Intellectual freedom is the only guarantee of a
scientific - democratic approach to politics, economic development, and
culture.
-Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov-
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-Benjamin Franklin-
Mark Adams is [in no particular order] a Lawyer, Restauranteur, Husband, Father, Grandfather, Landlord, Singer, Guitarist, Political Scientist, Amateur Historian and Rhetorician with no sense of reverence for anything except the freedom to speak one's mind. To visit Mark's Family Law Website
The grass-roots entry of bloggers into the political agenda-setting arena is the First Amendment working at its best.
First Amendment framers like Madison and Jefferson would be pleased at the emergence of this electronic town hall. Journalists and politicians shouldn't be the only people setting the public agenda.
Bloggers are the new voices of the public seeking to impact the national dialogue, joining talk radio as one of the few avenues to express public sentiment and have anybody notice.
Instead of freely allowing the press and politicians to determine the national agenda and then let the public react, bloggers are engaging in a process that might be called feed forward, telling the big shots what is on the public's mind.
This can only be healthy for democracy.
Jeffrey M. McCall is a professor of communication at DePauw University.
I dare say, at the risk having to buy a bigger hat, that with degrees in Law, Politics, Communications, and a History minor as well as being a small business owner and family man, I should be getting a lot more traffic. ;-)
