Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of Freedom's Creed. I've been out of pocket for a couple of weeks, and I'm glad to be back behind the microphone and look forward to this episode with you. And let me just state from the outset here that this episode may be a little longer than past episodes, because frankly, what I'm about to talk about is something that really gets me fired up, and I am appalled at some of the things that are taking place in our country. If you've listened to past episodes of my podcast, you know that I started this podcast based upon the principles of liberty and freedom. And so naturally, the founding documents of our country are important to me as they should be to each one of us. But unfortunately, there are many outlets in the world today, particularly in our society here in America, that seem to have an aversion to the truth. And unfortunately, many of the people who are associated with these outlets seem to also have an aversion to the freedom to speak and to promote an idea or a concept, particularly if it is in direct contravention to what they propose and what they, I guess you could say, preach. So on my podcast, I make a concerted effort to make sure that I am trying to speak in a controlled fashion, that I don't get too fired up, that I don't get too emotional, that I'm not basing the things that I say on a hundred percent emotion. Now, emotion is a good thing, but it needs to be controlled. It can't allow or it can't be allowed to dictate the way that we communicate, the way that we interact with one another. We have these emotions, yes, but we can't allow them to take control of us. We need to be in control of them. That is my opinion, but I think it's an opinion that is well founded and that frankly most of us likely ascribe to. On a prior episode, episode 11 actually, I talked about the government's assault on liberty via taxes and the national debt. Today I'm talking about trust and the freedom to speak. We live at a time that we're witnessing a serious, I think, lack of trust by many citizens across all dimensions of our society, of the government, media, business, etc., because these particular entities don't have our best interests at heart. And because of that, they use the platforms that they have to speak the way that they want people to adhere to or the things that they want people to adhere to, as opposed to giving the unvarnished truth about a particular topic. And by no means am I saying that I am speaking the absolute truth with every syllable that I utter, but what I am doing is I am trying to present those things that I see, those things that I know about and study, and the way that our founding documents square those thoughts with what is, I think, reality. But unfortunately, it's not reality for some people. So when we trust someone or something, we have more or should have more than a reasonable assurance that our confidence will be increased in that trust because of what that person or what that entity is delivering to us. In other words, we expect that a win-win scenario will be the ultimate outcome because that's the kind of society that we live in. We live in a society that allows for the freedom and liberty of all citizens to express themselves and to pursue their hearts' content, that which will bring happiness to them and to their families. Now, I know some of you may say that that is naive, and perhaps it is, but shouldn't we expect to be rewarded for the placement of our trust? I think so. Ultimately, the only person we can really trust is ourselves. We can't really control the outcome of other people and the things that they say or do. So, yes, we have a responsibility to, number one, trust ourselves and not just blindly follow someone else or some entity without doing the research ourselves. It just makes sense to me. Furthermore, we should be trustworthy ourselves and never give anyone a reason to doubt our trust or our trustworthiness. In today's environment, it's very difficult to put any trust or confidence in political figures or members of the media. I think most of us want our politicians to do the things that they campaigned on, and if they fail to deliver, then we have a responsibility to vote them out of office. Unfortunately, we can't do the same with members of the media. So the members of the media definitely have a lot of control over speech and over the things that we consume in terms of news. When politicians or members of the media do those things that limit speech or that don't support the freedom of speech, then we should all have some reasons to be concerned. I mean, shouldn't we all be able to reasonably put our trust in any news source? No matter the source? Why does every other media outlet scrutinize what their so-called mouthpiece actually reports on what is news? I get it. There's an agenda, and the drivers of that agenda, which sadly, by the way, I think there are something like six different companies that control roughly 90% of the news media in this country. So, yes, there is an agenda, and the purveyors of this so-called news do their best to not let you forget it. And I'm not sure what's worse, the media pundits and those who are supposed to report the news or the politicians themselves. In reality, it seems to me that politicians are worse because they actually take an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. So they have a solemn duty to lead or to teach the merits of the Constitution and our founding documents. And I don't see that much. I'm not sure if you do, but I just don't see that. It's very troubling to me that in 2021 that there are politicians and others, but particularly politicians who want to not just want to, but are censoring speech. It's a very troubling thing to me, and I think it should be to every American. The Declaration of Independence states that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. In fact, the Declaration goes on to say that quote, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness. Irrespective of the fact that it may not have at one time in our country. I'm not going to fall for the arguments that somehow America is a racist nation that is unworthy to continue as is because of past sins. It's just ridiculous. So, no, I will not allow myself to be brainwashed into thinking in this way. It's just not the case. Look at America today. America is thriving. America is a place for all people, no matter what your background is, no matter what your ethnicity is, it's a place where you can thrive. So no, I'm not going to be, as I said, brainwashed into believing that somehow, because of the sins of America and the past and the founding fathers and all that, that somehow the merits of our founding are illegitimate or otherwise not accepted. I mean, please. But here is one of the real concerns for me. It's politicians who are off the rails, it's members of the media who carry their water and they continue to perpetuate these falsehoods and these notions of America being somehow a diseased country. It's ridiculous. And when we witness these things, here's another quote from the Declaration that we should remember. It says this, quote, but when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security. We can do this with our politicians. We can provide new guards for our future security. It's very simple. Unfortunately, we cannot do this with the media or other entities or bureaucrats who are unelectable and unaccountable to the people. For the rest of this episode, I'm going to talk about something as an example of what I mean when it comes to the freedoms that we have, particularly the freedom of speech. There's an organization that I learned about recently called Pen America, and they supposedly exist to ensure the freedom of speech, that writers should be able to write what they want to write without being scrutinized or ridiculed or censored for doing so. In other words, they're an organization that is supposed to be supporting the free speech that is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights in the First Amendment. However, I don't think that that's the case with this organization, though this is what they profess. And if I could, I would read an entire article. Actually, it's a letter that they wrote to President Biden. You can find this on their website, which is P-EN.org, the title of which is White House Must Establish Disinformation Defense and Free Expression Task Force. That title alone should make you wonder, but this letter was actually written to the president on April 29th, 2021. And in the first paragraph, it says in part, quote, we are writing as a coalition of human rights, free speech, democracy, and technology organizations to urge the creation of a federal interagency disinformation defense and free expression task force with domestic policy leadership, end of quote. They actually write in the letter, quote, urgent action is needed to ensure that our democracy does not continue to be overrun by disinformation, be it domestic or foreign in origin. Sound public health policy, free and fair elections, and effective democratic deliberation all depend upon getting disinformation under control. End of quote. Ladies and gentlemen, pure and simple, this comes down to what they themselves consider to be disinformation when in reality it's information that they disagree with or dislike, yet is nevertheless true. They tend to try to say all the right things to hook people, but they're saying the wrong things, in my opinion. And the very fact that they are proposing a disinformation defense and free expression task force is extremely troubling in my mind. They go on to say that they are urging the president to take immediate action to get this task force up and running so that they can identify steps that the government can take to combat disinformation while safeguarding freedom of expression, quote unquote. They make no bones about getting other departmental organizations involved, again, unelected bureaucrats such as the Department of Commerce, the Department of Education, the Department of Justice, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and even the Institute for Museum and Library Services, if that's not enough. Oh, and the National Science Foundation, too, of course. In the last paragraph of the letter, they say this quote, disinformation is both an urgent and rapidly evolving issue. The threat is Protean, end of quote. In other words, Protean is the ability to assume a different form, and it's taken from Proteus, who is the Greek god capable of assuming different forms. They go on to say in the last paragraph of this letter to the president, quote, in order to make the task force effective, we believe it must have twin mandates to provide near-term recommendations and to provide ongoing consultation and new initiatives over time. The task force should be mandated to deliver within the first year of your administration a comprehensive set of principles and overall policy, funding, and legislative recommendations for addressing disinformation and protection of free expression. It should also be mandated to provide periodic updates to these recommendations in recognition of the rapidly shifting cultural, political, regulatory, and technological environment. Isn't Penn America so very concerned about the freedom of expression? They're so concerned that they want to shut down what they refer to as disinformation. Now, if you're like me, you have probably already thought about how Orwellian this is in nature, thinking about George Orwell and his two novels 1984 and Animal Farm. Orwell used such terms as new speak, double think, or the thought police. It seems to me that Pan America is desiring to see the creation of a ministry of truth to put down all disinformation, aka information that they find troubling or don't agree with or doesn't fit their narrative. That's scary, folks. It really is. And we need to educate ourselves about what's happening in our country and how our founding documents are being trampled upon, plain and simple. And you don't think we're living in a dystopia right now? Have we not been living this kind of life in the last year or so with the COVID-19 pandemic? Has it not been a prime example of how the government wants to control its citizens? Now, I'm not questioning whether COVID-19 was a legitimate virus. It truly was and is, and it's killed a lot of people. But the government never met a crisis it didn't like, so Ram Emanuel has told us. They have latched on to COVID-19 and are using it to their advantage to try to control the people. It's no different than the things that took place in Orwell's novels. And I can't help but believe that these are the things that Penn America is talking about. They want to shut down information that they don't agree with, and they want it, no less, to be mandated by the government. Think about the way Orwell wrote about Newspeak. Does Newspeak not sound a little bit like the disinformation defense and free expression task force that Pan America is promoting? It sure sounds a lot like it to me. Listen to this from George Orwell himself with respect to Newspeak. He says, Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a party member could properly wish to express while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words, which I say is aka disinformation, Orwell continues, and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example, the word free still existed in New Speak, but it could only be used in such statements as this dog is free from lice, or this field is free from weeds. It could not be used in its old sense of politically free or intellectually free, since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend, but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum. They're essentially calling for a ministry of truth that is going to mandate the things that people can say, the information that people can put forth, even if it's true. But they will deem it untrue because they disagree with it, therefore it is uh labeled by them as disinformation. Ladies and gentlemen, this should be troubling to all of us. When the Declaration of Independence was penned, the colonists had some complaints against King George III. And as for my positive thought to end this episode, I'd like to read these words from the Declaration. All having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. And with that, if you can think it, you can plan it. If you can plan it, you can do it.