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From The Mailbag

With PeTA protesting on the National Mall in Washington, DC, a
Capitol police officer and a DC Metro SWAT member accost the
conservative Young Americans for Liberty PAC who was protest-
ing Obama's healthcare plan with placards that read: PRO-CHOICE
on Healthcare. They needed a permit to protest. Strangely, PeTA,
which was also protesting, did not need a permit.

When Young Americans for Liberty brought their anti-socialized medicine protest to the National Mall in Washington, DC, Capitol police and a DC Metro SWAT team showed up to break up their protest. Police told them they did not have the right to peacefully assemble at the National Mall to protest healthcare reform without a permit. Trevor Leach, Director of Events for YAL, noting the PeTA demonstration farther down the Mall which was not harassed by police, asked the officers if they viewed their questioning him as a form of political discrimination. The SWAT officer asked if he had a permit to protest. Leach replied that "...under the First Amendment [they] have a right to peacefully assemble." The officer replied they could only if, according to 36 CFR 7.96, they had a permit. Trevor replied: "Okay, so Washington, DC does not support free speech?"

To which the SWAT officer said, bluntly and matter-of-factly, "...you don't have free speech." When Trevor pointed out the PeTA people were protesting, SWAT replied that they had a permit adding, "If you want to protest you need a permit."

Leach then said: "Ummm...so you're saying we do not have personal liberty, right?" To which the cop replied, "No, I'm saying you don't have a permit." Trevor Leach replied that "...being required to receive a permit would be restriction on free speech."

It is interesting that in Obama's Washington, like in FDR's Washington, free speech is easily restricted or eliminated by requiring those who want to speak out on issues to be required to have a permit to speak. Of course, in Obama's Washington, only those who agree with the tyrant are given permits. Everyone else is silenced. If dissent cannot be voiced, there is no dissent.

In 1933, among the cornerstone pieces of socialist legislation passed by the New Deal communist Congress was the Communications Act of 1933 which created the Federal Communications Commission [FCC]. America's new media, radio, would require a strong hand (or, rather, strong arm) to control it. Since radio was not the "free press," Roosevelt and the New Dealers decided it was exempt from protection by the 1st Amendment and allowed FDR to regulate it. Radio station owners, and later TV station owners, had to apply for permits to remain on the air. Once the FCC was created, Roosevelt then attempted an end-run to regulate the newspaper industy with permits. Sen. Thomas Schall [R-MN] fought Roosevelt's attempt to regulate the press. FDR argued the press had to be regulated like radio because they regularly lied about their circulation. The newspaper industry funded the independent Audit Bureau of Circulation to regulate circulation statistics in the newspaper industry and escaped FDR's gestapo tactic to force the press to print only the news Roosevelt wanted printed.

Trevor Leach was right. When you need a permit to speak, free speech no longer exists.