I Will Not Be Silenced

When I entered the world of blogging last August, in the heat of the presidential election, I had no idea what I was getting into or how addictive it would be. For 25 years I thought that I was an engineer, but recently I’ve found out that I could be a writer one of these days if I keep working at it.

My classrooms are my online blogs and my teachers are my readers whom grade my efforts every day with the buttons on their mice. So far, the cost of my tuition has only been my time spent researching and writing my comments and opinions. Blogspot.com does not charge me for the space that my work occupies on their computer servers. If my reader base keeps growing at the current rate, later this year I will be forced to spend ten or fifteen dollars a month to pay for hosting services, but that time is still down the road a bit.

My blogs are non-commercial as I do not place advertisements on them and I have no intention to do so in the immediate future. I also have absolutely no commercial or direct affiliation with any political group. What I say and write is what I believe and no one can change that without making a convincing argument and presenting facts to support same.

Recently I have learned of a major problem out there on the horizon. It looms over the future of the blogosphere as we know it like the plague. It threatens to make what we do here every day illegal if we happen to mention politics in our writings.

We need your help.

It seems that certain politicians have had it with bloggers being able to use their free speech rights to express political messages. They want to use the McCain Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act to limit the activities of bloggers. They want to say that if I supply a link to a political candidate’s web site that I am supplying an “in-kind” political contribution.

They want to calculate the percentage of the value of my computer(s) and other hardware and the cost my cable modem internet service that is dedicated to political commentary and add that to the total.

If I have a wildly popular blog (which I as yet do not have) they want to give a cash value to my link and potentially charge me with a felony if the cash value of the link exceeds certain limits ($2000 for an individual.)

This is completely insane. CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, The New York and LA Times and Dan Damn Rather can spout whatever crap they want to say during a campaign, but I can’t write my silly little blog?

They are afraid of the bloggers and they want to silence us. As I said before, we need your help.

I wrote the following letter to my two state Senators:

The Honorable Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson

Gentlemen,

I am very concerned about the potential effect that the recent lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission, upheld by Judge Colleen Kollar-Ketelly, will have on political speech on the Internet.

For the past eight months I have written a current events/political blog, "What I'd Liked To Have Said", which enjoys a small monthly readership.

I have no connections to any political party and I receive no funding from anyone to support the costs of writing my opinions and posting them on the internet. There is also no cost to my readers, both liberal and conservative, to visit my blog. In the free market economy of the "blogosphere," if I don't write anything worth reading, then my blog has no readers. It's just that simple.

Regarding this lawsuit and interpretation of the legislation, my concern is that individuals like myself will be unfairly limited in our rights to free speech regarding political issues while groups like 527's will be allowed to use virtually unlimited funding to spread their messages. The mainstream media will also be allowed to continue to spread obvious left wing biased stories without recourse from the public.

My real fear is that in the event that my blog happens to be successful and grow a large reader base as blogs like Powerline and Captain's Quarters have done that I could be shut down and charged with a felony for exceeding in-kind contribution limits by the FEC.

It is unfair that I can verbally say anything I want but that I cannot write the same thoughts and concepts and post them on the internet without fearing government intervention.

I will not sit idly by while my basic rights are infringed upon. My readers and many friends and colleagues on both sides of the political aisle stand as ready as I to defend the Constitution.

We demand a hearing on McCain-Feingold, with open testimony before the press and our colleagues, and we demand action to reform or repeal this dangerous and un-American muzzle on political speech.

We await your response, sirs.

Best Regards,

Virgil Raymond Rogers, III


I ask that you write your own letter to your state Senators and express your opinion on this matter. There is a web form over at Town Hall that will allow you to write an E-Mail accomplishing this task.

If we do not act firmly and quickly, the information revolution that is the blogosphere will fade into history and the political left will again control the dissemination of information in our society and world.