We all know the MSM is keeping the REAL truth from us. I’m not talking about the truth that is supported by facts, documents, and reality. No, I’m talking about the truth that we know to be true in our gut. And thus, if you want to get the real facts about some of the most critical issues facing this nation, you should turn to Blogacause, a website that promises anonymity to their bloggers.There, you are free to publish the truth about Google hosting the countries medical records online, Obama planning to kill old people early in order to save health-care money, and even more reasons why Obama is not a US citizen. All without the fear of the “thought police” coming to take you away to the local FEMA concentration camp. Finally, somebody has created a website where even the most patriotic teabagger can have the right to freely speak his mind without the fear of having his voice muffled (i.e.: hairy balls in mouth).

And with that Colbert impression out of my system, let’s discuss the real underlying issue here. Being a blogger myself, I understand and value the importance of having an outlet to the world. A place where you can write about important issues and try to have some influence. But why do we need anonymous blogs for people who are just repeating the talking-points of Rush Limbaugh and his gang. Granted, I don’t know the political motivations of the sites creator, Michael Groves. But Blogacause is certainly dominated by extreme right-wingers. But why do they feel the need to be anonymous. The same group of people who cheered on Iranian youths to overthrow the Ayatollahs are scared to publicly discuss politics in the US. Iranians took to the streets, knowing their protests might get them killed or jailed. Yet, in this country, the “opposition movement” is so scared that they feel the need to hide on the Internet?

Anonymous blogging may have some benefits for journalism. A corporate whistle blower, for example, could use an anonymous blog to shed light on corruption or public safety issues. In authoritarian countries, anonymity may be required for even the mildest forms of political opposition. But why do people in the US feel the need for anonymity? Personally, I really don’t understand the fear. The constitution and the bill of rights are there to protect the people from the government. If you are too scared to attach your name to your constitutionally protected speech , you are either lying, or you live in a weird alternate reality where the government is coming to take your guns away and put you into concentration camps…with socialized medicine.

The Declaration of Independence is revered as one of the most important documents in American history. But a majority of the Declaration of Independence is spent on listing the complaints of the colonies against the King of England. Were it not for a few select phrases, the Declaration of Independence would be nothing but a legal brief full of grievances against the British. Fortunately for us, Jefferson and the Colonial congress decided to include into this seminal document one of the most famous phrases in US history, proclaiming that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Liberty is the right for an individual to act according to his or her own free will. The Merriam-Webster dictionary also defines liberty as “the quality or state of being free, the power to do as one pleases, freedom from physical restraint, freedom from arbitrary or despotic control, the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges, and the power of choice.” Liberty is an important concept in a pluralistic liberal democracy because it asserts that people are free, people are allowed to live their life according to their beliefs and wishes, and the people are allowed to make their own decisions.

When the Bush administration made its case for war in 2002, the media largely went along with their claims. Iraq was presented to the American people as a sponsor of terrorism, a collaborator with Al-Qaeda, an imminent threat to the safety of Americans, and as a country in possession of weapons of mass destruction. All of these claims turned out to be false after the war started. President Bush was able to go to war in large part because the American people, constantly bombarded by these false claims through the media, supported overthrowing what they perceived to be the most threatening dictatorship in the world.

While the citizens do not get a vote on granting the president authority to go to war, their representatives do. When there is large public support for a war, the people’s representatives are unlikely to vote against such a measure. Thus, the lack of any real information on the claims of the administration negatively impacts the public’s ability to make a choice. Our liberty—our right to live life according to our own free will—depends heavily on the freedom of speech and the free access to information that we can use to make our own decision. When the media engages in group-think, and opposing views are largely ignored or censored, we do not have the ability to make these decisions.

North Korea provides an example of what can happen when freedom of speech is lacking and there is no media providing its citizens with information. The people of North Korea are impoverished and many die of starvation due to the despotic leadership of Kim Jong-Il. Yet they still support the “dear leader” because of constant government propaganda that has completely brain washed them to worship the one person who is most responsible for their suffering.

When American news outlets are pressured to report one version of the story, and lack the intestinal fortitude to stand up for the principles of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, they are engaging in the same kinds of government propaganda that has brain washed the North Koreans into believing that their leader is anything less than a third-rate Bond villain. As was pointed out in “Buying The War”, a majority of Americans still believe that Iraq had links to Al-Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorist attack. Kim Jong-Il would be proud.

The media is responsible for more than keeping us up to date on the underwear wearing habits of our favorite celebrities. When political and economic pressures are allowed to dictate the information provided to the American people, the media is threatening the concept of liberty. Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter that “our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Since Jefferson is the chief author of the Declaration of Independence and the phrase “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” we should take heed of his warning and never again allow the media to be influenced by anything else but their fundamental reason for existence: to provide us with the information we need to be able to make our own decisions. Oh, and also to take pictures of scantily clad celebrities.

Michael Savage (AP Photo/John Storey)

By now you have probably heard that Michael Savage was one of the people banned from the UK for fostering extremism or hatred. He was put on a list along the likes of an anti-gay preacher, the founder of a white supremacist website, a Hamas leader, and Russian gangsters.

What I found interesting was Savage’s response to this whole situation. I first heard about it on an NPR’s Talk of the Nation as I was driving back from school. Savage was on the phone with Neal Conan, the host of the show, and started his defense with jokes about British dental care and cuisine (I later heard the same jokes on his own radio show and saw them quoted in a San Francisco Chronicle article. Good job of sticking with the talking points, Savage.)

But after a short attack on Neal Conan, Savage went on to say how being banned from the UK for expressing his opinions is a threat to free speech. Another lame joke about the country of the Magna Carta becoming the country of the mini-carta later, Savage was stressing that even liberals should be upset about this. Because after all, if the UK banned a freedom loving patriot like Savage, who would be next? He argued that he was just using his constitutional right of free speech, and that his views in no way present a threat or encourage people to commit violence. I don’t know if I believe that, tough. Listening to his show make me want to cause violence to myself.

The interesting part came when Neal Conan took the first phone call. The caller made a comment that if Savage talked about Christians or Jews in the same way he did about Muslims, he would have been off the air a long time ago. Savage lost his cool immidiately and started berating the caller. Savage accussed him of being “a nobody sitting in his pajamas in a mental institution somewhere in Iowa.” After fighting with the caller for a little bit longer, once again using his gift of clairvoyance by telling the caller what he was wearing and where he was at, he told Neal Conan that he was a busy man and had better things to do than to argue with his callers. Conan, the consummate professional, told him that maybe he should go do those other things and hung up on him.

As you can see by his response to a single phone call, Savage may love the idea of “freedom of speech”, but if you disagree with him you should not expect him to respect your freedom of speech. So while he is talking about considering a lawsuit because he was banned from the UK, he was the one  who proposed the idea of banning immigration to the US to all Muslims and banning the construction of mosques.

I have no comment on Savage’s political views or his beliefs. He has every right to express his opinion and I would be the first to defend his right to free speech. I do, however, have a problem with clear and blatant hypocrisy. The Bill of Rights grants the freedom of speech, but also the freedom of the press and the freedom of religion among other rights. You do not get to pick and choose which of the rights you support and which you don’t. If you want to run your mouth about your freedom of speech being threatened, you should not advocate the persecution of people based on their religion. Either you believe in the constitution and the Bill of Rights or you don’t. Savage clearly does not.