The first Amendment to the US Constituions begins: "Congress shall make no law..." The operative words being "Congress" and "law".

In this country everyone (allegedly) has the right to say anything they want to. Period. This means that the government can't punish or persecute you for saying anything. History shows repeatedly that this isn't actually true, and there certainly are legal limits on free speech (the "clear and present danger" doctrine and obscenity being two examples). However, the point is that free speech rights have to do with what governments may not do to individuals or groups.

The 1st Amendment to the US Constitution does NOT mandate that STL IMC, or any other group or individual, publish what any given wingnut wants them to. Do you get the difference?

Try walking into the studios at your local NBC or Fox affiliate and demanding your "right to free speech" in the form of air time from 7-9pm, so that you can discuss how the world is being run by a secret cabal of alien lizard-men holed up inside our hollowed-out earth. My suspicion is that you won't get any air time and that your civil rights lawsuit against the station will go nowhere. Because NBC and Fox have the free speech right to control their own content. OF COURSE there are huge problems with consolidation of media, but the point is that free speech says people and groups can say what they want, AND refrain from saying things that they don't (like the pledge of allegiance or the lord's prayer).

This is because free speech doesn't give anyone the right to compel others to say anything, it just gives individuals control over their own mouths and their own pens and paper.

I hate to beat this dead horse so thoroughly, but there are always a few wingnuts who claim that IMC (or whomever) using its 1st amendment rights to decide what it does or doesn't say is actually an affront to the 1st amendment.

STL IMC adopting a moderation policy IS FREE SPEECH! IT IS THE ESSENCE OF FREE SPEECH! IMC has the right to decide what does or doesn't appear on its website. Want to say something that IMC won't publish? Get off your lazy ass and start your own site!! You have the right to say what you want. You don't have the right to hijack the audience that others have built through hard work.

So please, if you don't like the policy, fine, say so. But PUHLEEAZE quit pretending that IMC is like the Gestapo, repressing your free speech rights. IMC has free speech rights too. Don't like it? Go live somewhere without free speech rights.