Don's Tuesday Column

             THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   8/30/2016

               Threats to freedom from the left

To paraphrase Forest Gump, “Freedom is as freedom does.” Consider America’s diminishing freedom—over the last 8 years, America’s freedom ranking dropped from 17^th to 20^th among 25 countries. You must take into account something that was not part of the surveys: The sense of freedom that individual Americans have, and how that feeling of being free to act upon our convictions as citizens, in our representative self-government, can be crushed.

I listened to an interview on July 5 with Kimberly Strassel, author of “The Intimidation Game: How the Left is Silencing Free Speech.” It occurred to me that, over those same 8 years, the increasing brazenness of leftist attacks on conservative activists has become a scourge on our streets, the Internet, in abusive lawsuits, and targeted judicial/IRS action. People are inspired to act to affect the legislative process, or weigh in in an organized way, with ads, flyers, petitions and contacts with officials. Those are basic freedoms, even responsibilities, of men and women in our America Republic, a representative democracy; progressives threaten it all.

This is not to say that people who are engaged on the other side of an issue, or an opposing campaign or candidate, are out of bounds to actively support, publicly weigh in, write letters to the editor or hold events of their own. People can be as vocal, as organized, and as passionate as they feel is appropriate to their cause. What they can’t do, if they value civil liberty and fair political practices, is engage in underhanded attacks on people, anonymous character assassination, efforts to hurt the families or businesses of opponents, or use legal means (also known as “law-fare”) to silence, restrict or punish their opponents.

Strassel referenced the California initiative, Proposition 8, which sought to define marriage as between one man and one woman. We all remember that people were passionate both for and against it. Now, I will divide readers based on their opinions of, not the issue itself, but whether it was wrong and out-of-bounds for certain things occur. You might want to think long and hard before answering that you approved of the tactics of the anti-Prop 8 crowds.

Was it wrong to disclose donors’ names, and amounts they contributed in favor of Prop 8, when the law said it was confidential? The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 50 years ago, in favor of the secrecy of NAACP donors, citing their vulnerability to intimidation and harassment. That meant the Prop 8 disclosures were wrong, even illegal and, given what subsequently happened, abominable as a matter of civic propriety.

Was it wrong for Prop 8 opponents (gay marriage supporters) to then use such information to attack fellow citizens who held an opposing position? Was it wrong to organize boycotts against their employers, their businesses, their spouse’s employers or businesses, their service groups, their theater companies, their vehicles, property, Prop 8 signage, and on and on?

I don’t recall Prop 8 opponents speaking out against gay marriage supporters that were hounding, harassing and physically attacking Mormon churches and church-goers, even little old ladies. Many of us have never forgotten and, never having been asked, we’ve never forgiven.

While at the Republican booth for that year’s fair, among the passers-by was a uniformed Sheriff’s deputy that engaged us in discussing our position supporting Prop 8; the male deputy was opposed. The discussion turned to debate with the deputy loudly saying we were hateful and intolerant—things totally irrelevant to anything we had said. Sounds intimidating, no?

Kimberley Strassel presents an “alarming look at how the Left, once the champion of civil liberties, is today orchestrating a coordinated campaign to bully Americans out of free speech…and how both disclosure and campaign finance laws have been hijacked by the Left as weapons against free speech and free association, becoming the most powerful tools of those intent on silencing their political opposition.”

Among the examples cited—each an outrageous political overreach and scare tactic—that constitute evidence, to this writer, of a “long train of abuses and usurpations”: 1) the left set off a wave of liberal harassment against conservative politicians after the Supreme Court decision, Citizens United (the Court ruled that private citizens, who formed a political corporation to fund and run anti-Hillary Clinton ads, acted legally); 2) the IRS used partisan standards to twist the tax code to target Tea Party groups;

3) Wisconsin prosecutors, state Attorneys General and a Democrat Congress attacked political activists and businesses; 4) the Obama administration politicized a host of government agencies including the FEC, FCC, and the SEC. There are others; I hope to read it this summer.

Here’s what conservative Jonah Goldberg said: Regarding the increasingly repressive climate towards free speech, “no books have connected the dots between the Obama White House, Congressional Democrats, and the spider web of ‘grassroots’ organizations the way Kim Strassel does…It is required reading for those who want to know what’s behind the supposedly spontaneous outrages we see every day.”

Stephen Hayes: “Public shaming encouraged by leading political figures. Pre-dawn police raids. Federal agencies targeting groups and individuals because of their political views. It’s hard to believe these things are happening, and more frequently, in the United States. But they are and in this searing indictment of the systematic attempt of the political left to shut down political debates they cannot win, Kimberley Strassel provides the often-horrifying details. It’s a shocking and assiduously well-reported chronicle of the illiberal tactics of the new progressives.”

When under attack, political freedom, if not vigorously defended, will wither away.