Hate Me If You Want To, Love Me If You Can

While wondering why there is such a fascination in our city with communist artist Diego Rivera, I was thinking:

As a true civil libertarian, not the ACLU type who picks and chooses what civil liberties exists and then makes up a few along the way, but a true civil libertarian, I am very mindful of the importance of every resident to freely communicate their ideas. While all liberties are critical, freedom of religion, speech, press and the right to bear arms are of the most valued.  (Remember there would not have been a First without the Second.)  These liberties are designed to protect each one of us from abusive government. However, the very spirit of one of these liberties has been under threat in San Juan Capistrano, that being freedom of speech.

A conservative paper called Capistrano Common Sense has come under increasing pressure to be silenced by some in our city.  Capistrano Common Sense is a local newspaper started by concerned citizens to serve as a watchdog to local government practices. Given the liberal spending policies of the city council in recent years, there has been a lot to be critical of.  Consequently, Capistrano Common Sense is not very popular inside the halls of city hall or to those elites who feel an entitlement to run the city.

In the past month or so, Capistrano Common Sense has been sponsoring open forums on Wednesdays, the day after city council meetings.  They used to meet at The Vintage restaurant.  I say used to because a number of people who claimed to be "very powerful people in San Juan" threatened The Vintage with code violations and loss of their liquor license. The threats were credible enough that The Vintage capitulated. 

Even more recently Capistrano Common Sense, which has left their newspapers at the community center just like the Capistrano Dispatch and the OC Weekly, had their paper thrown in the trash by a member of the staff because she “hated” it and said it did not belong at the center. Fortunately, interim City Manager Dave Adams responded by instituting a policy ensuring all publications may be displayed on city property. Nevertheless, the underlying desire to suppress speech that some may disagree with, remains simmering below the surface.

As an attorney and political science professor, I always lecture on the importance of freedom of speech as public policy. If you do not like what is being said, the solution is not less speech, but more speech. Suppressing speech only drives its ideas underground. By allowing all speech, it may be confronted and challenged in the forum of ideas. Besides, as Americans we all prefer a straight up fight. Regardless if you are a misplaced San Francisco socialist writing for a local paper, or a tea-party Republican councilman writing for the Patch, we all have the right to speak and the opportunity to be read.

Song of the blog: Toby Keith's Love Me If You Can http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qu7jGYzS_A