by Dewy Morris

Created on: October 18, 2008

When dealing with the issue of public opinion which gave birth to our "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press" as outlined in the United States Constitution we need to go back in time to the very beginning of this Country. "British America" was the original name for what we now know as the United States of America and was the name used by Great Britain until the Treaty of Paris of 1783. The original thirteen colonies rebelled against British rule because the King of England imposed a tax on the colonies tea. Our founding forefathers said "NO" to the tax and dumped the tea into the Boston River and it became known as the "Boston Tea Party". The very act sparked the American Revolution which gave rise to what we call democracy. Democracy simply means free and equal representation of the people in government affairs.

During the times of the colonies public opinion was very important to the town folks and everybody had a voice and was allowed to voice their opinion. When the public's views were needed to address certain issues that the town's officials felt like they needed for their decision making policies the people were called to voice their opinions. They would meet at the center of the town outside and they took a stand on a wooden box and gave their opinion. This is where we get the idea "public town square". Every city in the US has a town square!

Without our voice "public town square" we have no democracy which leaves the door wide open for the tyrants of big government and what we now call Corporate America to become our legal representatives before Congress. Our very voices are now drowned out by lobbyist of special interest groups. Our country is no longer run by the laws of morality and general public interest in terms of our Constitution, The Peoples Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. The laws of commerce have taken over and greed and corruption have become our legal representatives.

The freedom of speech and freedom of the press was and still is our legal guardian and has all but been censored out and been replaced by the catch phrase of being "politically correct and politically incorrect". Complete utter nonsense that would make a mocking bird blush! The news and print media are so biased in their reporting as not to hurt their "ratings" in conjunction to their sponsors paying millions of dollars to advertise their products and services so they can ram it down the viewer's throat and make a killing off of the unsuspecting couch

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