Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Conservative Crock

A seemingly hateful statement may in fact be meant as constructive criticism. The fine line between the two is intent. Unfortunately one of the hardest things to prove in an open society is intent. Without real hard evidence if an alleged criminal keeps his or her mouth shut they will never be brought to justice.


That is why we have laws with rules and regulations that allow freedom of speech. This freedom also extends to the third estate and to filmmaking. But we also have laws against using that freedom to incite riots and hate.


We attempt to keep our election process free of this type of veiled and incite full hatred. Often we fail to do so as was evident when a well funded hateful group of 'low-lifes' hijacked and successfully altered a recent election with their false claims. This tactic has become known as “Swift Boating.”


The courts are now wrangling with another debate that concerns freedom of speech and the campaign laws for fair elections.


A politically conservative group calling themselves ‘Citizens United’ put together a 90 minute hate film against Hillary Clinton and planned to use it in a campaign against the former First Lady during the 2008 Presidential election. Obviously their plans were ruined as Mr. Obama won the nomination but the movie still exists and is now offered on 'Pay Per View' stations. It is at the core of this ongoing debate.


America is a wonderful country that allows movies to be made and viewed even if they are awful; stupid; moronic; one-sided pieces of trash such as this. Our free enterprise system should then give its verdict with box office receipts and the producers either reap the benefit or lick their wounds.


It is a sad fact that this movie preaches to the choir and the people who already believe the filth and views therein to be true will spend their time and money watching this crap. It may even end up as a special on Fox News; possibly hosted by one of that network’s sad buffoonish commentators they laughingly call ‘fair and balanced.’


One can only hope that the era of hatred and divisiveness caused by the previous administration and its ilk of law breaking war mongers is nearing an end and that films such as these are put in their rightful place, Rush Limbaugh’s basement.

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