by L.B. Woodgate

Created on: January 10, 2010   Last Updated: January 11, 2010

Within the framework of our Constitution and the heritage of our democracy exists the “inalienable right” of free speech. This personal liberty has become so in-grained in who we are as a people that a lot of what passes as free speech does little to benefit a civil public discourse.

Yet even the most vitriolic attacks by some are guaranteed under the Constitution and, offended or not, I will always acknowledge that legal right. But I would challenge the practice of so-called free speech that shouts down others’ 1st amendment rights or that cries fowl at their perceived enemy in clandestine fashion, not exposing themselves for any form of rebuttal. I challenge this because I am the victim of such surreptitious “free speech”

I have a “secret admirer” who has now sent me two letters in the mail in response to comments I have made public in the “Letters” column of my local newspaper. They categorize me as an un-American, anti-capitalist, “socialist/Marxist fool”.

He/she assumes I have never been employed in the 'private sector', nor have I ever 'served in any branch of the military'. He/she further presumes, hyperbolically, that liberals are incapable of hard work and that we all typically engage in “lying, cheating, stealing, buying votes, destroying reputations, etc. ... to accomplish our goals”.

My secret admirer further denigrates President Obama as a “Marxist baboon” and a “thug” and presumes he was part of the the so-called Daley corrupt political machine in Chicago.

In these attacks on me this person implies a disdain I am assumed to have for the Constitution and what it represents. And yet this person seems uncertain that their free speech rights allow them to make the comments he/she does without worry of being imprisoned, fined, or legal personal retaliation.

I draw this conclusion because their vicious comments are conveyed behind the impersonal veil of anonymity. Apparently this person feels they need to callously attack my character and my beliefs under the cloak of secrecy because they lack the conviction that the Constitution protects them against such small minded practices.

I do not wish to deny my secret admirer their 1st amendment rights but I would ask that they express them in a more nobler and courageous fashion than by stealth through unidentifiable and distant mailings.

I support sound, ideological opposing views to keep

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