Posts Tagged ‘free speech’

Free Speech / Expression explained again

Posted: January 6, 2020 by datechguy in culture, News/opinion
Tags: ,

It’s rather depressing that in 2020 this has to be explained once again so let’s explain freedom one more time:

As anyone who reads this site knows, I am a Fiscal & Social Conservative who follows the Catholic faith. I maintain that society, individuals, our children, our culture our county and the world would be best served if the principles of the Catholic faith and fiscal & social Conservatism were advanced and put into practice both legally and culturally. I furthermore reserve the right not only to act on these beliefs but to make my best case in public for said beliefs in the hopes of convincing others and advancing them both legally and culturally because I’m convinced that people individually and society as a whole will reap the benefits of these beliefs.

I think this would be better for the young, the old, the rich the poor, the black, the white, the gay, the straight, the christian, the Muslim, the jew, the Hindu the atheist and the agnostic and everyone else.

Furthermore I expect to be able to publicly practice these beliefs without fear of arrest by the state or danger of assault, vandalism to my property, injury or threat of violence to myself or my family.

Now here is the flip side.

The number of people in the US who share ALL of my beliefs and opinions are likely very small, quite a few I might even say a majority of share some of them and there are plenty who share few or none of them.

Some instead of believing in conservatism they believe in liberalism, instead of holding a conservative Catholic faith they are liberal Catholics or Protestant, or, Jewish, or Muslim or Hindu or of some other religion or no religion at all. Some are social liberal some are Marxists, or socialists or communists or believers in some other form of government or even haven’t made up their minds yet. Some have opinions & beliefs that I consider nonsense, some have opinions and beliefs that I think are dangerous and some have opinions or beliefs that I consider downright evil.

However as Americans they not only have the same right to hold those beliefs as I have mine but they have the same right as I have to

  • Practice those beliefs/opinions publicly
  • Argue for those beliefs/opinions publicly in person, in print or online
  • Attempt to persuade others that they should follow those beliefs/opinions
  • Attempt to elect people who will advance those beliefs
  • Or choose not to do any of the above

And they should have the expectation of being able to do these things without a threat of bodily harm, or murder, or vandalism to their property or threat of arrest for holding or expressing these beliefs.

That’s how free speech works, everyone has the right (but not the obligation) to make their best case for whatever they wish and let the better argument take the day until people decide differently.

Put simply people have the right to be wrong. Until you acknowledge that freedom for others than frankly you don’t deserve freedom yourself and if you intend to take this freedom away from me and mine, that’s a cause worth fighting for.

Woke vs UnWoke Crime and Punishment

Posted: December 22, 2019 by datechguy in crime, culture, News/opinion
Tags: , , , ,

In Iowa last week a most extraordinary jail sentence was passed down.

Despite confessing to the crime on camera, Martinez pleaded not guilty and took the case to trial, where a jury convicted him. This pleased the church’s pastor, Eileen Gibbie, who told the Des Moines Register, “I often experienced Ames as not being as progressive as many people believe it is, and there still is a very large closeted queer community here. But 12 people that I don’t know, who have no investment in me or this congregation, said this man committed a crime and it was crime born of bigotry and hatred.”

This “crime born of hatred” was the burning of a rainbow flag that he stole from the Pastor’s church.

I’m not a fan of theft nor arson but I suspect that if Adolfo Martinez had stolen a American Flag from a Knights of Columbus Chapter and burned it the ACLU would be all over this case defending the burning of the US flag as his right of free expression and calling this sentence of travesty.

Instead the ACLU is silent as he is sentenced to more than double the six years that Donald Thurman was given for armed robbery.

What, you don’t know who Donald Thurman is? Well he is a young man who was released on parole a year ago after serving two year of a six year sentence for armed robbery and then did this:

Donald Thurman is a 26-year-old Chicago man who has been charged in the murder and sexual assault of University of Illinois at Chicago student Ruth George. The 19-year-old UIC student was raped and strangled in her own car in a university parking garage, police said.

Thurman followed George into the garage and then sexually assaulted and killed George because he was angry that she ignored his catcalls, prosecutors said in court, according to The Associated Press.

Thurman was taken into custody not long after George was found dead on Saturday, November 23. UIC Police identified Thurman as the suspect

The fact that you likely haven’t heard of this crime leaves Robert Stacy McCain perplexed:

Given how often feminists have expressed concern about “violence against women,” and considering how loudly feminists insist that sexual assault on university campuses is a problem deserving national attention, you might suppose that feminists would have mentioned this crime. And yet they remain strangely silent about it, for some reason.

Poor Miss George, if only Mr. Thurman had stolen and burned a rainbow flag instead of merely committing armed robbery he might have gotten a sentence long enough so that her family could have enjoyed her company at Christmas instead of mourning her death.

Alas we live in an era so woke that if a Billionaire Author who was once on welfare tweets that a woman shouldn’t be fired for asserting biological reality she must be ostracized so unless you have the right victim and the right perp some crimes are not only unworthy of national attention but are, unfortunately for Miss George and her family, unworthy of decade long sentences.

This incidentally will continue as long as we permit it

Angela Merkel vs. Rob Schneider on free speech

Posted: December 5, 2019 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

Angela Merkel and Rob Schneider both made a big splash on the internet recently with comments regarding freedom of speech.  One demonstrated a remarkable understanding of the concept, the other proved not to understand the concept at all. 

You’d expect the Chancellor of Germany to be the individual who understands freedom of speech, however, this Breitbart article ‘Freedom of Expression Has Its Limits!’ – Merkel Rails Against Free Speech proves she holds some dangerous misconceptions.

Chancellor Angela Merkel railed against free speech in the German parliament, declaring that freedom of expression which offends “the dignity of other people” must be censored to secure a truly free society.

“We have freedom of expression,” the migrant crisis architect began dubiously, in a speech to the German federal parliament, or Bundestag, uploaded to social media by state broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW).

“For all those who claim that they can no longer express their opinion, I say this to them: If you express a pronounced opinion, you must live with the fact that you will be contradicted. Expressing an opinion does not come at zero cost!” she warned ominously, to applause from the assembled politicians.

“But freedom of expression has its limits. Those limits begin where hatred is spread. They begin where the dignity of other people is violated!” she continued, gesticulating wildly.

“This house will and must oppose extreme speech. Otherwise our society will no longer be the free society that it was,” she concluded, somewhat contradictorily.

This Tweet from Rob Schneider had me cheering because he posses an understanding of freedom of speech that is comparable to that of the founding fathers of the United States and the framers of the First Amendment.

Angela Merkel should carefully study this Ben Franklin quote, and so should progressive college professors and their badly misinformed snowflake students.

Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.

Here is a George Washington quote that should be spread far and wide on college campuses.

For if Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the consideration of Mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.

Since students have been brainwashed by multiculturalism into not respecting white males, here is a Fredrick Douglass quote they should take note of.

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason of righteousness, temperance, and of a judgment to come in their presence. Slavery cannot tolerate free speech.

They Can’t Hide Stuff Anymore

Posted: December 3, 2019 by julietteochieng in media
Tags: , , , , ,

No theories in these conspiracies

by baldilocks

Good stuff from Sarah Hoyt:

Look, yeah, the first amendment still protects our speech. And yes, I know the first amendment only protects our speech from the government.  But in the year of our Lord 2019 we also know for sure that if you say the wrong thing you could find yourself fired, your reputation destroyed, your family threatened, your career a thing of the past. It’s not exactly by the government — though remember that poor schmo dragged in for the movie The Innocence of Muslims whom no one had watched and which Obama decided to blame for the 9/11/12 [Benghazi] Embassy attack? — but by the Marxist Hydra which encompasses various power structures: the government bureaucracy, the media, entertainment, a lot of rich people and what’s known as the “movers and shakers.”

This btw has happened for a long time, at least in my field, (and in a lot of others). But it was impossible to get word out, and anyone who managed it was disbelieved.

Now, of course we know we’re not alone. We also know the limits to our speech.  And we’re of course told things like “free speech doesn’t cover hate speech” which is what is technically known as bullsh*t, since no one ever needed a right to free speech to say that butterflies are pretty and ice cream tastes delicious.  Or for that matter to echo the things the controllers of media and social media want you to say.

On the Jeffrey Epstein saga:

Back in the early two thousands I heard of Bill Clinton and flights in the Lolita Express leaving out of Mena airport in Arkansas. Dark mutterings of young girls and drug traffic. And all the time, all the time I thought “Right-wing fever swamps. I guess we have nutters too. Because if that were happening, involving someone who later became president, there’s no way it wouldn’t have come out. Everyone would know.”

Well, dear fever swamps, I want to apologize to you. You were right, I was wrong. It turns out the Lolita Express was flying and Bill Clinton was part of the party and no one NO ONE, not one man jack in the main stream media thought this news worthy? NOT ONE. The Omerta held it as silent as they held Obama’s grades or what courses he actually took in college, or how he got to be president of Harvard Law Review without ever publishing a single thing.

Now, how do you expect me to laugh when someone says all leftist politicians are lizard-beings from Ganymede? (…)

[W]e’ve seen things that just ten years ago I’d have thought were insane.

Much more great writing and great ideas at the link.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

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