When Lance Armstrong was winning his 49th Tour de France, it occurred to me that it was probably not appropriate for the United States Postal Service to be the sponsor of the cycling team. Shirts, commercials, tires, whatever it is that a sponsor does, really shouldn’t be where a government agency spends its money. Granted, it wasn’t exactly my tax dollars, but still my little stamp was supporting a sports team.
But that was child’s play, as I now learn. There is what appears to be a blog called Pushing Back. Except it isn’t really a blog. It just looks like one. It’s message is “Making the drug problem smaller.” Well, that’s a fair enough reason to blog. There are a lot worse, right?
With a hat tip to Jamie Spencer at Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer, and Robert Guest at I was the State, it appears that Pushing Back is a front for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Your tax dollars at work. Mine too.
In fairness to the ONDCP, it doesn’t hide its connection to Pushing Back or pretend that it’s some legitimate reflection of public sentiment. But it also doesn’t function like a real blog, where readers are permitted to comment and engage in a dialog that challenges or supports its editorial stance. Robert Guest calls them Drug War Cowards for the refusal to allow the public (that would be people like us who pay the freight for this phony blog) free speech.
So we’re left with two issues generated by our Government’s entry in the blogosphere: first, is this what our government should be doing? Do we want the executive branch putting out fake blogs to promote its point of view on our dime? The second issue is why our Government likes to tell us what to do, but doesn’t want to hear anything back from us. The lack of free speech, decried by both Jamie and Robert, reflects the Government’s lack of interest in what the public has to say.
In the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln spoke of “government of the people, by the people, for the people…” Today, one would be hard-pressed to explain how the Government wants nothing to do with the people. Except take their money to fund it’s blog, amongst other things.
But that was child’s play, as I now learn. There is what appears to be a blog called Pushing Back. Except it isn’t really a blog. It just looks like one. It’s message is “Making the drug problem smaller.” Well, that’s a fair enough reason to blog. There are a lot worse, right?
With a hat tip to Jamie Spencer at Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer, and Robert Guest at I was the State, it appears that Pushing Back is a front for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Your tax dollars at work. Mine too.
In fairness to the ONDCP, it doesn’t hide its connection to Pushing Back or pretend that it’s some legitimate reflection of public sentiment. But it also doesn’t function like a real blog, where readers are permitted to comment and engage in a dialog that challenges or supports its editorial stance. Robert Guest calls them Drug War Cowards for the refusal to allow the public (that would be people like us who pay the freight for this phony blog) free speech.
So we’re left with two issues generated by our Government’s entry in the blogosphere: first, is this what our government should be doing? Do we want the executive branch putting out fake blogs to promote its point of view on our dime? The second issue is why our Government likes to tell us what to do, but doesn’t want to hear anything back from us. The lack of free speech, decried by both Jamie and Robert, reflects the Government’s lack of interest in what the public has to say.
In the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln spoke of “government of the people, by the people, for the people…” Today, one would be hard-pressed to explain how the Government wants nothing to do with the people. Except take their money to fund it’s blog, amongst other things.
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