As I always say, "Free Speech" is never free; there is always a price.
The cure here is not to ban Free Speech, as Congressman Brady proposes, but to make those who abuse Free speech pay the price. The coins of the realm are exposure, shaming and public humiliation of the perps, but those tools only work if you make the bastards pay the piper. Speech ban of the day – Ben Smith www.politico.com
Lynn Pavalon: I rarely say anything vaguely political on FB, but it did strike me that the perpetrator in the massacre in Arizona was not an undocumented immigrant.
Barrett is always at his best when he is channeling Gatemouth. Bloomberg give us the cold shoulder www.nypost.com
Just in case you thought being a racist reactionary was the only thing which made Jackie Mason despicable. Gal Beckerman: Oy! Jackie Mason Has Family Drama – Forward.com forward.com
And speaking of Free speech:
Gate (8/9/09): …Perhaps an elementary school student needs to be shielded. My fifth grade teacher thought so, reading us “Huckleberry Finn,” but changing the name of his slave companion. Being 1969, in Paramus, New Jersey, Huck’s friend was renamed “Negro Jim.” Today, Mr. Malatesta would be probably accused of turning Huck Finn’s raft into “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
But an older student should learn the whole truth. The truth about slavery which is only conveyed when a grown man is called “NIGGER.” Also, the essential truth of Twain being a product of his age, which was one when even what passed for enlightened liberals still regarded black people as their dumb but noble inferiors.
Like educated readers, we can judge Twain both from the context of his times and the context of our own, and thereby judge both his times and our own, rather than giving everything the Tom Sawyer-style whitewashing that censorship would provide. And we can be thankful that Twain, warts and all, recorded these ugly truths while calling them fiction, and made them entertaining enough so that we don’t even now avert our eyes as we learn about our ugly past and reflect upon our not always so pretty present.