The hot button issues are getting all the attention, but the growing hostility among liberals to free speech is a very troubling development. Obama cannot be accused of not understanding the constitutional issues. He just values power more than our constitutional freedoms. ***************************************** Monday, October 13, 2008 BARONE: The coming liberal thugocracy Michael Barone COMMENTARY: "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 e-mails, did when conservative Stanley Kurtz appeared on Milt Rosenberg's WGN radio program in Chicago. Mr. Kurtz had been researching Mr. 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 e-mails. The message was clear to anyone who would follow Mr. 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 Mr. 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 Mr. Obama's ties to Mr. 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 Congressional Democrats sought to reimpose the "fairness doctrine" on broadcasters, which until it was repealed in the 1980s required equal time for different points of view.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 Web site and was replaced with another that omitted the references to Mr. 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 that 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 once prided themselves as zones of free expression are now the least free part of our society. Obama supporters who found the campuses congenial and Mr. Obama himself, who has chosen to live all his adult life in university communities, seem to find it entirely natural to suppress speech they don't like and seem utterly oblivious to claims 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. ⢠Michael Barone is a nationally syndicated columnist
lol One day AAA maybe you will come up with an actual reason for your disdain for Obama. I have yet to see one that makes any kind of sense.
As you know AAA the assault on free speech and "hate" thought is a global movement enacted by leftest governments from Europe to Canada. It only makes sense that the U.S. will follow suit. Americans have a choice. We can sit back and watch our values and rights be eroded or we can rise up like true Patriots such as Bill Ayers and level these institutions with weapons more powerful than mere words. I myself, to quote Ayers will be "unrepentant" if fate causes me to fight for freedom by unconventional means........
Ok when you and el T Lucrum and PFC AAA are on mission to blow up the NYTimes building or the UN mission in NY be sure to let me know. I'll be there to film it. You'll be famous!!!! lol Oh yes....I forgot the part where Pabst Kills Jann Wenner with his bare hands upon their first meeting. I need to be there for that too.
Doc, I don't know if you boys in east Texas listened to much Pink Floyd back in the 70's but the song Dogs is becoming more poignant to me as I age. You gotta keep one eye looking over your shoulder. You know it's going to get harder, and harder, and harder as you get older. And in the end you'll pack up and fly down south, Hide your head in the sand, Just another sad old man, All alone and dying of cancer. Out of nowhere via an inheritance, getting my stupidly buried 700k back, a couple of good years trading, losing 35lbs and leaving my gf I felt liberated. Now though I'm bored. Do I want to die with a BMW in my garage or die for a cause. Bin Laden could be chilling in Dubai instead he answered a calling. (not that OBL is a role model). The point though is I'd rather die as a revolutionary than live as some semi-well off dude scared of a changing world he's incapable of stopping. Getting back to Texas, I want to die with my boots on.
Ahhh. I see. Well there a plenty of places you could go Darfur, Isreal, Africa, where you can most certainly live out your dream. Its better than trying to drum up some kind of revolution here when none is needed.
P.... I know nothing of 700K or 35lbs. But it sound to me like you should get another GF. Your posts are strangely violent and racist these days. Nothing that a good "deposit," can't fix