Sarah Palin’s Orwellian View of the First Amendment

We’ve long feared that many conservatives fail to understand that the Bill of Rights contains more than the Second Amendment. Sarah Palin provides evidence of this with an Orwellian interpretation of the First Amendment. We already knew that many conservatives fail to respect the First Amendment with regards to separation of church and state as intended by the founding fathers. Political Radar shows that Sarah Palin also extends conservative hostility to First Amendment rights to freedom of the press:

Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama’s associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks.  Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate’s free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.

“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

The First Amendment was written to protect people and the press from the government, not to protect those in government from criticism by the press. Sarah Palin’s right to free speech so that she can practice McCarthyism in her attacks against Barack Obama is protected by the First Amendment, along with the media’s right to criticize Palin for practicing McCarthyism.

Incidentally, someone should also inform Sarah Palin that her attempts to practice censorship in Wasilla (here and here) were a violation of the First Amendment.

5 Comments

  1. 1
    janet says:

    Every thing about her drives me nuts.  What judgement McCain had in picking her!

  2. 2
    roger says:

    Why is it that visions of swastikas dance in my head whenever I hear Palin speak?

  3. 3
    sherall says:

    I would like to hear one GOOD reason why every one thinks that Sara is an idiot. Not one single person has been able to tell me a reason. But i would like a different reason other than she didn’t know what the Busch administration was, and if no body can give me an honest to god reason, not just a personal reason, then she is not the jack ass in the world.

  4. 4
    Ron Chusid says:

    Sherall,

    If you are asking this you simply are not paying attention. Listen to any of her interviews, and note how hard they kept her away from the press. This post shows that she does not understand what the First Amendment means. She repeatedly demonstrated that she has very little understanding of national and international issues.

    I would not call her an idiot, but she was totally unqualified to be on a national ticket.

  5. 5
    Jeromey says:

    I’ll give you a reason Sherall. She didn’t know who Paul Revere was. She thought he rode to warn the British about the colonists and then instead of admitting she made a mistake insisted that she was right and every one else was wrong.

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