JTT wrote:mysteryman wrote:BTW,there are many countries where freedom of speech is not allowed,so you can say that in effect "freedom of speech stops when you exit the USA."
You can say that but it only serves as proof of your profound ignorance of the world and your overblown sense that the USA somehow stands alone as as the bastion of free speech.
This debacle in Iraq, the muzzling of free speech, by the government in power no less, not to mention the Dixie Chicks issue clearly illustrates that the USA is not really all it's cracked up to be.
It's all true. I would suggest you stay far, far away so you don't get picked up and sent to a secret prison somewhere.
McGentrix wrote:JTT wrote:mysteryman wrote:BTW,there are many countries where freedom of speech is not allowed,so you can say that in effect "freedom of speech stops when you exit the USA."
You can say that but it only serves as proof of your profound ignorance of the world and your overblown sense that the USA somehow stands alone as as the bastion of free speech.
This debacle in Iraq, the muzzling of free speech, by the government in power no less, not to mention the Dixie Chicks issue clearly illustrates that the USA is not really all it's cracked up to be.
It's all true. I would suggest you stay far, far away so you don't get picked up and sent to a secret prison somewhere.
Are you denying that America is keeping prisoners in secret places?
In America, you are muzzled by your media. If you weren't, you would know what is going on in the world. As it is, you only know what Fox tells you. Or the Decider
Scandinavia, northern Europe, except probably Germany, & Canada enjoy freedom of speech. That means that people from these countries are not required to be kept so far from their President/Prime Minister during a peaceful protest that he can't hear anything. Peaceful assembly is still legal, whereas in the States people have been thrown into jail for doing just that.
Get a T-Shirt that says Bush Sucks on it, and go stand by the White House. Let us know when you get out of jail........
Free speech, my A**
Can McG read?????
December 15, 2003 issue
Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative
"Free-Speech Zone"
The administration quarantines dissent.
By James Bovard
On Dec. 6, 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft informed the Senate Judiciary Committee, "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty
your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and
give ammunition to America's enemies." Some commentators feared that Ashcroft's statement, which was vetted beforehand by top lawyers at the Justice Department, signaled that this White House would take a far more hostile view towards opponents than did recent presidents. And indeed, some Bush administration policies indicate that Ashcroft's comment was not a mere throwaway line.
When Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up "free speech zones" or "protest zones" where people opposed to Bush policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event.
When Bush came to the Pittsburgh area on Labor Day 2002, 65-year-old retired steel worker Bill Neel was there to greet him with a sign proclaiming, "The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us." The local police, at the Secret Service's behest, set up a "designated free-speech zone" on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a third of a mile from the location of Bush's speech. The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, though folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the president's path. Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign. Neel later commented, "As far as I'm concerned, the whole country is a free speech zone. If the Bush administration has its way, anyone who criticizes them will be out of sight and out of mind."
At Neel's trial, police detective John Ianachione testified that the Secret Service told local police to confine "people that were there making a statement pretty much against the president and his views" in a so-called free speech area.
Similar suppressions have occurred during Bush visits to Florida. A recent And last year, seven protesters were arrested when Bush came to a rally at the USF Sun Dome. They had refused to be cordoned off into a protest zone hundreds of yards from the entrance to the Dome." One of the arrested protesters was a 62-year-old man holding up a sign, "War is good business. Invest your sons." The seven were charged with trespassing, "obstructing without violence and disorderly conduct."Bush hyped the "forward strategy of freedom" and declared, "We seek the advance of freedom and the peace that freedom brings." Homeland Security Department's recommendation that local police departments view critics of the war on terrorism as potential terrorists. In a May 2003 terrorist advisory, the Homeland Security Department warned local law enforcement agencies to keep an eye on anyone who "expressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the U.S. government." If police vigorously followed this advice, millions of Americans could be added to the official lists of "suspected terrorists."
Protesters have claimed that police have assaulted them during demonstrations in New York, Washington, and elsewhere. Film footage of a February New York antiwar rally showed what looked like a policeman on horseback charging into peaceful aged Leftists. The neoconservative New York Sun suggested in February 2003 that the New York Police Department "send two witnesses along for each participant [in an antiwar demonstration], with an eye toward preserving at least the possibility of an eventual treason prosecution" since all the demonstrators were guilty of "giving, at the very least, comfort to Saddam Hussein."
One of the most violent government responses to an antiwar protest occurred when local police and the federally funded California Anti-Terrorism Task Force fired rubber bullets and tear gas at peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders at the port of Oakland, injuring a number of people. When the police attack sparked a geyser of media criticism, Mike van Winkle, the spokesman for the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center told the Oakland Tribune, "You can make an easy kind of a link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that protest. You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act." Van Winkle justified classifying protesters like terrorists: "I've heard terrorism described as anything that is violent or has an economic impact, and shutting down a port certainly would have some economic impact. Terrorism isn't just bombs going off and killing people."
Pach, great post! I hope the people who were denied free speech bring civil suits for the denial of their free speech.
Advocate wrote:Pach, great post! I hope the people who were denied free speech bring civil suits for the denial of their free speech.
So,does free speech include A2K?
Am I free to call you or anybody else all the racist names I can think of,without fear of being banned or otherwise "punished" for what I say?
No, as far as I know you can be reported to the moderators who can then ban you from A2K. Racism is not tolerated, but name calling seems to be a favourite past time here
McG is trying to figure out how to argue his way out of this one
I will be pleasantly surprised if he responds intelligently to the article a few posts above this one.
Apparently he doesn't know about the arrests that have been taking place. He's as well insulated as BushCo.
pachelbel wrote:No, as far as I know you can be reported to the moderators who can then ban you from A2K. Racism is not tolerated, but name calling seems to be a favourite past time here
But,banning me violates my right to free speech.
pachelbel wrote:McG is trying to figure out how to argue his way out of this one
I will be pleasantly surprised if he responds intelligently to the article a few posts above this one.
Apparently he doesn't know about the arrests that have been taking place. He's as well insulated as BushCo.
Am I? Huh. Thought I was doing other stuff.
You are welcome to read and post whatever screeds you like. It doesn't matter how biased, or retarded it is. There is no real point trying to tell you otherwise, as by your many anti-American posts you have decided that America is a facist country that is run by a dictator that runs a gestapo like whatever.
None of it's true of course, but you go on believing it.
mysteryman wrote:pachelbel wrote:No, as far as I know you can be reported to the moderators who can then ban you from A2K. Racism is not tolerated, but name calling seems to be a favourite past time here
But,banning me violates my right to free speech.
A2K is not a place for free speech. It has become a place where insults and juvenile pettiness has over-run the political fora though. A2K is not a democracy nor is it America. When you signed up it is assumed that you had read and accepted the terms of service and despite however many others break those terms, it remains that you must abide by them.
So, McG, can there be free speech in a nation which employs the tactics described above?
Is there such a thing as a 'free speech zone'? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?
Doesn't the use of a such a restricted area, even in the vicinity of a President, puncture the idea that there is a right to free speech ?
Joe(when do they bring the gags?)Nation
Joe Nation wrote:So, McG, can there be free speech in a nation which employs the tactics described above?
Is there such a thing as a 'free speech zone'? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?
Doesn't the use of a such a restricted area, even in the vicinity of a President, puncture the idea that there is a right to free speech ?
Joe(when do they bring the gags?)Nation
Free speech has not been abridged at all. They are free to say what they want and carry whatever signs they want and as long as they do so peacefully they can continue doing so.
If you can't read through the hype of that article Joe (I may not have any ability to know truth from fiction) Nation, then we may not even bother moving forward.
"Free speech zones" are not a uniquely American failing. For example, they were also set up during a big economic conference in Vancouver about a decade ago and this was done by the Prime Minister's Office of a Liberal Party government. Areas away from the traffic route of dignitaries, meeting locations, and therefore away from cameras, were set up and fenced off. World economic conferences are "managed" similarly elsewhere.
They aren't set up for the flag-waver types however, but for the dissident voices. A large sign saying something like "Welcome Wen Jiabao" will gain no attention from police or security, but a sign such as "Wen Jiabo - Stop the Arrests of Religious Minorities" will be immediately removed.
Thus, arguments that "security" is the fundamental justification usually aren't at all convincing.
Another such example is the restriction at Bush rallies to only those who are no risk of voiciing political dissent.
So the problem really looks like old fashioned authoritarianism - the squelching of public dissent and the enforcement of a singular conception of "correct ideas" and/or the planned projection (through manipulation of what ends up on TV screens and noggins) of a consensus where no such consensus exists.
All of this is a transparent attempt to thwart the rationale and principles which underlie free speech laws and values.
free speech zones are designated on the premise that protestors are generally idiots and can not be trusted. It has been proven time and time again that when you get a bunch of stupid hippy protestors together they srat chanting and marching and carrying signs. Then, someone gets the silly notion to bring something they can throw or they find something on the ground to throw. Then, next thing you know they are burning cars and looting hard working companies of their property.
By keeping them away from the president (remember the DNC? Same zones...) they are keeping the heat down while protecting the protestors from themselves. After all, they couldn't possibly have any sense.
McGentrix, when did you start channelling Louis XVI?
So (and I did read the article) anyone in agreement with the administration (or pretends to be) can bring their We love W. sign right up close, exercising their right to free speech within eye and earshot of the President.
Anyone not in agreement is cloistered off to some other location.
What is the worth of being able to speak if you know the person the message is intended for will not hear you? You might as well be the proverbial tree falling in the middle of the forest.
Joe(Can you clap with your hands in cuffs?)Nation
MM, your right of free speech, by virtue of the First Amendment, is only protected against government intrusion. It doesn't protect you in a2K, with your employer, or with your wife.
Putting people out of contact in a free-speech zone is usually a violation of one's free speech rights.
I remember a case in which some peaceful protesters at a speech by Reagan were rudely expelled from a hall. They were able to recover civil damages for this.
The city of New York is still settling cases from the Republican Convention. Millions of dollars in court costs and penalties paid to people who just wanted to have their voices heard.
The authoritarians do as they want, we, the taxpayers pay their fines.
Joe Nation wrote:The city of New York is still settling cases from the Republican Convention. Millions of dollars in court costs and penalties paid to people who just wanted to have their voices heard.
The authoritarians do as they want, we, the taxpayers pay their fines.
There is no right to be heard anywhere in the Constitution.
You have the right to Freedom of speech,but you dont have the right to be heard.
If you did,then you would be forced to listen to everything everyone had to say,and you arent.
You are free to ignore or not listen to what others say.
So,you have the right to speak,but no right to be heard.
You seem to think there is a right to be heard.
MM, would you explain what you mean.
Are you saying that the nonspeakers have the right to block their ears? Who would deny that!
