Froze My Blood Cold

I logged on to my AOL service this afternoon and saw a headline on their news crawl that stopped me in my tracks:

"Some U.S. Students Say Press Freedoms Go Too Far"


ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???!!!


Seriously. I think I sat there for five minutes with my mouth hanging open.

But that's not the worst part.

No. The worst part was the informal poll questions asked within the body of the story:

"Should more restrictions be placed on the American press?"

and

"Should the government be able to approve news stories before the public reads them?"

Out of over 75,000 votes cast in this highly unscientific poll (as of this writing), 41% answered "Yes" to the first question. That was bad enough. But even worse, 13% of the respondents answered "Yes" to the second question as well.

Think about that. 13 out of every 100 respondents to this poll believed that the GOVERNMENT should be able to "approve" news stories before they are released to the public.

OK. If there was EVER a question where the response should not only be "no", but "HELL NO!" 100% of the time, that's IT!!!!

For those 87% of the people who voted "no" on that second question, kudos.

For those 13% of you who voted "yes", sit down. We need to talk.

For the love of everything that's good and holy, have you people lost what passes for your minds?!

Have you been so brainwashed by the rhetoric coming out of Washington that you believe the government should have control over what you see, hear, and/or read?!

There's a word for that kind of government. It's called a dictatorship. And if you think it works, just ask the people of Nazi Germany. Or Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or Haiti.

Seriously. Here's a quarter. Buy a clue. On second thought, here's a buck. You need to buy more than one. In fact, I think you need to have your heads examined.

As far as the 41% who voted "Yes" on that first question, we'll talk later. Right now I have to go bitch-slap a few people.