South Carolina earned its first mention this week in the annals of the 12-year-old awards handed out by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Pretection of Free Expression. The awards given on this year's 261st anniversary of birth of the third president of the United States hammer at a litany of transgressions that run counter to Jefferson's thought that freedom of speech "cannot be limited without being lost."

Just over a year ago, the S.C. House of Representatives voted 50-35 in favor of a resolution sponsored by Rep. Catherine Ceips, R-Beaufort. The resolution called on Dixie Chicks to apologize for a statement criticizing President Bush. The resolution also called on the Chicks to perform a free concert for U.S. troops stationed in South Carolina.

For those who don't recall, the Texas-born Dixie Chicks' leader singer, Natalie Mines, told an audience in London last March on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."

As the Thomas Jefferson Center said in awarding the Jefferson Muzzle award: "Ironically, it is the South Carolina House's resolution that may be accurately described as 'anti-American' because of its apparent disregard of one of the fundamental principles we are fighting to protect. ... While South Carolina officials have the right to publicly criticize Maines for her comments, such criticism must be made in their capacity as private citizens and not with the power of government office behind it. Otherwise, those in power could effectively squelch any criticism of government through the use of an imprimatur that 'officially' declares what speech is patriotic and what speech is anti-American."

Or as Jefferson, the man who drew up the Declaration of Independence, was quoted in Wednesday's newspaper: "It behooves very man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others."