Title: Free Speech on Freedom4um
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Published: Aug 18, 2006
Author: Christine
Post Date: 2006-08-18 12:01:37 by christine
Keywords: None
Views: 21589
Comments: 173

It is time for me to address the issue of "free speech" on Freedom4um. My free speech means that I have 100% control over what I say and everyone else has 0% control over what I say. Now, I understand that there are consequences to exercising my right to free speech, but I still retain 100% control.

Free speech means that I have a right to express or spew thoughts and words of preference, love, hate, or anything with which another may disagree. That said, the rules or policies of this forum, which is my private property (see this forum's Mission Statement), are that members can exercise free speech as long as they (1) do not make a specific threat against an identifiable person or target, (2) earnestly debate or discuss the relevant issues that are part and parcel of this forum's reason-to-be. Let me remind you that these are rules for this forum and, as such, do not necessarily apply off of this forum, as public laws should, in most cases, be even less restrictive than private property rules and regulations.

Again, free speech on this forum means that people can express their love or hatred for anyone, any group, any race, any culture, or any thing, as long as they adhere to the two contingencies listed above. Everyone else on this forum is similarly at liberty to exercise their free speech right to challenge, debate, argue, or agree with the ideas and speech of another.

We will not censor speech as we abhor political correctness and authoritarianism as well as those thought-control and speech-control tyrants who would restrict another's speech. Any limitation on thought and speech constitutes the first level of the destruction of all remaining rights. Afterall, the framers of the Constitution believed that free speech was the most fundamental right to be protected which was the reason that they placed it FIRST in the Bill of Rights.

I do not say this lightly, but anyone who cannot handle the content of another's speech may not be suitable for this forum. Such a person may be better suited for a forum whose moderators control and steer the forum's ideas and speech in a given direction.

Many people have no concept of what Free Speech and Freedom really mean. Do you?

If “free speech” tolerates lies and hatred and knowingly allows attempts to intentionally mislead the reader, of what positive value is it? That “standard” has no content. Anything goes. As a standard, it’s pure rhetoric.

Does 4um benefit by allowing lies and gossip to be spread across the net? Does society benefit? Does truth matter? Or should the standard be driven by something meaningful? I don’t allow people to come into my home and spit on the floor or defecate on my living room rug. Manners matter.

Does or should free speech include, among other things, expressing an opinion such as this one that may not be popular with the owners?

Well, these are omnibus subjects but I'll make a few comments. Rush bills himself as entertainment first so verbosity and stimulation are his forte. I find him hard to take except in small doses and it's been years, I'm sure, since I listened at all. I "click through" O'Reilly and pay very little attention to the MSM -- they're about sensationalism and ratings almost exclusively. I appreciate Rush's and O'Reilly's exposure of leftist lies, along with that function performed by Ann Coulter. Ann goes "over the top" on occasion but so what? Without doubt, she exaggerates, which is an essential element of humor, but if you're suggesting that she is a pathological liar, then you are simply mistaken. The left has begged for these 3 people for decades. Now they have them. I'm both amused and pleased.

ANN COULTER

Ann Coulter: Vicious & Ignorant

Ann Coulter: Her Excuse
Ann Coulter: Her Column
Ann Coulter: Her Excuse Debunked
Ann Coulter: Her Ignorance

Ann Coulter's controversial statement in her column that "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" is not the least of Coulter's sins.

Ann Coulter: Her Excuse

Coulter claims that she wasn't speaking of all Muslims:

Coulter says her line about "convert them to Christianity" has been misconstrued and was aimed at those celebrating the attacks. "I wasn't talking about Muslims generally," she says. "I was talking about the crazed homicidal maniacs dancing in the streets."
[The Washington Post, October 2, 2001]

Ann Coulter: Her Column

Let's look at the full context in which Coulter made her infamous declaration:

Airports scrupulously apply the same laughably ineffective airport harassment to Suzy Chapstick as to Muslim hijackers. It is preposterous to assume every passenger is a potential crazed homicidal maniac. We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now.

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.
[="
" href="http://www.townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/ac20010914.shtml">Town Hall, September 14, 2001]

A fair reading could be that Ann Coulter wasn't explicitly referring to all Muslims, but that the "they" referred back to those in the streets of Arab nations who were celebrating the World Trade Center attacks.

Coulter's statement as thus interpreted is, of course, still outrageous.

Ann Coulter: Her Excuse Debunked

While Coulter can maybe get away with parsing her own text here, I wonder if any commentators on this brouhaha have taken what Coulter said in her column together with what she said on Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect September 25:

Ann Coulter: What's different about Germany than here, but I think is more similar to Japan and ought to be the model, is that Germany at least had a wealth of civilization prior to the Third Reich and it had a respect for human life, something that was not as noticeable in Japan. And one of the things General MacArthur did, he considered converting the emperor to Christianity. Decided not to because he thought there would be a fight between Catholics and Presbyterians. But General MacArthur called in thousands of Christian missionaries. He distributed thousands of Bibles. It wasn't as much of a success story as the Christian missionaries were in Korea after the Korean War, but you know how it was a success story? They have unprecedented religious freedom there, something that is absent in every Muslim country. In fact --
[="
" href="http://abc.go.com/primetime/politicallyincorrect/transcripts/transcript_20 010925.html">Transcript of Politically Incorrect, September 25, 2001, emphasis added]

This shows Coulter would like to apply her conversion concept to entire countries, such as she believes was done in Japan.

Ann Coulter: Her Ignorance

Moreover, Coulter, as the following dialogue, in relevant portions, makes clear, continues to put her foot in her mouth, with respect to her claims -- begun above -- that Arab countries have never had any "civilization," nor a history of tolerance for other religions: ("Jerry" is producer/journalist Jerry Nachman, and "Eric" is Eric Braeden, star of "The Young and the Restless."):

Eric: We have to allow the tolerant part of Islam to flourish. In other words, establish Democratic institutions and
then --

Ann Coulter: What tolerant part of Islam?

Eric: Islam has an enormous history.

Ann Coulter: Where is that in evidence in the Middle East right now?

Eric: Do you know anything about the history of the Middle East?

Bill: Islam was the most flourishing civilization in the middle ages. When Western Europeans were shivering and cowering and cast behind --

Ann Coulter: Fine, they invented the flying buttress, but they don't have a history of tolerance. That's the point --

Eric: She's absolutely wrong. Excuse me. You are wrong.

Ann Coulter: Well, then, name --

Eric: Historically, you are wrong. In all the Muslim countries, they allow Judaism to flourish and Christianity to flourish.

Ann Coulter: That's not true.

Eric: That is absolutely true.

Bill: Before --

Eric: In these kinds of countries right now, they don't. But in most Muslim countries in the past, they have allowed religious freedom.

Jerry: The Taliban is an exception, correct?

Eric: That's the problem.

Jerry: Ask any Jew who used to live in Iraq or Syria or Egypt until 20 or 30 years ago.

Ann Coulter's ignorance of history is amazing -- ignorance of the flourishing, advanced Arab civilization in the past, and of the religious tolerance toward Christianity and Judaism which was its hallmark.

Ann Coulter: not only vicious, but ignorant.

[I won't even address here Coulter's bloodthirsty analogizing to Germany in World War II in order to support her contention that we should carpet-bomb Afghanistan and not be concerned with civilian casualties. On the inappropriateness of Coulter's analogy, see Ann Coulter's Bombing Germany Analogy Not Applicable to Afghanistan.]

More on the War on Terrorism

UPDATE: In her book Slander -- indeed in most of what she writes and says -- Ann Coulter takes what sounds like the ill-tempered blustering of a barroom drunk and offers it as serious political commentary. But she's no barroom drunk. At least the barroom drunk would be embarrassed the next day and apologize for such remarks

I have no interest in engaging in a food fight over Ann Coulter. A little balance and perspective is all that I ask.