Your right to publicly express your thoughts and feelings is protected by the First Amendment.

Attempts to squash you like a bug when you offend by so doing are defended by, among others, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression in Charlottesville. Each year the Center publishes the Jefferson Muzzle Awards, a list of what they regard as the most egregious examples of expression-squashing, with clear and detailed explanations of just why each particular outrage was selected.

Curiously, this year's awards address a lot of politics and no sex. Expressions thwarted include demonstrations at the national political conventions, anti-Muslim decals, religious proselytizing, political T-shirts and satirization of the Virginia Tech shootings. And many of the awards point out inconsistent application of basically sound regulations.

Or the award may be given for what seems to be a wildly excessive reaction. For example, in Michigan, Judge Dennis Wiley sentenced Rev. Edward Pinkney to serious prison time for writing a letter to the editor of a local newspaper about another judge with whom he had issues, which included a biblical quote--'The Lord shall smite thee with consumption and with a fever and with an inflammation and with extreme burning.'--that Judge Wiley construed as feloniously threatening behavior.

The first award, and taken very seriously, is to the national Democratic and Republican parties for the creation of 'free speech zones' at their conventions, which eliminated the possibility of effective protest while allowing the parties to claim credit for facilitation.

Read the full text of this year's awards at http://www.tjcenter.org/muzzles/muzzle-archive-2009/

(Dave Sagarin, April 8, 2009)