Archive for the ‘internet/free speech’ Category

Over at the blog Mind Stain and Firedoglake they tell the story about a restaurant that choose to discriminate against a patron based on his political views :

Wisconsin blogger Naomi Houser reports tonight (via Howie Klein on Twitter):

The M******t [a restaurant] in Madison, WI confirms that on Friday night, ******* (one of the owners) politely asked Scott Walker to leave the establishment when other customers began booing him. A bartender at The M*****t said that ‘his presence was causing a disturbance to the other customers and management asked him to leave.’

Maybe he should have stayed home and ordered pizza instead? Okay, maybe not; there might be a long wait.

Houser adds regarding The M******t that readers might want to “give your patronage and thanks in person the next time you are in Madison.”

The restaurant in question is apparently The Merchant Restaurant and by the sound of what went on the trouble in question was not from Walker but from the patrons.

Lets play a game. Lets pretend a black man entered a restaurant and the all white patrons decided to boo and heckle him and the owner asked him to leave. Would you see the same love fest in comments at Firedoglake and at Mindstain over the denial of service. Look at the comments at both sites and see the civility of the left.

However there is yet another twist. There is a real debate if this actually happened or if this was a stunt to try to get attention as Badger blogger reports:

Well my friends, this is the case of a Madison restaurant trying to gain liberal credibility by making up a total lie about how they booted out Scott Walker out of their establishment. When BadgerBlogger called them to confirm the story, the staff refused to confirm or deny, and continued to obfuscate until they hung up the phone… But in fact, they didn’t hang up, it appears that they accidentally put the phone on speaker…. And BadgerBlogger tapes continued to roll.

Our audio captures the restaurant staff talking about how they have to take down the blog posting because people are starting to call about it, you can actually hear them logging into the blog and deleting it. Too late.

We confirm with Governor Walker’s staff that the Governor has never been to that restaurant, this was an attempted “punking” by employees of The Merchant Restaurant, but look who got punked… In the words of Joe Wilson, You Lie! Here is the audio:

Was he there or was he not? Apparently true or false the restaurant ran with it, got publicity and got burned.

It will be interesting to see how or if this plays out, but its more interesting to see the reactions of the left. Their cheering of the exclusion of a patron from a public place because of political views. As American Power puts it:

What gets me, if you go back to the Firedoglake entry, is that for progressives, discriminating against Governor Walker would be a cool thing to do — that they would applaud the kind of action they would vehemently denounce if done to a minority, or even a progressive Democrat. This is not how students learn about democracy in school. And frankly, this isn’t how politics should be conducted. Governor Walker is not an arch segregationist. His programs are not about to exterminate the sick and aged. Progressives know this but they’ve shown they’ll do anything to distract from the issues at hand: the sweetheart deals between the unions and the Democrats and the fiscal sinkhole the State of Wisconsin is facing. Public opinion doesn’t favor the Democrats. And refusing the governor’s budget will only delay the reckoning and further blemish the left’s reputation.

Unreal, in any case.

How civil!

My latest for the examiner notes the silence of the Media Hounds:

Last month after the shootings in Arizona where several people were murdered and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was severely injured there was a lot of talk about civility in politics. Members of congress, the president and news organization both print and visual bemoaned the lack of civil discourse and attempted (and still attempt despite established facts) to blame the Tea Parties and Sarah Palin for inciting violence.

Over the last few days several incidents have taken place nationwide that are contrary to the media’s wish for a new spirit of civility in public discourse.

You can read the rest here. The actions of the supporters of the public sector unions is the real untold story of this issue.

Following up on my previous post on Islam uncoverage.net finds an interesting story on at Gates of Vienna,

When civil order vanished from Egypt a few weeks ago, the Copts appealed to the army for protection. They were told that the military could not protect them, that they must protect themselves. And so they did, building protective fences around the monastery.

Unfortunately, it seems the army prefers that the monasteries remain unprotected: on Sunday soldiers with bulldozers arrived and began destroying the fences. Any Copts who attempted to interfere are being shot at by troops.

Apparently it’s not only the government that in Egypt that came down. It’s the facade that Egyptians are Egyptians first. As Assyrian International agency reported:

Father Hemanot Ava Bishoy said the army fired live ammunition and RPGs continuously for 30 minutes, which hit part of the ancient fence inside the monastery. “The army was shocked to see the monks standing there praying ‘Lord have mercy’ without running away. This is what really upset them,” he said. “As the soldiers were demolishing the gate and the fence they were chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and ‘Victory, Victory’.”

He also added that the army prevented the monastery’s car from taking the injured to hospital.

The army also attacked the Monastery of St. Makarios of Alexandria in Wady el-Rayan, Fayoum, 100 km from Cairo. It stormed the monastery and fired live ammunition on the monks. Father Mina said that one monk was shot and more than ten have injuries caused by being beaten with batons. The army demolished the newly erected fence and one room from the actual monastery and confiscated building materials. The monastery had also built a fence to protect itself after January 25 and after being attacked by armed Arabs and robbers leading to the injury of six monks, including one monk in critical condition who is still hospitalized.

And its spreading:
Thousands of demonstrators protested in the city of Assiut following the murder of Father Daoud Boutros. The priest was stabbed several times by Islamists who shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they fled from the scene.

Nope nothing to worry about, nothing to see here.

One of the amazing things that our friends who always cry Islamophobia if anyone critiques radical Islam or talks about creeping Sharia is their inability to notice things that are happening right in front of them.

However actually living in a changing environment have no choice but to notice, for example:

Last autumn, mysterious posters began to appear all over the East End of London announcing it is now a “Gay-Free Zone.” They warned: “And Fear Allah: Verily Allah is Severe in Punishment.” One of them was plastered outside the apartment block I lived in for nearly ten years, next to adverts for club nights and classes at the local library, as if it was natural and normal. I’d like to say I’m shocked – but anybody who lives in Tower Hamlets knows this has been a long time coming.

Well this is just talk after all why should anyone be afraid of posters and empty talk, oh I don’t know maybe stuff like this:

In September 2008, a young gay man called Oliver Hemsley, is walking home from the gay pub the George and Dragon when a gang of young Muslims stabs him eight times, in the back, in the lungs, and in his spinal column. In January 2010, when the thug who did it is convicted, a gang of thirty Muslims storms the George and Dragon in revenge and violently attacks everybody there. All through, it was normal to see young men handing out leaflets outside the Whitechapel Ideas Store saying gays are “evil.” Most people accept them politely.

These are not isolated incidents. East London has seen the highest increase in homophobic attacks anywhere in Britain. Everybody knows why, and nobody wants to say it. It is because East London has the highest Muslim population in Britain, and we have allowed a fanatically intolerant attitude towards gay people to incubate there, in the name of “tolerance”.

Mind you this is not a person of the right, this is a person who calls Mark Steyn a” ludicrous hysteric” and states that England “senselessly incinerates many Muslims abroad” he makes pains to portray Muslims in England as a repressed minority.

Yet he can’t ignore what everyone sees. Perhaps if people weren’t so busy condemning us who oppose Gay Marriage and support the defense of Marriage act as extremist bigots they might have more time to deal with these issues.

Meanwhile it’s not like stuff like this is slowly happening here, is it? Oh Wait:

The Thomas More Law Center announced today that the City of Dearborn, its Mayor, John B. O’Reilly, its Chief of Police, Ronald Haddad, 17 City police officers, and two executives of the American Arab Chamber of Commerce were named as defendants in a ninety-six page federal civil rights lawsuit filed in the Federal District Court in Detroit this morning.

The lawsuit, brought by TMLC and co-counsel and Sharia law expert, David Yerushalmi, stems from two separate police actions at the June 2010 Dearborn, Michigan Annual International Arab Festival.

Richard Thompson, TMLC President and Chief Counsel, commented, “Muslims dominate the political and law enforcement process in Dearborn. It seems that police were more interested in placating the Mayor and Muslims than obeying our Constitution. Sharia law makes it a crime to preach the Gospel to Muslims. This is a classic example of stealth Jihad being waged right here in America. And it should be a wake-up call for all patriotic Americans.”

Now critics point out that this doesn’t make Dearborn Saudi Arabia as Jeff Wattrick says:

This might just do no one any good, but Dearborn is not under the jackboot of Sharia Law.

I can even prove it. Go to Dearborn and have lunch at the Buffalo Wild Wings on Michigan Avenue. Order their pulled pork-based “Big Daddy Burger” (with bacon if you so choose…this is America, after all) and a pint of good Michigan draft beer. While enjoying your pork sandwich and malted beverage, take out a pen and draw Muhammad on a bar napkin.

Now try to do that same thing in Saudi Arabia. If BW3’s hasn’t yet expanded into Riyadh, another restaurant will work. Order your pork sandwich and beer and then draw Muhammad.

See, one of those places is governed by Sharia Law while the other isn’t.

Funny you should mention and link to Everybody Draw Muhammad Day. Tell me what happened to Molly Norris who first suggested it?

Do you recall the Fatwa against her? Do you the deafening silence in support of her. Do you recall her having to go into hiding?

You may have noticed that Molly Norris’ comic is not in the paper this week. That’s because there is no more Molly.

The gifted artist is alive and well, thankfully. But on the insistence of top security specialists at the FBI, she is, as they put it, “going ghost”: moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity.

There isn’t Sharia Law in Seattle, but there also isn’t Molly Norris there either and denial and snark will not cut it anymore.

Now it comes down to this. These folks know that us believing Catholics are not going to be issuing fatwas or cutting throats so they are happy enough to go after us as a threat, but when it comes to Islam silence is golden.

If we pretend that this isn’t happening and retreat into snark, what is now happening in England will eventually be coming here.

This has to be nailed now. If it is nailed now then we will have years to snark and enjoy. If it’s not then in a few years we can expect to read columns like the one we lead with, only carrying US bylines.