Michael Snyder, Contributor

Activist Post

Do you believe that parents should be able to spank their children? Do you ever express that opinion to others? If so, then you could be sent to prison.

Sadly, that is exactly what happened to one pastor up in Wisconsin recently.

A minister named Philip Caminiti was sentenced to 2 years in prison for simply teaching that parents should spank their children when they misbehave. Please note that Caminiti was not accused of spanking anyone or of physically hurting anyone. He was put in prison simply for his speech. He was put in prison simply for what he was teaching others to do.

Whether you agree with spanking your children or not, this should be incredibly sobering for all of us. Increasingly, speech is being penalized in the United States. Much of the time, the focus of the attacks by the forces of political correctness is on religious speech. If this trend continues, many of you who are reading this article might be put in jail for the things that you say in the coming years.

When many of us were growing up, once in a while our parents would take out a belt or a wooden paddle and give us a paddling on the behind when we did something wrong.

Was there anything wrong with that?

Of course not.

Yes, there is real child abuse that goes on out there, but in the vast majority of instances spanking does not do any lasting physical harm. Rather, it benefits the child because it helps them learn what is right and what is wrong.

I know that when I got a licking on the behind as a child that helped me to remember not to do the same thing again.

But Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi was absolutely horrified that some parents would actually use a wooden spoon to spank their little children when they misbehaved.

Perhaps that judge should actually try to spank someone with a wooden spoon some time. You simply cannot do much damage with a wooden spoon.

Instead of going after the parents who were doing the spanking, prosecutors chose to go after the pastor instead. They claimed that Caminiti was “the spoke in the wheel of this conspiracy“.

Even after Caminiti leaves prison, he will be forbidden from having any contact with his old church….

Caminiti will be on extended supervision for six years after his release from prison. Despite objections on constitutional grounds by Caminiti’s lawyers, Sumi ordered that he not have any contact with the Aleitheia Bible Church and have no leadership role in any church.

What in the world is happening to this country?

Criminal predators are literally eating the faces off of people, and yet authorities want to go after pastors who are encouraging their congregations to follow the teachings of the Bible?

Have we stepped into a really bizarre episode of The Twilight Zone?

Sadly, this is not the only example of how our free speech is under attack these days.

Up in New York, a new bill was recently introduced that would outlaw all “mean-spirited and baseless political attacks”.

I think that would cover a whole lot of people that leave comments on my blog.

The following is how a recent article by Kurt Nimmo described what this new law would require….

New York state government is attempting to pass the measure in both the Senate and the Assembly. The legislation has been referred to the Codes Committee in the Senate, and the Government Operations Committee in the Assembly.

Both proposals are identical and would affect messages posted on message boards, blogs, social networks, and ‘any other discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages.’ The law would require websites to post email addresses for ‘removal requests, clearly visible in any sections where comments are posted.’ Those demanding the removal of content they find objectionable, however, would have their anonymity protected.

‘Had the internet been around in the late 1700s, perhaps the anonymously written Federalist Papers would have to be taken down unless Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay revealed themselves,’ notes David Kravets, writing for Wired.

Will we soon see laws such as this nationwide?

Will all blogs and websites soon be at the mercy of the politically correct police?

Up in Buffalo, New York it is apparently now against the law to hand out Christian tracts on a public sidewalk. At least that is what one man was told recently when he attempted to hand out tracts outside of an Italian heritage festival. The following is from a recent WorldNetDaily article….

While handing out tracts to willing recipients on a public street during a public festival, Owen was approached by a police officer who declined to identify himself but told him that the Buffalo Police Department is ‘the law’ and he should stop handing out tracts.

According to the lawsuit: ‘Subsequently, another police officer, Officer Slomka, arrived on the scene. She quickly informed Owen that they could not hand out tracts in the festival and explained that the prohibition was “by our orders.” Owen asked for her name, and she replied: “Slomka, write it down.” Owen advised that he believed the tracts to be free speech; nonplussed, Officer Slomka reiterated that they couldn’t hand out tracts there and had to go outside of the festival area to continue with their expressive activity.’

Then, ‘Owen inquired as to whether they would be arrested if they continued to hand out tracts in the festival area, to which, Officer Slomka replied: “Yes.”‘

That almost makes me angry enough to take a trip over to Buffalo and hand out tracts right outside the police station.

Even if you do not ever distribute literature, you should be alarmed at how our freedom of speech is being eroded.

The truth is that whenever anyone has their freedom of speech attacked it is an attack on all of us.

If we are not careful, we are going to end up just like Canada.

At one high school up in Canada recently, a student was suspended from school for a week for wearing a shirt with the following message….

Life is wasted without Jesus

The student was told that the shirt was “hate talk” and that he would be suspended for the rest of the year if he tried to wear it to school again.

They are coming for our free speech ladies and gentlemen.

They are not going to be satisfied until they have either shut all of us up or put all of us in prison.

It is imperative that we all stand up for free speech while we still can. Once our freedom of speech is gone, the loss of the rest of our freedoms will only be a matter of time.

This article first appeared here at the American Dream. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.