The Left’s Full-On Assault On Free Speech
For years now our friends on the left have pushed to end the protection of the secret ballot for workers deciding whether or not to unionize. In the lead-up to the hotly contested recall election in Wisconsin, leftist anti-Scott Walker activists used public voter and political contribution data to try and intimidate Scott Walker supporters. In shareholder meetings across the nation leftist activists have waged a quiet war to force companies to disclose their political contributions publicly so that the companies in question can be attacked for supporting non-leftist candidates and/or causes.
Nationally Presisdent Obama has not been shy about naming companies and even individual donors he sees as his political enemies, and now the IRS under President Obama is fighting a legal war against political non-profits in an attempt to get them to disclose their supporters (even as the President himself claims executive privilege to avoid disclosures in the Fast and Furious controversy).
Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina comments on those legal developments on the Obama campaign website:
Something big happened in Richmond last week—and a couple millionaires and billionaires are hoping you didn’t notice.
The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed last week that groups like the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity and Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS should have to disclose exactly who’s behind the millions of dollars they’re spending to influence this election.
They’re going to try to avoid this for as long as they can. After all, they have a vested interest in being able to spend millions anonymously to influence our elections—many of the corporations and individuals funding their organizations don’t want their agendas to receive scrutiny from the press or the public.
The left covers these efforts in a cloak of “transparency” and “accountability.” Really, though, political non-profits offer protection for individuals and businesses who don’t want to be targeted by political thugs. Political non-profits offer these people/organizations the same sort of protection the anonymous ballot offers us. It allows them to express opinions without fear of retaliation.
A private group representing private individuals shouldn’t have to disclose who supports them.
Tags: Barack Obama, free speech
