Fenian Notes

Free speech, total unqualified expressions of ideas, especially very unpopular ones, is the foundation and essence of democracy and a free society.

The dilution of speech or qualifying circumstances of expression demeans and reduces a society to one that is semi-free. Unfortunately, this is the direction of the United States is heading at the outset of the 21st century.

The backbone of American society and culture is not the Constitution but the second constitution, the Bill of Rights. As constituted in 1789, the constitution had a hidden agenda and that was to preserve and protect the institution of slavery, a precondition to American States evolving their unity. The words designating African-Americans as three-fifths of a human being have never been deleted.

Speech is a powerful weapon of truth. It cannot be controverted; it can only be stifled and prevented through various means. The trend to stifle speech in favour of security has been an unwitting victim as of late.

Free speech is being redefined so that its exercise does not necessarily fall into the intent of the Bill of Rights, but instead is interpreted in the elusive context of the political moment. Free Speech is now fit speech as application has diluted it.

The original intent is unqualified free speech. Some see speech as a wall keeping government from issues threatening it. Others view it as government’s duty to regulate speech of the extremely powerful when they covertly attempt to control and regulate ideas which should be open to all.

Where should it all fall? Today provocative speech is in question and in this regard parents are being encouraged to block out offensive speech on a house-to-house basis. This preserves unqualified speech from regulation.

As Irish Republicans, we must be totally alert to all matters concerning speech. We who have consistently spoken out on Irish-related issues have been penalised for exercising our constitutional right.

Exercise on the side of controversy or unpopularity is construed in such a way that brings consequences, themselves a violation of the first amendment.

An individual can at any time freely speak words but always with a price for the exercise unless speech is used to rubber stamp an establishment position. Speech is not ever free.

Speech, as free as it might be, or as its portent might allude is in the end a commodity that may be exercised, but post-exercise, it is then a commodity that comes with a price determined by the present powers that be.

The reason America was born of terror and violence and not negotiation was due to the price for the expression of ideas that suggested change first the moving onto violent change when the former was rejected.

Situations such as Kosovo suggest that Washington does not impose this standard on itself but reacts with mass violence through the utilisation of bombs.

Today, people who are offended by words and conduct are seeking judicial redress which takes aim at the First Amendment right to free speech.

People who one would expect to be adamant supporters of free speech are now demanding restrictions on speech. Any restriction, even the slightest is against the wishes of America’s founders.

The reason for First Amendment (constitutional) protections on the encroachment of free speech comes not from just an ideal plucked out of some politician’s brain, but from intense brutal personal experience too often imposed by the British on colonial America.

THE American Revolution was proceeded by an era of protest that centred upon speech that was incisive and as time went on became volatile. There were riots, but only after British provocation.

One reads of the brutality surrounding the Bloody Sunday Massacre in Derry in 1972 by the British army. What were the British doing responding to unarmed civil rights protesters with well-aimed lethal fire which we always suspected was planned and now we know was planned and carried out according to plans resulting in 14 innocent people being shot to death.

What was at issue? The issue was the right to assemble, exercise legitimate dissent, based upon the right to free speech.

Civilised democratic societies not only tolerate such behaviour but encourage it because dissent is the foundation of democracy and the expression of free will of individuals and groups.

The British have a history of monitoring, twisting and denigrating dissent, if it reflects of the truth of their misconduct. It is true in Ireland and it was true in America. Both affect the Irish and the Irish-American community today.

If the British listened to dissent in America 225 years ago, there might not have been the necessity of a revolution to mend and settle grievances. Violence has always been a British initiative and a British solution.

British intolerance of free speech and assembly inspired the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Americans died for that right before and after as well as during the Revolution. By the same token, British soldiers died to prevent access to that right.

For years prior to the Revolution, Americans sought to redress grievances against the British Crown and what did they get for their troubles?

They were beaten, jailed, threatened, maimed and murdered. The British do not like to be questioned, and they are brutal to subject peoples, historically to the present.

The Sons of Liberty (SOL) were organised not as a group bent on the overthrow of the British government, but as a group aimed at protesting and demonstrating against British policy in America.

As we know, Americans were burdened with unjust taxes, forced to house the occupying British army and all the while having no representation in the British parliament.

The British viewed the colonists as very ungrateful to His Majesty’s Government’s policy and a disgrace to the name Englishmen. Anyone who is put down has the natural inclination to speak out and demand some form of justice. But they learned that British justice is no justice and to question their policy is regarded as subversion subject to harsh punishment.

Now, the average British soldier was in America because he was ordered here and that was his job. There was an element, a criminal element, brought in and they served, but not as disciplined soldiers.

Like the Black-and-Tans in Ireland, these British criminal soldiers were earning their freedom for their service and allowed to prey on the populace to strike a chord of fear into them, intended intimidation that it was believed would stifle and chill dissent. In some cases, it did work.

Americans held giant rallies to bring people’s attention to the wrongs being committed by the British. Many times, the army was in wait and charged into the crowd causing injury.

One of the more famous of these gatherings came to be known as “the Boston Massacre”. In this instance, the gathering turned particularly hostile and amid some conflicting versions, the British army fired directly in to a crowd of unarmed demonstrators, killing five.

Like Derry, the British claimed it was the provocation of the crowd which caused the gunfire. In both cases, it was not justifiable. Killing demonstrators is not the answer to dissent, though it is a typical British answer.

With the intent of protecting future demonstrators, the founders of the US in their wisdom wrote out, voted on and passed the First Amendment in conjunction with the other nine known collectively as the Bill of Rights.

Unfettered free speech was the original intent, but that too many times is ignored and reinterpreted to fit a circumstance. Each President’s Administration has a built-in device wanting to project itself from the opposition and will and has taken measures against dissenters that involves suppression of speech and assembly.

Unqualified free speech has been diluted and polluted by fearful leaders claiming inflammatory speech might cause a riot so it must be quelled by resort to force. This is an assumption and most probably unlikely to happen.

We in the States must strive to attain our constitutional rights which are guarantees. Unfortunately those guarantees are corrupted by politics and political decisions on legal matters. Legal matters, I believe, we would have a chance to win but politics holds its bloody sword over the head of Justice.

Simply put, we should have the right to assemble, to hold public meetings or demonstrations, and to petition guarantee the means to dissent or protest.

The people have the right to ask the government to correct wrongs or injustices. We try to exercise this right and we find out we are subjects of an FBI investigation.

WE should not have our invited speakers abide by preconditions to enable them to obtain a visa to come to the United States.

The Bill of Rights does not call for any qualifications to give one’s views. This is a British request accepted by the US making the Bill of Rights a political football.

As stated at the beginning, free speech and assembly exercise as intended, unless you are wealthy enough to buy your rights.

Our rights are paramount to us and dwarf the election we just had which ends up — who has the most money to buy a winner.

If the Irish Republicans in the US had enough money we could buy a candidate and force him to pressure the British to withdraw.

It is a shame candidates won’t do things for the right reason. There is always a price tag. Irish freedom won’t be bought, it will be won by unrepentant, unbought, true Republicans, and they are still out there — Ireland’s only hope. — Peadar Mac Fhínín

PS. My vote for a new name for Provos is Royal British Provisionals.
-- Peadar Mac Fhínín