Assault on free speech won't let me sleep

The first word in these weekly diatribes shouldn’t be ‘I’ because it seems egocentric.
So I put that sentence in there to make sure it didn’t happen because today’s piece, when you peel back all the layers, is entirely about me.
Good luck with the peeling.
I started writing this week’s commentary at exactly 2:51 a.m. Friday morning. New Fort Madison physician Dr. Root is not going to like that because he told me to get out of bed when I can’t sleep and knit or something, anything away from the digital world. Here I sit with my laptop on, my back against three pillows, the fan running, and all sorts of craziness in my head.
I can’t sleep. I am literarily, not literally, literarily terrified.
I wanna talk with you all about something that scares me because people are getting killed over it. And it’s tremendously ironic because the killing is obviously being done by deeply disturbed people who need help and have access to guns.
Hold on. This is not about guns. Just keep reading. This one time, just keep reading.
It’s about the killing of a man of who made his bones under the umbrella of free speech. This man lost his life because the Second Amendment allowed a very frustrated and determined young man to have a weapon and he took a life. We fight to protect our Second Amendment rights, and we should, because it's foundational and it has precedent.
In that very same breath, the First Amendment affords us the right to say what we want right up to that old limit of “shouting fire in a crowded theater”. And we should protect that right with the same fervor. 
We fight with fever and passion to preserve our right to carry a weapon on the shoulders of arguably the greatest living document ever produced, but very recently we’ve just been wafting a hand at that very same document where it heralds just as loudly, “Congress shall make no law….abridging  the freedom of speech”.
When Donald Trump was elected president again, it ramped up the emotional temperament of the globe. My daughter and I texted and talked, and we still do, about the implications of these four years. I referenced with her the old adage -  'it isn’t the best system, but it’s what we’ve got.’ I told her I thought it was going to be a very interesting four years.
It's been a very interesting nine months and certainly it isn't all laid at the feet of the president.
My intention was to sit back and take it all in. See where this thing goes. Maybe we do start to see more balanced trade equity - we regain our economic footing on a global scale - we usher in peace where we can because we can. Maybe some of that is happening. There’s certainly energy there, but all that is noise in the background.
My curiosity and fascination with America and Americans has very quickly changed to deep concern that we, as Americans, are forgetting that advanced citizenry doesn’t always apply to our technological prowess.
It also applies to our sense of ‘One’. That thing that binds us all together – freedoms – all of them. My father served in the National Guard, my grandfather served, as well. I think the U.S. Army. That service has never been lost on me. The service of “Uncle” Bill who puts me up when I need to get away to a beach and fish spread in Florida is never too far from my mind as he spends more and more time at the VA hospital down there. Many times I ponder what my service is. Maybe God put me here to fight for people’s right to speak in my corner of the world.
We are after all “One Nation” and if we don’t endear to hold all of our rights as they were written to be  -"self-evident" -   to go to a church of our choosing, to be protected from unlawful search or siezure, to not be required to testify against ourselves, to carry a gun, to speak freely, et. al. – this upstart Republic, will descend quicker than it arose.
For the first time in my life, I see the pull-up bar that this 250-year old country has been working out on, coming away from the wall. And if we don’t stop to shore that up, it will crash with unimaginable consequences.
Government, of all the agencies in this great nation, cannot sensor speech, or even attempt to censor speech in any form. It is the end of everything. That censorial nightmare is the lava from Vesuvius - and we are Pompeii.
Yeah, it’s that dramatic. We see the FCC threatening licenses for people speaking their minds to captive audiences. And this has been even more ramped up in the tragic death of activist influencer Charlie Kirk. Teachers are being fired for commenting on his death, albeit asinine comments that have no place in respectful and intelligent discourse. Speech. The curse and blessing of Americanism, and the cause of a very heavy heart at 4:19 a.m. Friday morning.
On Tuesday, I heard Lee County Supervisor Chuck Holmes say he wondered if Lee County shouldn’t follow in the footsteps of other agencies and not hire anyone who has “celebrated an assassination”. Anyone who celebrates murder is barbaric, but as much as this sucks, and it does, it’s not illegal.
Charlie Kirk said things that simultaneously resonated with millions, while boiling the blood of millions of others. But Kirk would have, without question, jumped up and down on anyone who dared tread on our nation’s storied and foundational pillar of free speech.
Moving toward action to limit an otherwise qualified person from obtaining employment because of what they've said may very well have unintentionally compromised his oath of office. As a defender of the first amendment, any newspaper worth its readership would be remiss for not pointing out the ramifications that come along with his statement Tuesday. We hold it in the same regard, if not worse, as running a meeting while intoxicated. Both are unfortunate and doink the trust handed over by the electorate.
Holmes’ statement was a suggestion of censorship that can only been seen as unacceptable. When we move to action to stop people from their livelihoods because of something we’ve ‘seen they’ve said’ and the action comes from an elected official in an official capacity, we absolutely must take pause. 
Lee County residents should be concerned about any effort to disqualify a potential employee that has voiced support for, or in opposition to, Kirk's comments, in this specific case.
You could see the concern on Holmes’ face as he asked the question, and you could feel that angst drift over the others. It was painful for me to hear, and I felt empathy toward Holmes because you could literally feel he had been troubled even posing the question. Other supervisors jumped to caution and moved the discussion to shallow waters.
But did he violate his oath of office as a supervisor? Did he just fail to protect the Constitution of the United States?, the State of Iowa? We also have to protect his right to say what’s on his mind, we do, but where does that leave us other than to evaluate the intent of the question posed? Yuck.
As Aaron Sorkin wrote in “The American President”, and I’ve repeated many, many times as it's one of my favorite lines ever... “America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad.”
To be all in, you must be willing to defend what someone else says standing right next to you when the words that are coming out of that person’s mouth violate every sense of righteousness you have. That’s freedom of speech.  How’s your game?
Moving the FCC to threaten licenses and stall mergers and acquisitions if you don’t shut off your talking heads is nothing but a testing and wringing out of the Constitution they, too, are sworn to uphold. It’s no different than trying to take people’s guns under the scare tactic that they kill people. People kill people. But when we can’t get people to behave properly, many instincts are to go after the weapons – the guns. This administration’s take on that is if you can’t get people to stop talking bad about you, you go after the weapon – the money.
Let's just finish here. Well perceived and highly successful organizations are mission driven. I’m not convinced yet that Pen City Current is either well-perceived or highly successful - that remains to be seen. But I can promise you we are mission driven, at a minimum, to defend that very first amendment – in our own little corner of the world.
If we didn’t... at 5:16 a.m. on a Friday morning... would you?  And is that Beside the Point?
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.