With how widespread and far-reaching the Internet is today, it has become easier and easier to express ourselves to the world thru various different mediums such as writings, pictures, and videos. As an inhabitant of this country, the Constitution protects my rights to free speech allowing me the liberty to express my opinion to whomever I choose (to a certain extent). It is becoming more and more frequent though for people to be punished in this country for speaking their mind. Why is this? Our opinions are no long just heard by a select few. It’s easy to control information when data flow is extremely limited. Now however, since the world is exposed to the Internet, the bottleneck and restrictions on the way communications used to be has been completely made over. As a blogger it is more apparent to me that I am being targeted because my opinion is heard not only by my small group of friends anymore but also by people around the globe that I don’t even know. People are reading about my thoughts on Life, The Workplace, people, religion, and anything and everything else. Honestly this is a dangerous thing. People’s opinions are dangerous. A lot of people don’t care to hear other’s opinions especially when it clashes with their own opinion or their lives (which makes me wonder why they choose to acknowledge other’s opinions in the first place). Take for instance these two girls that wrote about the Catholic Church on their personal blogs. They work for John Edwards on his campaign. Some supporters of the Catholic Church (and not of Edwards obviously) wanted these two girls fired for some opinions expressed on women in the church. As bloggers, that will only add fuel to their American Rights Fire. Edwards however decided to not fire to bloggers, instead accepting regrets written by the two women.

With so much of our country being run off of commercialism, any bad publicity has become grounds for punishment. How long will this continue on? If our constitutional rights continue to be baked over by commercialism and people’s hurt feelings, where does that leave us that just want to let other’s know what we think? Is there no place for expressing creativity and opinions in the country anymore? Yes lets all be mindless drones that agree with everyone else where nothing is accomplished and there is no need to change. Sounds like a wonderful place! Where do I sign up? Better yet, where’s the door?