To the editor:<\/p>\n
In 1950, Senator Margaret Chase Smith stood alone in the Senate chamber to deliver her \u201cDeclaration of Conscience.\u201d Faced with the toxic McCarthyist culture of \u201ccharacter assassination,\u201d she famously warned that the Republican Party must not ride to victory on the \u201cFour Horsemen of Calumny: Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, in the halls of the Florida Legislature, those horsemen are once again being saddled up.<\/p>\n
The Senate was intended to be the world\u2019s greatest deliberative body, yet Smith watched it devolve into a forum of hate. She defended the fundamental right to dissent without being labeled disloyal and the right to hold unpopular beliefs without facing professional ruin. \u201cFreedom of speech is not what it used to be in America,\u201d she noted plainly. \u201cIt has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Floridians today face a similar \u201cchilling\u201d of their fundamental rights. We did not send representatives to Tallahassee to increase state-sanctioned powers of oppression or to wield government authority against citizens based on \u201cperceived\u201d threats or political advantage.<\/p>\n
The modern suite of legislation moving through our capitol mirrors the very hysteria Senator Smith risked her career to condemn. <\/p>\n
These bills seek to:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Expand domestic surveillance and law enforcement access to private digital data.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Increase discretionary administrative powers and \u201ccommittees\u201d to pass judgment on citizens.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Target civic participation and expression based on shifting religious or political doctrines.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Label business practices or personal beliefs as \u201cun-American\u201d to justify state interference.<\/p>\n
Specifically, bills like\u00a0SB 1632\u00a0(Ideologies Inconsistent with American Principles),\u00a0SB 1712\u00a0(Statewide Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism Unit), and\u00a0SB 1178\u00a0(Foreign Influence) conjure the same \u201cboogeymen\u201d Smith identified decades ago. By normalizing and codifying the suppression of dissent, these measures fracture the American principles of liberty and due process.<\/p>\n
Marsha Ellis<\/p>\n
Estero Rural Fringe (Unincorporated Lee)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: In 1950, Senator Margaret Chase Smith stood alone in the Senate chamber to deliver her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-183027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}