Montana Viewpoint: We don’t serve government, it serves us
Jim Elliott
In 1734 a New York newspaper publisher named John Peter Zenger was imprisoned under the seditious libel act for making a statement critical of the Royal Governor of the colony of New York. Why? Because under the Act, it was illegal to criticize the King’s government. Zenger’s defense was based on the claim that he had merely reported the truth, and the jury found in his favor: truth cannot be libel.
This decision held the seed that led to the creation of the American Bill of Rights.
The Constitution as written did not guarantee the freedoms contained in the Bill of Rights because the Federalists, who at that time were the “Big Government” faction, believed that it wasn’t necessary. But the Anti-Federalists, who did not trust big government, demanded that an accompanying Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments, including freedom of speech, of the press, of religion, of the right to bear arms) must be introduced and also ratified as their condition for supporting the Constitution.
The people who insisted on a bill of rights didn’t trust government to always do the right thing by the citizen. So the Bill of Rights was created to limit the power of government to control the very people the government served. Basically it held that government serves us—we do not serve the government.
But now our government wants to control our ability to express opinions that people in the government—who serve us—do not like. Freedom of speech does not mean that we have the “right” to say things that offend no one. “Have a nice day,” comes to mind. It means that we can speak our minds without fear of government reprisal or censorship. It means that we can speak critically of our government, its actions, and the people in it. In a way free speech was the basis for the American Revolution because the King of England asserted that he could not be criticized. American revolutionaries were having none of that.
Today with the intense polarization of American politics people are becoming afraid to speak their minds because of government threats and economic reprisals. Colleges and businesses are firing out-spoken employees for fear of the government coming after them. Nor is government treating everyone equally, it is coming down only on people who say things that current government officials don’t like to hear. Russia and China do this, too. The difference is, those countries are not democracies, they are dictatorships.
We are a democracy, so far, but we are heading into an almost self-imposed dictatorship. Self-imposed because many American institutions such as giant businesses, law firms, and colleges don’t want to call attention to themselves. It would be one thing if they just wanted to keep their heads down—that would be merely cowardly. But what they are doing is punishing their employees who are outspoken by censoring their speech and thought in order to deflect government criticism and potential punishment from the employer—that is subservient. That is aiding and abetting tyranny.
“We will come after you,” is a more and more familiar threat from government officials. If it is said in response to lawbreakers, then it’s appropriate, but if it is said to people who merely have differences of opinion with the government, then it is a threat, and as such is intimidation.
It is easy for authorities to make illegal arrests and falsify charges against individual American citizens because, right or wrong, they have the power to do so and will use that power if their minds have been corrupted by having that power. It is harder for the citizen thus attacked to fight back because the legal system does not have the ability to effect immediate results from unjust actions, but it does have the power of independent judgement and enforcement to see that justice is served…eventually.
The Constitution is ours. We own it, we must use it. It is our protector from government, our shield from tyranny, our salve from injustice. It is our weapon and salvation. It is blessed by our forebearers and our children yet to come.
It protects the right, the left, the center. It protects us all.
It is America.
Montana Viewpoint has appeared in weekly and online newspapers across Montana for over 30 years. Jim Elliott served sixteen years in the Montana Legislature as a state representative and state senator. He lives on his ranch in Trout Creek.