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Freedom of speech.

Don't know about you guys, but the holidays were a pretty damn good time for this old geezer. Plenty of ham, plenty of pavlova, plenty of medicinal whisky ... and champers ... and cab sav.

Anyway, one day the old wheeled wonder was pulled out of storage and into it the ancient body slumped and with a hiss and a roar started on a journey to my colleague James Anthony's to watch a DVD.

We'd just had a barney over the phone about something - might have been over the top 10 cowards of all time - and so it was in silence we plonked on his sofa and began to watch The Majestic.

Two things struck me during the course of the movie - the first being what a terrific serious actor Jim Carrey is and the second was freedom of speech.

It struck me as particularly poignant that at this moment in the world's history - with governments around the world curtailing people's freedoms in the cause of protecting their freedoms - how McCarthyist the West has become.

For those of you too young to know the era well, it was in the 1950s in America when a two-bit senator, called Joe McCarthy, got his fifteen minutes worth of fame by firing up a witchhunt against alleged Communists.

It was like the Salem witch trials where people 'named' as being pinkoes had their lives ruined by government-sanctioned hearings in front of a disgraceful organisation known as the House of Un-American Activities.

Now I hope I don't have to reiterate my very pro-individualist attitude - and anti-PC herd mentality stance - but just in case I do the fall of the Soviet Union was greeted with gallons of champers being downed in this old chap's dorm.

Anyway, McCarthy took the US into what I consider to be its darkest hour as the glories of that nation - free speech, freedom and rights enshrined in its constitution - were basically hijacked by feral politicians and those wanting to build their own little empires. J Edgar Hoover may you and your frilly frock roast in hell!

People forgot what America stood for and I fear it has let itself become a little hijacked again with this splatter Saddam campaign.

Now much as I love my old mate George Dubya Bush - he of the 3am phone calls - I know the guy is about as knowledgeable on world affairs as I am on the workings of a thermo-nuclear bomb. Except, that is, I know which coloured wire to pull just in case 007 can't quite get there in time.

But I digress.

People in democracies around the world are not only under attack from I'Man OverLaden Bin and his beautifully bearded boyos, but also politicians who claim to be doing 'what's right' but who, in fact, are only eroding the precious freedoms that we in democracies have been given to protect.

That means we stand up and say what we think. That means we don't get bullied or cowed into agreeing with the general herd. And that means we fight for our freedoms - even if it is just asking questions challenging attitudes - and freedom doesn't mean what pollies or the media tell us are our freedoms.

Unfortunately staying with the pack is much, much easier and you don't get your head verbally shot off. However, everytime a person doesn't stand their ground on important issues is another little victory for the forces of evil who would have us all think the way they want us to think.

By the way, The Majestic is a first-class yarn.

If there is something that has really got up your nose, let Grumpy Old Coot know at grumpy@webwombat.com