Conservatives have criticized Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell for not being with them on all the issues. Where conservatives have praised Sen. McConnell is on the defending the First Amendment.The buzz has grown around Sen. McConnell’s speech at the American Enterprise Institute nailing President Obama and Congressional Democrats on using government power to silence the political speech of opposition groups. Sen. McConnell warns that the Left’s alliance between the president, Congress, and federal and state administrative agencies that they control, “threatens the character of America.”

A video by the American Future Fund has highlighted McConnell’s speech and Obama’s misdeeds.

During an interview by Breitbart’s Ben Shapiro, Sen. McConnell highlighted a number of incidents where the Left have used the power of the government to silence their political opponents.

“They’ve used the IRS, the FEC, the FCC, the SEC, their allies in the Obama campaign to go after people who disagree with them. The Obama campaign has rifled through the divorce records of a major donor to an opposing super PAC. The government itself is intimidating donors. Appointees at the IRS and other agencies are pursuing similar efforts to ferret out who is contributing to outside groups critical of the administration so that they can scare them off the playing field and shut them up.”

Sen. McConnell has made a career of defending the First Amendment, filing six amicus briefs to defend free speech with another amicus brief on the way. McConnell’s court challenges in large measure paved theway for the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United, which held that portions of federal campaign finance law violated the First Amendment. It is my belief that if it had not been for Sen. McConnell’s fight, the Right would be at a serious disadvantage in keeping up with the Left’s campaign operations.

Sen. McConnell’s speech is all about sounding the alarm about the Left’s growing ability to silenceopponents.

“My own view has always been that if you if you can’t convince people of the wisdom of your policies, then you should come up with some better arguments. But for all its vaunted tolerance, the political Left has consistently demonstrated a militant intolerance for dissent. Sadly, a growing number of people on the Left, and now within government itself, appear to have concluded that they can’t win on the merits. So they’ve resorted to bullying and intimidation instead. And the potential consequences are grave.”

Sen. McConnell’s speech deserves the praise it is receiving from conservatives. The speech shouldalso receive the praise of those who value free speech.

To learn more about the speech, please visit http://www.aei.org/events/2012/06/15/growing-threats-to-our-first-amendment-rights.