I work for the government, and see every day the fact that our freedoms are eliminated by our employer. We do not have the freedom of speech given to us by our forbearers, who so wisely understood the need to allow for criticism, direct or indirect of our leaders and employers.
However, the more I look at the intrusiveness of government, the more concerned I become. When there are federal strings attached, you must bury your opinion or your political values to get those dollars. Right or wrong, the government promotes an insidious way of life. The office and agencies of government have become found a way to control the tongues of their employees by adopting policies that censor and inhibit and stifle express.
This was never more clear to me when a blog piece I saw which criticized an administrator. They flew into a minor rage and demanded the shut down of the blog.
If you cannot criticize the workplace, you who work for the man, have the same problem. Working anywhere where they tell you what you can and cannot say in so many ways, shows that the principles of American public life and government do not apply to you in that contextual situation.
You see the powers that be do not want you to speak against them and their policies. Maybe it hurts their feelings. Maybe it exposes their deliberate lies and unethical behavior. But when you work for the Nazis, are you a Nazi or not. I mean think about Hitler's government. If you worked for it, were you part of his atrocities? So likewise, when you are virtually shut down because you work in the government, are you stopped from being expressing yourself. Absolutely?
Why is this critical? Because there shouldn't be any place where the freedom of speech, the freedom to gather, and the other rights guaranteed by the constitution are dissolved for political, bureaucratic or institutional purposes.
What do you think? Have you given over your rights, yet.
A. Durer of SpeaknStomp
"Caught between the longing for love and the legal tender!" Jackson Browne
Recent Blog piece related:
http://speaknstomp.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/resistance-is-"t-and-the-borg/
