Why does the left hate free speech?

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

A classic piece:

Obama vs. Free Speech

By Michael Barone

"I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors," Barack Obama told a crowd in Elko, Nev. "I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face." Actually, Obama supporters are doing a lot more than getting into people's faces. They seem determined to shut people up.

That's what Obama supporters, alerted by campaign emails, did when conservative Stanley Kurtz appeared on Milt Rosenberg's WGN radio program in Chicago. Kurtz had been researching Obama's relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers in Chicago Annenberg Challenge papers in the Richard J. Daley Library in Chicago -- papers that were closed off to him for some days, apparently at the behest of Obama supporters.

Obama fans jammed WGN's phone lines and sent in hundreds of protest emails. The message was clear to anyone who would follow Rosenberg's example. We will make trouble for you if you let anyone make the case against The One.

Other Obama supporters have threatened critics with criminal prosecution. In September, St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce warned citizens that they would bring criminal libel prosecutions against anyone who made statements against Obama that were "false." I had been under the impression that the Alien and Sedition Acts had gone out of existence in 1801-02. Not so, apparently, in metropolitan St. Louis. Similarly, the Obama campaign called for a criminal investigation of the American Issues Project when it ran ads highlighting Obama's ties to Ayers.

These attempts to shut down political speech have become routine for liberals. Congressional Democrats sought to reimpose the "fairness doctrine" on broadcasters, which until it was repealed in the 1980s required equal time for different points of view. The motive was plain: to shut down the one conservative-leaning communications medium, talk radio. Liberal talk-show hosts have mostly failed to draw audiences, and many liberals can't abide having citizens hear contrary views.

To their credit, some liberal old-timers -- like House Appropriations Chairman David Obey -- voted against the "fairness doctrine," in line with their longstanding support of free speech. But you can expect the "fairness doctrine" to get another vote if Barack Obama wins and Democrats increase their congressional majorities.

Corporate liberals have done their share in shutting down anti-liberal speech, too. "Saturday Night Live" ran a spoof of the financial crisis that skewered Democrats like House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank and liberal contributors Herbert and Marion Sandler, who sold toxic-waste-filled Golden West to Wachovia Bank for $24 billion. Kind of surprising, but not for long. The tape of the broadcast disappeared from NBC's Website and was replaced with another that omitted the references to Frank and the Sandlers. Evidently NBC and its parent, General Electric, don't want people to hear speech that attacks liberals.

Then there's the Democrats' "card check" legislation, which would abolish secret ballot elections in determining whether employees are represented by unions. The unions' strategy is obvious: Send a few thugs over to employees' homes -- we know where you live -- and get them to sign cards that will trigger a union victory without giving employers a chance to be heard.

Once upon a time, liberals prided themselves, with considerable reason, as the staunchest defenders of free speech. Union organizers in the 1930s and 1940s made the case that they should have access to employees to speak freely to them, and union leaders like George Meany and Walter Reuther were ardent defenders of the First Amendment.

Today's liberals seem to be taking their marching orders from other quarters. Specifically, from the college and university campuses where administrators, armed with speech codes, have for years been disciplining and subjecting to sensitivity training any students who dare to utter thoughts that liberals find offensive. The campuses that used to pride themselves as zones of free expression are now the least free part of our society.

Obama supporters who found the campuses congenial and Obama himself, who has chosen to live all his adult life in university communities, seem to find it entirely natural to suppress speech that they don't like and seem utterly oblivious to claims that this violates the letter and spirit of the First Amendment. In this campaign, we have seen the coming of the Obama thugocracy, suppressing free speech, and we may see its flourishing in the four or eight years ahead.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/...ree_speech.html

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Classic scaremongering.

Edited April 25, 2009 by Private Pike

[Ban Hammer 13,364]

i'm sure someone will think it's no big deal. but if republicans were getting into peoples faces about things, they'd be rethuglicans.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

i'm sure someone will think it's no big deal. but if republicans were getting into peoples faces about things, they'd be rethuglicans.

That's different.

[Ban Hammer 13,364]

i'm sure someone will think it's no big deal. but if republicans were getting into peoples faces about things, they'd be rethuglicans.

That's different.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

i'm sure someone will think it's no big deal. but if republicans were getting into peoples faces about things, they'd be rethuglicans.

That's different.

Have I stepped over the line yet?

Edited April 25, 2009 by Mister_Bill

[Sofiyya 1,687]

I LOVE those and will steal each one to send to friends!

There is something crazy going on. Some people in my wide circle of associates who used to be able to argue politics coherently have become raging Obamabots who cannot put two sentences together without name-calling and vulgarities. It's like they don't even have to make sense, just simply bully and brow-beat their opposition into submission. The disrespectful, profane, and totally unprofessional media treatment of the tea parties is only one of several recent examples. Calling anyone who doesn't support Obama's policies a racist is another. As you all know, I do not submit to that kind of nonsense; it makes me push on even more determined to defeat their cultist mindset. Yet, it's really scary how it took hold so quickly and easily among the libs. I haven't seen anything like it in national politics before, and I sure hope it doesn't last long.

[Ban Hammer 13,364]

i'm sure someone will think it's no big deal. but if republicans were getting into peoples faces about things, they'd be rethuglicans.

That's different.

Have I stepped over the line yet?

let's see who's the first brown shirt to come beat you down.

[Niels Bohr 72]

I thought the right was against free speech.

[Ban Hammer 13,364]

I thought the right was against free speech.

you're still reading from the left wing playbook, ain't you?

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I LOVE those and will steal each one to send to friends!

There is something crazy going on. Some people in my wide circle of associates who used to be able to argue politics coherently have become raging Obamabots who cannot put two sentences together without name-calling and vulgarities. It's like they don't even have to make sense, just simply bully and brow-beat their opposition into submission. The disrespectful, profane, and totally unprofessional media treatment of the tea parties is only one of several recent examples. Calling anyone who doesn't support Obama's policies a racist is another. As you all know, I do not submit to that kind of nonsense; it makes me push on even more determined to defeat their cultist mindset. Yet, it's really scary how it took hold so quickly and easily among the libs. I haven't seen anything like it in national politics before, and I sure hope it doesn't last long.

I saw the same thing happen when Clinton was elected. I used to listen to NPR, to get some alternate perspective on the news, plus I like to listen to reggae, and they had a segment every afternoon. Could be once a week, the mind fades.

Anyways, Clinton gets elected, and I stop at the local deli for lunch, and I get my first exposure to Rush over the PA system. This lady walks in, hears the commentary, and says, "How dare they! We put up with them for 12 years, and now it is our turn!"

After that, I started to listen to Rush during lunch, to get some alternate perspective on the news.

So, this is nothing new. Been there. Seen it before.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

It was bad during Clinton, but not as bad as this, imo. Plus, Clinton had more substance than Obama, who is getting by merely on style, so far.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

It was bad during Clinton, but not as bad as this, imo. Plus, Clinton had more substance than Obama, who is getting by merely on style, so far.

One thing that is different, in that the party in power can no longer steal the media. Once Clinton was elected, and NPR was saying the same things as ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN, then it was easy for Awericans to lose perspective, and hence the success of a mediocre commentator like Rush, and the success of FNC.

Hiding the truth is a little bit harder now, as Pelosi tries to maintain martial law in the House, while the left "complains" about a lack of "bipartisanship" from the right.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

It was bad during Clinton, but not as bad as this, imo. Plus, Clinton had more substance than Obama, who is getting by merely on style, so far.

One thing that is different, in that the party in power can no longer steal the media. Once Clinton was elected, and NPR was saying the same things as ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN, then it was easy for Awericans to lose perspective, and hence the success of a mediocre commentator like Rush, and the success of FNC.

Hiding the truth is a little bit harder now, as Pelosi tries to maintain martial law in the House, while the left "complains" about a lack of "bipartisanship" from the right.

Au contraire, the truth is well hidden in plain sight simply because there is so much group speak, as in "NPR is saying the same things as ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN". That is the problem; the pablum is so pervasive in so many arenas that perspective has been lost for many. Fox, and Rush are examples of the few places where worship of all things Obama are not found, and there is great success in bucking that trend. There's something good to be said for that.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

It was bad during Clinton, but not as bad as this, imo. Plus, Clinton had more substance than Obama, who is getting by merely on style, so far.

One thing that is different, in that the party in power can no longer steal the media. Once Clinton was elected, and NPR was saying the same things as ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN, then it was easy for Awericans to lose perspective, and hence the success of a mediocre commentator like Rush, and the success of FNC.

Hiding the truth is a little bit harder now, as Pelosi tries to maintain martial law in the House, while the left "complains" about a lack of "bipartisanship" from the right.

Au contraire, the truth is well hidden in plain sight simply because there is so much group speak, as in "NPR is saying the same things as ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN". That is the problem; the pablum is so pervasive in so many arenas that perspective has been lost for many. Fox, and Rush are examples of the few places where worship of all things Obama are not found, and there is great success in bucking that trend. There's something good to be said for that.

To be fair to CNN, the sycophants have mostly gone to MSNBC. FNC has it's problems as well, but as least their hard news has not been infected as bad as MSNBC's.

Edited April 26, 2009 by Mister_Bill