. Without them, we're degraded to mindless pawns of the few elitists. We've seen this in the past. Rulers claiming they know what's best for us ultimately leads to despotism. Do we want others determining what we should think and speak? Do we want to give up our rights? We say no. Unfortunately, a key issue of the 2024 election brings us to a crucial cross-road, defending free speech. How will we vote? Don't surrender your free speech rights.
	About the Authors and Columnists 2024 Bill Sargent and Mark Mansius have written over 275 guest columns and editorials over the last ten years and continue to do so. Bill lives in Galveston, Texas and Mark in St. Georges, Utah. Both ran against each other in the 2012 Republican Primary for Texas Congressional District 14, since then they have become close friends and colleagues.
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