The Vilification of Freedom of Speech

From: Family Security Matters


Slate joined the tut-tut mob of dhimmified American pundits and commentators by endorsing the abridgement of the First Amendment, at the behest of thin-skinned, super-sensitive Muslims, in its September 25^th article, "The Vile Anti-Muslim Video Shows That the U.S. Overvalues Free Speech."

Slate is proof that the Internet isn't wholly a refuge from the Mainstream Media. It has its complement of liberal, leftist and myopic sites that range from banal to bizarre to outlandishly vitriolic. It isn't immediately apparent in the Slate article, written by Editor Eric Posner, that it denigrates not only the First Amendment, but anyone upholding its sanctity, because it took him ten paragraphs of irrelevant commentary to reach the conclusion that the First Amendment is ready for a tweaking and perhaps even a rewrite that would favor Muslims and Islam.

Robert Spencer zeroed in on the key statement in the Slate article in his Jihad Watch article of September 26^th, and dismisses it with brevity. He quotes from Slate first:

"That's because the First Amendment protects verbal attacks on groups as well as speech that causes violence (except direct incitement: the old cry of "Fire!" in a crowded theater). And so combining the liberal view that government should not interfere with political discourse, and the conservative view that government should not interfere with commerce, we end up with the bizarre principle that U.S. foreign policy interests cannot justify any restrictions on speech whatsoever. Instead, only the profit-maximizing interests of a private American corporation can. Try explaining that to the protesters in Cairo or Islamabad." (Bold emphasis is Spencer's)

 Spencer: "In other words, surrender before they hit us again."

That's all that need be said.
Spencer handily runs other publication over the coals in his Jihad Watch/Atlas Shrugs article, "The Suicide of the Free Press," on how and why other publications are picketing against the First Amendment. Citing the example of the Los Angeles Times' Op-Ed by Sarah Chayes, a career do-gooder currently with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Spencer asks:

Finland's War on Free Speech

From: Gatestone Institute

"Stating of facts cannot and must not be criminal, even if they offend someone." — Jussi Kristian Halla-aho, Finnish blogger convicted of defaming Islam.

Finland's Supreme Court has found a prominent politician guilty of defaming Islam for "Islamophobic" comments he made on his personal blog.

The ruling represents a major setback for free speech in a Europe that is becoming increasingly stifled by politically correct restrictions on free speech, particularly on issues related to Islam and Muslim immigration.

The Helsinki-based Supreme Court ruled on June 8 that Finns Party MP Jussi Kristian Halla-aho was guilty of "inciting hatred against an ethnic group" for blog posts he made in 2008 which compared Islam to paedophilia, and for sarcastic comments which insinuated that immigrants from Somalia are predisposed to stealing and living off welfare.

In its ruling, the court said that hate speech does not fall under the protections afforded by the freedom of speech, even though Halla-aho said his comments were a protest against public policy and not against Islam and Mohammed per se.

Halla-aho, who has become well known in Finland and elsewhere for his well-argued essays criticizing multiculturalism and runaway immigration, was ordered to pay a hefty fine and delete the comments from his blog.

Halla-aho maintains a blog called Scripta, which deals with issues such as "immigration, multiculturalism, tolerance, racism, freedom of speech and political correctness." His blog attracts thousands of readers every day, and the Tampere-based newspaper Aamulehti has described him the best-known political blogger in Finland. Halla-aho's notoriety has placed the guardians of Finnish multiculturalism on maximum alert.

In a blog post in June 2008, Halla-aho wrote that the Islamic prophet Mohammed was a paedophile, and that Islam is a religion of paedophilia because Mohammed had sexual intercourse with his wife, Aisha, when she was only nine years old.

According to Halla-aho: "This sentence is related to a discussion where I criticize the idea of the subjective offensiveness of some sentence as being sufficient criteria for its judicial offensiveness. In other words, if some group is offended by sentence X, sentence X is illegal irrespective of whether it is true or not. In my opinion, stating of facts cannot and must not be criminal, even if they offend someone. This is also a problem of equality. For example, a Muslim is offended by criticism of his religion far more easily than an average Christian. If subjective offensiveness suffices as the elements of a crime, the law protects a Muslim with greater force than it protects a Christian."

He continued: "My sentences about Mohammed and Islam were not opinions, but inescapably logical conclusions based on known facts. I did not use the word 'paedophile' as psychopathological concept, but in its popular meaning of a person having sex with children. The traditional Muslim knowledge, the Hadith literature, tells us that Mohammed had sex with his wife Aisha when she was nine years old. A nine-year-old is seen as a child today, and physically she was a child in 7th century, no matter what her judicial status was.

Therefore, if Mohammed had sex with Aisha and Aisha was a child, Mohammed had sex with a child. That Mohammed is a holy figure to Muslims cannot make him immune to criticism in West, especially if criticism is based on undisputed facts."

In another post, Halla-aho responded to a Finnish columnist who wrote that drinking excessively and fighting when drunk were cultural and possibly genetic characteristics of Finns. In order to show the double standards of such arguments, Halla-aho asked sarcastically if it could be stated that robbing passersby and living at the expense of taxpayers are cultural and possibly genetic characteristics of Somalis.

According to Halla-aho, "I turned the newspaper Kaleva's sentence into parody where 'Finns' were replaced by 'Somalis.' My hypothesis was that Somalis are under the special protection of the media and government officials, and my argument is that what is permissible to present about Finns becomes impermissible when it is about Somalis. My own version was as follows: 'Robbing passers-by and living as parasites on tax money is the national, maybe even genetic characteristic of Somalis.'"

Teacher penalizes students for saying "bless you"

Freedom of Speech and Expression Denied On Campus

From: Pajamas Media

Of all the rights covered by the First Amendment, the right to distribute political literature is one of the most important. Indeed, without the efforts of pamphleteers like Thomas Paine and Samuel Adams, America as we know it might not have come into existence at all. These men risked everything to spread the ideas in which they believed — and as a result, our nation has a tradition in law and custom of protecting pamphleteers.
That is, unless you are on a college campus.

Take a recent incident at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio. During National Breast Cancer Awareness Month last October, Sinclair student Ethel Borel-Donohue waited until after her Probate Law I class was over (she is training to become a paralegal) to pass out around 15 flyers that discussed studies linking birth control and abortion to breast cancer.

Unfortunately, the climate for free speech on many campuses being what it is, you can imagine what happened next. According to Borel-Donohue, she was called before the chair of her program, county domestic relations judge Michael Brigner, and told that her flyers had offended someone in the class who had an abortion and that Borel-Donohue had no right to pass out any materials in the classroom, notwithstanding the fact that class was over. (I should note that when Borel-Donohue e-mailed Judge Brigner to confirm what he said in their conversation, he refused to do so — always a bad sign.)

If anything, Brigner was understating the power over expression that Sinclair Community College has unlawfully arrogated to itself. Its student code of conduct actually bans all distribution of literature at Sinclair except for “recognized student organizations after registering with the appropriate college official.” That’s right: you need the permission of school authorities to pass out pamphlets at Sinclair, and even that “privilege” is reserved only for groups who are “recognized” under the school’s rules.

Terry Jones’ Closing Remarks in Court

A foolish law from 1846 in Michigan has made Terry Jones a martyr to the First Amendment. It is inconceivable that anyone with so much as a remedial knowledge of our Constitution would seek preemptive sanction against a citizen exercising their rights to speech and expression. The notion that such an action is necessary for fear of inciting violence is a dangerous concept as it suppresses our natural rights in the name of security. It is an effort at prophecy as law enforcement. Moreover, it subjects a free man in his exercise of free speech to sanction and incarceration in anticipation of criminal behavior on as yet undetermined third parties. This is the one of the most egregious violations of Constitutional law and cannot be tolerated under any conditions.

Below is an excerpt from "Gates of Vienna which includes the video.

From: Gates of Vienna

How far do we back down? How far do we give in? When do we say there is enough?

“I mean, is intimidation and fear enough of a reason to give in? And once we start giving in, well, when do we stop?

“…I don’t think it’s a good enough reason.”

Below are the closing remarks made by pastor Terry Jones during his trial today in the Dearborn courtroom. Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for YouTubing this video:

Free Expression Denied: Dearborn denies permit to Terry Jones

What exactly is a "Free Speech" zone? Terry Jones of Koran burning fame is denied a permit to protest outside a mosque in Dearborn for "public safety reasons"? Isn't that a damning indictment of the community? Isn't it tim someone stood up for our values and principles? Apparently not in Dearborn where free speech is restricted in zones. Below is the story:

From: The Detroit News

Dearborn denied a permit Wednesday for Quran-burning Pastor Terry Jones' planned protest outside the Islamic Center of America on Good Friday.

Jones could be arrested if he goes ahead with the protest outside the mosque without a permit, said city spokeswoman Mary Laundroche. She added that the permit had been denied for "public safety reasons."


Jones said he had not received notification that the permit had been turned down but that he was undeterred.
Jones is due in 19th District Court in Dearborn on Thursday to answer prosecutors' claims that his demonstration could cause a riot and demands he post a "peace bond" to cover police costs.

Dearborn officials said Jones can still demonstrate at one of two "free speech zones," including City Hall. Before denying the permit, city officials expressed concern about public safety, traffic and disruptions to nearby churches.

Jones isn't likely to relent. He's said for weeks that he plans to demonstrate outside the Ford Road mosque with or without a permit. Earlier today, Jones said the mosque is the ideal site for his protest against "radical Islam" and Sharia, or Islamic, law.

"There is no place better than there to present this message," said Jones, the pastor of the Dove World Outreach center in Gainesville, Fla.

Jones said he is planning to bring a pistol to protect himself in case of violence, but has no plans to burn an Islamic holy book.

"We are coming there totally in peace," said Jones, who said he will be joined by several other people including a rabbi.

Earlier today, Dearborn Mayor John B. O'Reilly Jr. released a copy of an "open letter" he wrote to Jones in a last-ditch effort to persuade him to cancel his protest.

In the three-page letter released to the media, O'Reilly urged Jones to conduct his demonstration at one of the city's "free speech zones." O'Reilly also questioned the logic of protesting Sharia in Dearborn.

"Our commitment to the Constitution is unwavering, not merely convenient, which makes your hyperbole about Sharia Law being practiced in the courts or civil law of Dearborn nonsensical," O'Reilly wrote. "So, you are coming to protest against an imaginary threat that doesn't exist in our community. Not in our courts, not at our City Hall, not on our streets and not in any of our places of worship."

The mayor also pointed out to Jones that several churches in the vicinity of the mosque will be conducting Good Friday services and Jones' protest outside the mosque will be disruptive to their traffic as well.

"The members of the Christian churches on Altar Road asked me last week if they should cancel their Good Friday services because of your planned visit. I assured them that they should not because the Constitution does not allow you to violate their rights. I don't know why you selected Good Friday but it wasn't very considerate of the significant Christian services being held at that time. I assure you that you will not make them forfeit their services," O'Reilly wrote.