I might be ignorant, or I might be stupid, or I might be uneducated, but one thing I know is that I have a birth certificate from Michigan ("unlike our President!") and that means I am American and that means I have the right to my opinion. And if my opinion is absolutely bizarre and I start wearing tea bags on a hat and thinking that somehow moving the tax rate on the richest 1% of Americans back to the pre-Bush era is somehow un-American my expectation is not that all the "idiots" who don't agree with me will stand up with me and say "YOU BET," but that they will absolutely defend my right to this curious behavior and odd thought process.
I am an American. Because I'm a pacifist and do not believe in the death penalty does not mean I'm an "idiot" and does not mean I'm a "Muslim who has changed his name." It means I live in a free country and if I want to believe our President was born in Somali or France or Cuba and therefore, regardless of absolute facts to the contrary, I want to believe he can't legally serve then by god I have the absolute expectation my fellow Americans will defend my right to free speech and will defend that right with their lives.
Calling someone an "idiot," calling someone a "Muslim who changed his name," calling someone a "terrorist," calling someone a "terrorist sympathizer," quelling someone's right to his or her opinion by saying things like "you don't support the troops," suggesting someone is a communist (which by the way is also a right guaranteed to citizens of this country) isn't supporting "free speech." When the lady whose child serves in our military talks about freedom of speech in the same breath as abbreviating someone's right to his free speech we are dealing with a hypocrisy that is not easily understandable or that even places us on a plane of reason where we can begin an intelligent conversation.
And without that ability to have this reasoned discussion we no longer have the United States of America her Constitution and Bill of Rights. And that is where I see these "conservatives," these "rightwing pundits" leading us. Not toward a greater America, but toward defeat; however, I'm perfectly willing to defend their contrary opinion, but with the caveat I believe it is wrong on a level not easily understood.
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