Complete Colorado: What would you say if I told you that you must contribute financially to Complete Colorado, and if you don’t we’ll send people with guns out to confiscate your “donation” by force, and also we’ll publicly call you a horrible person who violates the First Amendment?

Hopefully you’d tell me to pound sand.

There is no such thing as a First Amendment right to take other people’s wealth by force to fund your speech. Indeed, forcing others to fund your speech actually violates their rights to free speech. The right to speak entails the right not to speak and to not lend support to ideas and viewpoints with which you disagree or simply do not wish to support.

While I morally may ask you “pretty please” to help fund Complete Colorado, and even to mark your donations specifically to help support my amazing columns, I may not, morally, threaten violence against you for not contributing.

But, somehow, among many people on the oh-so-tolerant left, threatening people with violence if they don’t contribute to Colorado Public Radio, Roaring Fork Public Radio, KSUT Public Radio, and National Public Radio becomes a self-righteous crusade.

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