Editorial

What's Good for the Goose

The First Amendment must come under such regular attack because it is at the top of the list. Keeping soldiers out of civilian homes is only brought up in history courses and the art of debating federalism is as lost as the art of getting up before noon in Eugene. But few will miss the opportunity to attack the top of the list, the most fragile of rights and the most important right. The prevalence of anti-free speech proponents seems to suggest that all the hype about decreasing attention spans is right on the money.

The United States Congress recently passed the Telecommunications Bill that included an amendment known as the Communications Decency Act. President Clinton signed the entire bill into effect only a few days ago and there is already a federal court injunction against the decency provision.

The proponents of the bill couch their logic in the noble idea of protecting children from pornography and yet include in their list of prohibited subject matter the term abortion. The word abortion could be used in newsgroups for support groups for women who have recently miscarried (known as "spontaneous abortion" in medical terms) to medical shared research on new abortion techniques to the National Organization for Womenšs homepage.

While it is true that pornography is not for sale to minors in the print media nor at video stores, maintaining legislative consistency is not now, nor has it ever been the concern of our nationšs politicians.

Rather, those who wrote the act were concerned with the pervasiveness and uncontrolled nature of a medium created by the military, but not regulated by it.

Think of the horror facing career senators who still think that todayšs certified mail is faster than they could ever imagine being faced with communication that travels to the other side of the world in a matter of seconds. Think of the horror facing pundits who find that their opposition can communicate and respond to political action in a matter of minutes and reach hundreds of logged-in Internet users.

In true form, their first thought was the standard knee-jerk response of the little boys with million-dollar toys that got a little bit out of hand: Silence it, regulate it, slow it down. And so they have.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a showdown is under way here at the University. It seems that even those who on a daily basis rely on the freedoms of speech and press feel that the freedom is restricted to them--the guardians of responsible speech, the advocates for the weak and the timid, the self-righteous and morally indignant.

A columnist for Oregon Daily Emerald recently came out with a unilateral attack against the Commentator. He garnered two commentaries on facing pages about the same issue--the Commentator's article regarding the infamous list of 75. Keith Cunningham called for the de-funding of the Commentator and was seconded the next week by ASUO "Co-President" Zach Kelton in a call to put the Commentator budget on the ballot. In a twist of true comedic timing, the following day showcased a commentary from ASUO President Jennifer Williamson vowing not to de-fund the Commentator.

The irony was glaringly obvious--Cunningham fumed about the content of our little magazine and called for the end of our subsidy, calling us woman-haters and immature boys. In the same breath he ignored the women of the Commentator and the ASUO Executive, and called the unempowered women he desperately wanted to champion "weak and intimidated."

Cunningham apparently failed to notice the hypocrisy of his position as a staff editorial writer for a daily paper that is also incidental fee subsidized and protected by the First Amendment. And when he got Mr. Kelton to champion the optional fee funding of the Commentator the biggest coup of the year was pulled off--in our favor.

The optional fee is democratic and fair when all student groups are put to a ballot or check-off system. However, when student government officials and petty staff writers for uninspired daily papers make power plays to isolate one group in an effort to censor that group, the optional fee loses both its democratic appeal and its fairness.

The fight against the First Amendment is always fought on these grounds: "What we say is for public consumption and is to be accepted as the gospel truth. What you say, provided you disagree, is inappropriate for the masses and disrespectful of a number of institutions and peoples. Wešre right, you're wrong."

While the First Amendment may forever come under the attack of extremists, it has yet to give in completely. Free speech was placed at the top of the list for a reason: Without free speech, there can be no freedom at all.

And with it, there will always be dissent, which is the basis for diversity of ideas.