Conservatism and Freedom of Speech

                           
                     
This post is primary for my conservative friends. If you are from more of a liberal or progressive outlook, you may want to sit this post out and read some other things on this blog. Over the last few months I have noticed a tendency amongst many conservatives and that is the proclivity of many conservatives to attempt to suppress the freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas.

I have seen this for many years and have experienced it first-hand with my blog posts. I have received several emails from friends and other conservative friends implying directly or indirectly, that I do not have a right to blog contrary views to the standardly held views. I even had one pastor tell me that I am doing the work of satan, all because I have chosen to disagree with Paige Patterson and his followers in the Southern Baptist Convention.

I have seen this tendency to want to suppress all dissent in conservative Evangelical circles and it greatly disturbs me, because these are the same conservatives who normally argue from the US Constitution, that we have the right to keep and bear arms and have a freedom to worship.

This blog exists to challenge the status quo in both liberal and conservative circles and I have to tell you my conservative friend, if you attempt to silence another person because he or she happens to express a view that is contrary to the one you presently hold, you are no better than the dictator of a repressive totalitarian regime who squashes free speech and the right to express dissent.

I have always believed in the free exchange of ideas, even if I do not agree with them. This is a quintessential American value, the freedom to disagree.

As long as I live, I will fight for the freedom of speech and one of the main reasons why I started this blog in the first place. I started this blog to speak out against a tendency to suppress dissenting views in the current nation wide leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention.

It is time for us conservatives to speak out for what we believe, even if the whole world is against us. Stop trying to infringe on the freedom of speech of others, for one day, someone may try to take your own right to the freedom of speech away.