"Free Speech America" Prepares for Fireworks Spectacular on June 29th

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
We want to talk about some ofthe great things that are coming up.
If you are a fan of Americaand joining us here in the studio and
live with three. Speech America's guywho put this thing together, his name
is Martin Cannon. And Martin,first of all, thanks so much for
coming in studio. Always pleasure tosee somebody face to face and having a
conversation on the radio. That's right. Thank you very much, Emory,
appreciate being able to be here.Okay, so free Speech America. I

(00:23):
told you you are free Speech America. I think the first thing that we
need to do is explain what freeSpeech America is. Free Speech America is
an organization. It's a five ohone c three nonprofit, so anyone who
can donate it to it gets atax deduction. But we formed it actually
about five years ago to do twothings, to push back a little on

(00:43):
the cancel culture, and to educatethe public about the importance of freedom of
speech, not just how important itis, but how to execute it,
how to use it, and theduty to do so. You know,
your right to speak is actually alsomy right to hear. And self governance,
which is at the core of ournation's design requires that we speak,

(01:07):
that we hear, that we debate, that we determine truth in that fashion,
and then that we act upon it. So you can't separate free speech
from self governance. And we formedto promote that, but we also promote
the beauty and wonder that America is, and we celebrate her virtues and her
elegance. This is it's a greatidea. But more and more people are

(01:30):
recognizing the First Amendment, not necessarilyalways in the best way. Some people
are saying, well, you're infringingon my First Amendment right to say this.
Some people say, well, protestingin various ways is also protected by
the First Man, and it is. At the same time, it's never
been more polarizing to bring the FirstAmendment into conversation. Was there a moment,

(01:51):
I know you reference cancel culture,which really is hand in hand with
social media, But was there amoment that kind of had an awakening or
an epiphany within yourself that you werekind of like, now is a good
time for me to actually do somethingbecause I feel like we're headed the wrong
direction. Actually it wasn't me somuch. I live and breathe this issue.

(02:13):
I've been litigating freedom of speech issuesfor thirty years, so to me,
I don't know if there's been anyepiphany I can point to. It
just goes back too far. Butone of our co founders, Chris Rannie,
actually called and said this about fiveyears ago. I don't remember exactly
what was going on at the time, but she said, we got to
do something here. You know,America is under attack from within by people

(02:36):
who don't respect or appreciate what it'sall about, and freedom of speech is
under attack, so we need todo something. And that's it was actually
her prompting that resulted in the formationof the organization. The organization is called
Free Speech America. Got a greatwebsite, free Speech America dot org,
easy to find. You can alsosearch on Google free Speech America. It's
the first thing that pops up,which is pretty impressive considering how many times

(02:59):
I'm sure people are searching things likefree speech in America. But not just
to talk about what you guys do, But we wanted to talk about something
that is not the negatives about Americaright now, but a way that you
guys are helped celebrating the positives.Coming up this weekend, can you tell
me about what you guys got goingon here in West Fair at Council Bluffs.
What we have going on is ourfourth annual Free Speech America Fireworks Show.

(03:23):
It's we call it our We LoveAmerica Fireworks Spectacular. We've got a
very good fireworks show itself lined up, of course, that starts at ten
o'clock in the evening. This isthe Saturday before the Force, several days
before the Force. Yeah, soeverybody has if you want to see good
fireworks, you don't have any competitionthat you have to worry about. That's
pretty much true. So that's good. But it's not just a fireworks show.

(03:46):
We bring people into the fairgrounds wherefamilies can show up and be like
families. We got bounce houses forthe kids, face painting balloons, we
have a bunch of food trucks.We've got a little military flyover going on.
We've had flyovers the last two yearswith the World War two plane,
but this year it's actually going tobe a World War One plane. Wow,

(04:08):
America's first fighter actually, so that'skind of fun stuff. We'll also
have, and this is very important, We're going to have some messaging from
the stage, actually educating inspiring peopleon what it is exactly that we're celebrating.
Why do we celebrate America? Andthat's important because most firework shows don't
really go into that. Yeah,we're speaking with Martin Cannon. He is

(04:30):
a founder of local nonprofit organization FreeSpeech America, and we are here to
talk not just about that, butalso this firework spectacular, not just these
highlights, not just the music,got all these food trucks and everything.
But you talked about the message itself. What do you think about you know,
where we're at now versus five yearsago, because obviously we're gearing up

(04:50):
for Trump Biden, you know,two point zero in the race, and
there's a lot of people that saywe haven't really progressed out of where we
felt like we were going in andout of COVID in the twenty twenty area.
So is there something you know thatyou can say we are in a
better spot or you think we're kindof in the same spot. I think
we're actually in a better spot ina lot of ways. You mentioned the

(05:11):
protests and the First Amendment. Peoplereally confuse the ideas. The First Amendment
is a right to express yourself.It is not a right to break the
law, and most of what yousee in these protests, the total upheaval,
occupying buildings, busting things, Thisis not constitutionally protected speech. It's
criminality. And it kind of goesto what I'm talking about. We need

(05:33):
to be able to have civil discourse, and the upheaval is the abandonment of
civility. But having said that,the cancel culture has fallen out of favor
in a lot of ways because ofpeople like Free Speech America that have pushed
back on it, lots of similarorganizations across the country. But that doesn't

(05:54):
mean it's gone away. It's beenkind of sort of morphed into what I'll
call clusory censorship. The media orbig tech. We'll simply call something false
when it's never even been tested andthere's no further discussion. They can,
you know, Disney can cancel acontract, or somebody can cancel a speech

(06:15):
on a college campus. That's thecancel culture. This conclusory censorship is something
that can change the national debate overnightjust because something is labeled as false when
it's never been tested. So we'vewe've moved the needle, but the other
forces are responding, and so wejust have work to do. But the

(06:39):
starting point has to be local selfgovernance among people who are willing to deal
with issues civilly. And that's whatwe promote, it's what we celebrate,
and we will celebrate it here atthe fireworks show. Yeah, fireworks show
is going to be this Saturday atsix o'clock is when it starts. Gates
open at five point thirty. Ofcourse, the fireworks going to be after

(06:59):
dusk around the ten o'clock mark,but ten o'clock, and it is free.
The whole thing's free to the public. It doesn't mean if it doesn't
matter if you bring five people orfive hundred people, you're all coming through
that gate free of charge. Ofcourse, the food trucks want to be
paid for their Yeah, those arenot free, but the show is free.
We've got a great band, JimmyWeber. He's got a good opening
act, and about the time that'sall done, we're going to have the

(07:23):
fireworks. It'll be a good time. It's always a good time. We
were talking off the air before wetalked, and we're speaking here with Martin
Cannon, who was a founder ofFree Speech America, which is a local
nonprofit, and you're talking about kindof these debate rules. You have one
on one and we're going to getfor the first time, really in the
modern era, some of these items. For the first time. It's ninety

(07:46):
minutes. We know it's going tobe ninety minutes. We know there's going
to be two built in commercial breaks. You mean to Biden Trump debate,
Yeah, and the two commercial breaksare going to happen, and that's it.
There's no coaching. Neither candidate cango back to their people and get
stuff. They can't have note cards, they can't have a teleprompter. But
the most notable ones are there's nostudio audience and the mic is muted if

(08:09):
it's not your turn to speak,so there's no interrupting. What do you
think about stuff like this when we'retalking about trying to exhibit or promote good,
solid discourse in de Beata, it'sa little unfortunate. There's several layers
to that. First of all,there is value to personal engagement, face
to face discussion with people to whomyou're speaking. I'm in your studio right

(08:31):
now talking to you, because it'sbetter than being on the phone. The
same thing is true between Biden orTrump and an audience it ought to be
there. It's unfortunate that they aren't. As far as the muting of the
microphones and things, this is justa way to try to enforce what used
to be a given, which iscivility. Maybe it's better than the train

(08:52):
wrecks and the verbal food fights we'vehad before that pass for debate, even
on the presidential stage, But weneed to go back to it by enforcing
civility, not by muting microphones.That is one heck of a message.
The people can learn a lot more, not just about the fireworks spectacular you
guys are going to be having thisSaturday, but about what you guys kind

(09:16):
of stand for. Tell people onemore time where they can find more information
and where they can find you.This weekend, freespeech America dot org and
our fireworks show is over at theWest Fair Fairgrounds, just east of Council
Bluffs on Highway six. Beautiful venue. Should be a beautiful evening, good
show, good food, good music, free to the public. Ah,
you can't be free, Martin Cannon. With Free Speech America. This is

(09:39):
great. Let's do this again sometime. Maybe we'll get your analysis on where
we're at. After a couple ofdebates between these guys with these very strange
rules, and you can see ifwe've achieved anything with the civility that we're
trying to force upon people. Iwould love to talk to you about it.
I love to hear that. Allright, three forty eight, we'll
come back, wrap up this hournext on news Radio eleven to ten KFABA.
Emery's songer on News Radio eleven tenkfa B