by Gary C. Gibson

Created on: April 13, 2007   Last Updated: July 04, 2009

Freedom of speech rightly should be judged on both quantitative and qualitative scales of measurement. The paradigmatic liberty of expression is the essential right protected by constitutional law, yet of equal, practical importance is the defense of free speech from the hegemony of power. The founders were political pragmatistrs and addressed issues that adversely affected civil liberties as they arose. Today global corporate domination of the broadcast media has given corrupting concentrations of power through wealth a decisive quantitative edge in the dissemination of free speech. The U.S. Government is itself responsible for the surrender of the broadcast airwaves to global corporate power and direction. The Congress has abandoned the rights of American citizens to have equal political access to broadcast free speech on the all-important broadcast wavelengths for a decade when Internet podcats design technology could have used a reallocated wavelength spectrum to individual citizen users at no cost. The vital interest of a level quantitative free speech field is compelling for the preservation of a democracy rather than a corporatist form of government.

How is Don Imus' 'nappy headed ho' comment like a Jim Crow power? Does the broadcast media flank the intent of the first amendment? Does it allow a concentration of power to repress civil political independence instead of to encourage it? Paradigmatic and use-context questions regarding free speech are implicitly related today.

In the Dred Scott decision the U.S. Supreme Court essentially ruled that blacks were not human, that blacks were excluded from constitutional protections because they weren't men and as such weren't required to be treated equally before the law, and that slaves were property everywhere in all of the states and could not be taken from their owners. This decision forced America finally into the civil war after innumerable precursor steps. The nation today should be well past black and female discrimination issues and onto reinforcement of individual rights yet the media can strum the public attention and command it to react to what it deems meaningful to release. Broadcast power power to corrupt democracy and prevent local political autonomy is extreme as it subjugates all politics unto global corporate will.

Freedom of speech does not meant a corporate right to dominate the electromagnetic spectrum for pervasive free speech influence politically. If the U.S. Government was capable

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