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Newt Gingrich Says Free Speech May Be Forfeit
At a dinner honoring those who stand up for freedom of speech, former House speaker Newt Gingrich issued his opinion that the idea of free speech in the U.S. needs to be re-examined in the interest of fighting terrorism. Gingrich said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message. The article has few details of what Gingrich actually said beyond the summary above, and no analysis pointing out how utterly clueless the suggestion is given the Internet's nature and trans-national reach.
Why is it people like this are in charge of running America?
TruePunk | Games
FP
On one hand, it galls me that Mr. Gingrich would say free speech should be limited at a First Amendment Award banquet. The real irony, though, is that this is exactly what the speech, press, and association clauses of the first amendment are all about: protecting the expression of political ideas that might disagree with law, government policy, or popular opinion.
Good bye
The former Speaker of the House says free speech needs to be restricted.
You have got to be kidding! This guy who is headed for jail is still trying to subvert the Constitution!
Que the in soviet Russia jokes now.
Who will guard the guards?
I can't find a way to mod Newt Gingrich down as "Troll", "Flamebait", or "Redundant". Can someone help me?
Ninjas use italics.
Gingrich re-evaluates you!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Thank God he isn't the speaker of the House anymore. It's scary when someone in power has an opinion about technology that they know nothing about.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
After all, if we don't have any freedoms and we don't believe in mankind's inherent rights, what can they hate us for?
We'll all be safer in our cages.
Hurrah! Cheers.
Screw you.
People need to understand that the reason we have freedom of speech and the right to bear arms is so that the people of this country can, if necessary, reshape the government WITH FORCE.
-Bill
More old men making idiotic gestures towards a false sense of security. How long until the current "rulers" of our nation die off and a little more tech-savvy (hopefully) group moves in?
Rush Limbaugh
If politicians are so hot on reducing free speech to fight terrorism, they should be voted out of office and be denied unemployment benefits (i.e., lobbying and speaking).
From someone on government: "We face a threat to dire that you must give up your defenses against government oppression."
I forget, how long as Egypt been in a "state of emergency"?
Maybe New Hampshire's "Live Free or Die" motto is just lip-service?
Gingrich should be legally prevented from saying such dumb things.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
It wasn't funny.
The article pretty much speaks for itself.
Newt Gingrich is a big fat tool. Mod flamebait if you need to.
"No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes scripture." - Learned Hand
We can't curtail civil liberties in the name of the War on Terrorism anymore! Now we curtail civil liberties in the name of the War on Illegal Immigration!
Gingrich is in exile from the Republican party for his '97 ethics charges. The article insinuates that he may be thinking of running for President, but the Republicans won't take him and he isn't even as electable as Hillary.
So what is he trying to say? That free speech should be strengthened by the removal of campaign finance laws? That's a good point. But what about this bit about the removal of Internet access to stymie terrorists and their terrorism? That's not good at all.
Then again, the man, despite his political genius and sharp insight into public policy, is a non-entity in political circles. What he says carries no weight anymore, and the sweep of Congress by the Dems puts the last nail in the coffin of the heady days of 1994.
Perhaps Mr. Gingrich will be the first to volunteer to have his right to freedom of speech revoked.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I thought the entire idea of terrorism was to garner the attention that you receive to allow others to see your ideas or distrupt the status quo enough where they would have to change. Typically this would come from a group that has no inroads to get their message across in the current system. So... Let us limit speech and further disenfranchise folks that will create more limited means of getting a groups message out and thus creating more terrorists.
I had a flame... but she had a fire.
Ok, as a lifelong conservative, I find the thought of limiting anyones freedom of speech morally offensive (note the sarcasm in my subject line). Unless it's yelling fire in a theater (or similar action), or conspiracy to commit a crime, freedom of speech should never be inhibited publically. I didn't RTFA, but Newt is off his rocker on this one (and a few others), though I'll defend his right to speak his mind.
Just another day in Paradise
I'm a conservative (a real fiscal conservative, not the BS that is Bush and Co.) and always liked Newt, but not anymore. Sorry, but this kinda BS is completely out of line and he should be promptly kicked in the crotch.
We're lucky he is no longer in office.
Gone!
Is this another bbspot.com article?
Like this problem will go away because he is gone???? Terrorism is the buzz word of the day all politicians will do just about anything to get re-elected. If that means pissing on the bill or rights, so be it. No politician in his right mind is going to say the right thing "I think the first amendment should be sacred even if it means giving some kind of advantage to a would be terrorist." They like their jobs, power, money .......
GENERATION 27: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
You're a terrorist!
Careful, now. You'll make the terrorists win!
I think Benjamin Franklin said it best. Can't believe no one else has C&P'd this yet:
Pretty much says it all.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What do you really think? =)
It's about muzzling people like you. People who say things the rulers don't like. People who might have a conscience.
Networking technology is just the latest excuse. And the "Red Scare" wore out so now the enemies of freedom hype "the War on Terror".
So you don't know what he actually said, but you're going to post an article on a tech oriented site lambasting it.... That's responsible of you.
The more you know, the less you understand.
To anyone who thinks that speech cannot be restricted on the Internet(s), please, go back and re-read all the slashdot articles on the Great Firewall of China. You didn't think Newt was begin original here, did you?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
A brief specific from TFA:
I'm sorry, I wasn't aware of the fact[2] that campaign finance reform has anything to do with limiting attack advertising. Silly me, I thought it was to prevent undue influence from moneyed interests, and to level the playing field for those candidates not independently wealthy.
[1] by new, I mean new-ish. Recycled from previous failed Congresses, even.
[2] 'Fact' as in intentional misdirection from the true purposes of campaign finance reform.
And finally, where does NG get off complaining about negative campaigning? Gingrich routinely used attack ads in his campaigns, and in campaigns against Clinton.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I don't see how fighting terror has to in any way touch on free speech, unless we are talking about not permitting people to glorify terrorism. The last I can understand, as when terror occurs in a series of suicidal acts, each inspired by the foregoing one (and the waves of lionization lauded upon its perpetrators), I think it can reasonably be stated that the glorifying of past acts is in fact incitement of the next such act. That speech should be culpable in the same vein as shouting fire in a movie theatre.
tone
..... Would it not make the U.S.A. no better than the terrorists? After all, isn't the Bush administration's logic the fact that we have free speech and the like?
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
"Gingrich said America has "failed" in Iraq over the past three years and urged a new approach to winning the conflict. The U.S. needs to engage Syria and Iran and increase investment to train the Iraqi army and a national police force, he said. "How does a defeat for America make us safer?" Gingrich said. "I would look at an entirely new strategy." He added: "We have clearly failed in the last three years to achieve the kind of outcome we want."
You might not be a Republican, and you might not agree with everything he has to say, but he is an extrememly intelligent man (Ph.D Tulane) and it might behoove you to read the entire speech transcript before getting so worked up.
It's SO ironic. Last major terrorist action (spain, some years ago) eveny government is doing exactly that what the terrorists want them to do.
:(
Issue all kinds of weird laws that take away our freedom, wiretap everybody, evedrop on your email and so on and so on.
Great job.
Privacy is terrorism.
New winning strategy in the WOT:
Don't hate us, we're just like you.
Scumbags like Newt have been itching to silence media and people for decades, they are at their core PISSED that anyone is allowed to air thier dirty laundry, publicly disagree with them, or even say they are doing a bad job! Nokw they have the terrorism bogeyman to help further their agandas and are pushing hard.
Problem is that the typical American laps that crap up like a man lost in a desert for a few days will drink from the first puddle of water he sees.
My fellow Americans, call for the silencing of idiots like Newt, and call for the resignation of every elected official that tramples on your rights.... Come on, get some balls will all of ya? The new shiny this holiday season is not as important as your country!
Bah, nevermind, nobody is listening anyways.
restrictions on free speech supported restrictions of free speech via the mechanism known as campaign finance reform?
Just curious.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
There's always some "threat" that requires that we give up some Freedoms ... just until the threat is over ... so the government can "protect" us.
Freedom is not safe.
Our forefathers felt that it was better to die Free than to live under tyranny.
I'll take their opinions over Newt's any day.
That's right, we must win the fight to end our way of life! If they get there before we do, we're screwed!
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
The article does not say anything close to the headline. There are two quotes attributed to newt and neither one give a hint at what he said. I have to believe the title is a hatchet job on Newt. If he actually said something in the context of restricting free speech I think they would have used the full quote.
Here are the two quotes in the article and neither one has a real context...
"We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade,"
"different set of rules"
The article goes on to quote him as saying the Iraq war is a failure.
From TFA:Gingrich said he will not decide whether he is running for President until September 2007.I hope he does, just so I can see him fail miserably. His lack of respect for constitutional rights and his outlandish ideas of engaging Syria and Iran as a means of finding "success" are likely to scare all but the most conservative voters.
allowed to say that.
Gingrich clearly isn't a Republican, but an Authoritarian, and should be derided as such.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Don't worry, he's not in charge of running America. He's just another paid, idiotic talking-head shill who appears regularly in the mainstream media who doesn't really know what he's talking about. The nice thing about the Internet is, the proles like you and me can debate ideas like his head-to-head here, in discussion forums, blogs, etc. He's preaching to the choir; his audience is a couple of hundred thousand Fox News fanatics who are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Their influence and numbers are declining daily, these days, and many of the ones who do have Internet access are borderline illiterate. There's a far higher proportion of intelligent people hanging out at places like Slashdot and DailyKos.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
As usual, there is more than meets the eye, especially when the original article is from the "Union Leader"..
From a fairly robust article in the Boston Globe I dug up with a quick Google News search for "Gingrich":
MANCHESTER, N.H. --Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Monday that First Amendment rights need to be expanded and cited the elimination of McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms as one solution.
Noting the thwarted London terrorist attacks this summer, Gingrich said there should be a Geneva Convention for such actions that makes those people subject to "a totally different set of rules."
From this Globe article (hardly a conservative-friendly paper) it appears Gingrich's "totally different set of rules" has not to do with freedom of speech, but with the Geneva Convention as applied to terrorists, which is a whole 'nother bag of worms in and of itself; however, the question remains as to how the OP managed to spin what seem to be two separate points into one decidedly negative message.
Does anyone have the actual transcript of his speech there so we can figure out who's full of BS and who's not? Think about it -- if the man is even THINKING of running for President in '08, he certainly isn't going to get elected if he runs on a platform of RESTRICTING basic freedom of speech.
Also consider the source. Who knows what Newt actually said, you aren't going to find out by reading a leftist news source. Don't let this get in the way of your hate-GOP fest though.
Some moderator in a hurry saw this and thought it said First Post. It doesn't. It may just be a joke, but it is relevant.
Infuriate left and right
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
I ask you: what part of "Congress shall make no law..." didn't he get the memo on?
John Adams
I nominate Newt as democracy's first victim.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Better safe than sorry, right?
After all, as long as you are safe, what do you care who is sorry?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I'm with you. I better get this out of my system while I have the freedom to:
"Die in a fire fueled by cow crap, you just cost me $7.95 today to take advantage of free speech before it gets shut down for yet more generic security reasons".
A couple of people on /. have been having dreams about this. I bet there are others *much* higher up than me that have had it too.
4 8&cid=16979248
It's a shame much more credible people than me that have had this dream can't discuss it because it will literally end their career and label them "extremists" that are in cahoots with the terrists and other criminals.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2082
Funny how Trusted/Treacherous Computing would work very well within this kind of nation-state.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I'm still stunned that the conservative movement, which used to claim to champion smaller government and strict constitutional readings, has turned into a champion of authoritarian governmental control. The Bill of Rights is key to the freedoms we enjoy as Americans and these rights were ironed out by leaders who just emerged victorious from a civil war. They understood war and its dangers but more importantly they understood the danger of tyranny, and so the very first right in the Bill of Rights is the right to free speech. To try and claim that now we must suspend this fundamental right because of "war" is to go against the very underpinnings of this country's foundation and sets the stage for increasing authoritarianism by the US Government.
I honestly hope we don't enact restrictions like Europe (and elsewhere) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-02-26-euro pe-free-speech_x.htm.
"If the Constitution doesn't protect scum like me, it doesn't protect anybody."---Larry Flint.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Isn't it a fundamental flaw of free speech that it can be used to express one's opposition to free speech? Or do you believe that free speech should be restricted in order to prevent such opposition being expressed?
I read the article. Did you? Obviously not. Nowhere in it did Gringrich say exactly how or what he would suggest changing with regards to free speech. Yet that's enough to send the /. pundits through the roof. Perhaps in the future it might be helpful to know exactly what you are getting upset about before losing your mind.
By the way morons, he hasn't served in Congress since 1998, so it's not like he is running the show any more.
We have military tribunals that usurp Habeas Corpus.
We have warrantless wiretaps and searches that basically ignore the Fourth Amendmant.
Now some want to curb free speech.
At some point you have to ask yourself what are we fighting for?
There was a time when our steadfast will to uphold the US Constitution gave us somewhat of a moral compass that differentiate us from our foes.
Now we are basically eroding the very document that made the US a great nation.
The very purpose of terrorism is NOT to kill. That is a means to an desired end result.
Here is a common definition of terrorism:
the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear
By us disregarding the Constitution we are giving the terrorists what they want.
The terrorists are winning because the governments of the western world are GIVING THEM WHAT THEY WANT.
And don't think for a second some of this is not for the benefit of the mega-multinational corporations either.
This is facism at it's purest. Welcome to the 21st century. I hope you enjoy your coup that George W Bush et al engineered.
See, Gingrich knows that the most dangerous threat to his party's point of view is free speech, the open exchange of ideas.
He prolly plans on winning the next election by silencing the opposition. They tried to use the cry of "Won't someone please think of the terrorists!" to drown out othe opposition. now he has dreams of calling the police and saying "Yeah, I think so-and-so is saying something that helps the terrorists." He's a fucking facist.
See, you know this is a smokescreen for something else because the terrorists are not coming from the USA. Therefore, the use of free speech is not helping or causing terrorism.
If I had to guess, I bet you'd find fat campaign contributions from RIAA and MPAA in Newt's pocket.
Imagine if someone were to use a 'free speech' newswire/slash-blog to dare mention that 9/11 had nothing to do with 'al-whatever' and everything to do with a former anti-capitalist clique that chose to attack the Pentagon (arms) and the World Trade Centre (trade) on the opening day of the world's arms-trade fair. Imagine if such a 'wild claim' were to be backed up with firm primary-source evidence instead of highly speculative 'al-qaeda-ology'. Now imagine that the 'enlightened' web audience cottons on to push for a global abolition of the arms-trade (and demand the heads of Bush, Blair and all the rest of them). It could happen, hence the neo-cons are dead scared.
Incidentally, it was probably the UK D-notice committee that first foisted the 'bloke in a cave' story on the world, as the Twin Towers crumbled to the ground, sans explosives. The D-notice committee are the UK government censors and all the UK media sit on the committee.
It's all about spin. Take it the other way, say that this gives the intelligence community a new opportunity to spy on terrorist recruitment and activities.
= 2040066&page=1
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/AmericanFamily/story?id
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
As I'm sure you're aware, there are several countries in Europe that have codified facts - for example, it's a crime in Germany to deny the Holocaust. But as far as I know, most of them do not relate to thoughts and ideas. Religious fundamentalism is for the most part an idea, and I don't think you could or should try to ban that through law. Already you have the same effect in public circles, where you have "political correctness" where you avoid giving honest opinions and instead use weasel words or completely refrain from it. It doesn't work, all it does is create a notion that it is what people really feel, they're just cowered into denying it. Combine that with a tendency of going with the majority, it is easy to manipulate people into thinking they're part of a "secret majority" or at least part of some big "secret movement". Particularly if you can throw in a "They fear the truth. They try to outlaw the truth, force us to silence." Then throw in a little "The others are weak, but we are true in our faith and will take action." and you have a terrorist. All restricting free speech would do it make the recruiter's jobs easier.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Newt said free speech is bad. How do we know? Cuz a leftist newspaper told us so. I mean just check out these quotes from Newt:
"different set of rules" and
"We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade."
YES FOLKS, those are the only two relevant quotes from Newt in the entire article. No context presented, we just have to take THEIR WORD for it that Newt was talking about turning America into Nazi Germany.
This article is nothing more than a leftist hit piece and you people are falling for it. Please read the (bogus) article first before going on a posting jihad.
The fact of the matter is that neo-cons want big government just like ELs. The difference is where they want big government. ELs want big government to solve social problems: poverty, racial injustice, sex discrimination, unlivable wage (like the current minimum wage), etc.
Neo-cons want big government to control how you think and act. Neo-cons want big government to support one religion over another, to control what you can say, to oppose all forms of abortion, to wiretap your phone, to torture you, to initiate war for the express purpose of nation-building, etc.
ELs and neo-cons are just opposite sides of the same big-government coin. ELs are the head of that coin. Neo-cons are the tail -- actually, the ass -- of that coin.
Where is a populist like Bill Bradley, Dennis Kucinich, Bill O'Reilly, or Tammy Bruce when you need them?
we can just gather the terrorists books/computers, put them into a pile, and burn them all. That should work.After that: internment camps...oops...too late.
"different set of rules" - emperors, kings had that
"different set of rules" - the Nazis had that
"different set of rules" - the Communists had that
"different set of rules" - Saddam Hussein had that
Please... please... Mr. American Lawmaker, do exercise some self-censorship before starting to talk about revoking freedom of speech. I mean, just shut the fuck up, resign, get out of politics. There have been enough dictators already, their track-record speaks volume. Maybe Mr. ex-Speaker of the House should attend the execution ceremony of one of the latest anti-freedom of speech practising politician: Saddam H. to broaden his historical horizon. Then, just say what's on your mind - and let everyone else do the same.
Google News lists a dozen newspapers that are running this story, but they all site this one story as the source. I look forward to hearing more details. Although perhaps, if he really did say something this stupid, we may not hear from him much more.
I'm all for it. I've pretty much had my limit of people trying to recruit me into terrorist organizations. It'd be nice if the government cracked down on them. Bloody ringing my doorbell at 9:00 am every saturday. Waiting in the train station handing out their phamplets. NO I'M NOT GOD DAMNED INTERESTED IN SACRIFICING MY LIFE IN THE NAME OF ALLAH! PISS THE FRIG OFF!! You just can't win. One day I was running late for work and one of these guys shoved one of their pamphlets in my face and I grabbed it from him and ripped it up. Then a cop sees me and gives me a ticket for littering. If it's not one thing it's another.
Our Founding Fathers would be jailed as terrorists, and many citizens (militia) would be rounded up as "enemy combatants".
Unfortunately, his flag-waving and fearmongering go down well with the rural populace. We gotta git them ter'rists after all.
I've built up so much character I have an alter-ego
The terrorists are bent on destroying America.
What better way to destroy American than to gut the Bill of Rights?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Seriously, watch the movie, gives you a idea of a population who let there leaders gain to much control. They go to the point of banning specific books, and music. And I can even site real world examples like China now where the media is strictly controlled. Do we relay want to go that way, or well people wake up and realize this is complete BS.
our forefathers gave us the right to bear arms. To protect ourselves if needed against things like this. They will not take freedom of speech.
Sick of stupidity? http://www.patentlystupid.com
It makes some sense, as a culture, to ask ourselves what sort of speech we find reasonable. That's not to be confused with what's allowed - since that's nonsense, both practically and idealogically. Of course, that hasn't stopped the political correctness crowd from attempting to move beyond condemnation and into actual banning of certain phrases - but generally only in the tiny little fiefdoms where they reign, like at schools, or county councils.
But I've got no problem with having a loud enough discussion on this sort of subject, in a broad enough context, that we arrive at a slightly altered popular notion of whether it's culturally acceptable for people to rant along certain lines. For example, we quite delightfully shout down the idiot neo-Nazis and KKK-types when they decide to hold one of their special-ed style marches through some poor picked-upon town that has no choice but to issue them a parade permit. By all means, they should have the permit, and off they go. And a counter-demonstration shouldn't be allowed to occupy a street to protest them, or shut down traffic to hang things up (unless they've got their own permit to occupy said intersection). But that doesn't mean we can't just shame them into cultural oblivion, and in most towns where such things have happened, the klansgoons end up looking like the twits they are - with no speech bans necessary. Such movements arise by being given enough social comfort to exist, and they can be squashed by being starved of the same.
Obviously, the context here is seen in the whipping up of zealots and jihaddis, and the inflammatory wackiness that fuels that mindset and the resulting carnage. Not counting direct incitement to riot or outright criminal conspiracy (which aren't and never have been protected speech), the challenge is to expose the clowns who spew this stuff, and do so in a context that shows what loons they are. If, as is so often claimed, there is a vast, silent majority of non-crazy Muslims, then the job is (since the inciters have no shame) to shame the quiet ones into mopping up their own fringe loons. This isn't done by limiting speech, it's done by showcasing it and calling it what it is. In other words, we can leave the constitution alone and still, as a culture, act to cast a harsher and less forgiving light on the mysoginists and the religious crazies that would prefer the calendar read '11/28/1006'.
I guess it just seems odd that some soccer mom would feel rude telling a jihaddist recruiter that what he preaches to impressionable young men is toxic, malicious buffoonery, but that same mom would have no problem chastising their neighbor's kid for saying something disparaging about the (to them) comic-book-villain-looking Imam whose weekly sermon is actually entitled "Democracy Is Unislamic," with a breakout session on "Death To America."
Yes, yes, mod me down. But you know this doesn't have anything to do with Newt Gingrich or freedom. It's about what we proclaim - through our silence - to be acceptable within the context of western democracy. The Germans over-reacted and made certain utterances illegal - but making the utterers feel like fools is far more effective in the long term. Rebellion against a law gets passed down through families (see Ireland), but kids embarassed by their dad's medieval rantings tend to be the last branch of the family to repeat them. Or act on them.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The intellectual laziness of current conventional political thinkers really galls me. One thing that all of the Founding Fathers agreed on is that a free society presents some difficulties and challenges, but that it's well worth the extra effort freedom requires.
It may be that to maintain our liberty we will be more vulnerable to terrorist attack. Well, that's a price of freedom, but one that with a sensible and progressive foreign policy we can attenuate.
All of the Founding Fathers knew that a free society is inconvenient for our leaders. It makes it a little harder to govern a nation that is free to say and do what they want as long as it doesn't step on the toes of others. It's one of the reasons Jefferson, Washington and others maintained that we've got to keep religion out of the government, because religion proposes easy answers, shortcuts if you will, to get people to behave a certain way.
But the Great Men of the Enlightenment knew that the price of being unwilling to do the hard work of Liberty is darkness for all mankind.
There was a time that America's willingness to work at staying free was a beacon to the world. It provided encouragement to young men and women who lived in Totalitarian societies and kept a flame of hope alive for those who suffered under tyrants. The desire of lazy leaders to skip over the inconveniencies of things like warrants, habeas corpus and free speech, along with the notion that the natural resources of the world are ours to command, have turned us into the object of hatred instead of the hope of the world, which is the natural place of a free people.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I wouldn't say it's a flaw. It's a strength. "If any person would advocate even the dissolution of this nation, let him stand forth free and unmolested as an example of how even the most egregious error of reason can be tolerated in a free society."
- Thomas Jefferson
Did any of the comments posted give you the impression that anyone was advocating that? Most of the comments I read pointed out one of two things:
a) He's wrong.
b) He's an idiot.
Nothing I saw was advocating any punishment or any kind of restriction on his right to be an idiot.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
The solution to a misuse of the freedom of speech is not a reduction of that freedom, but rather an increase. When people use the public square to spread lies, irrationality and terror, it is the duty of free peoples to stand up and drown them in out in a clamor for truth and rationality.
IAALS.
Those who would subdue freedom of speech are [censored] Quote by some guy a long time ago.
I lost my sig...
The article reports on only a few words of what he said, yet seems to have been written by someone with access to the full speech. Why report virtually none of it? Could it be that what he said doesn't support the purpose of the article and its headline in any way?
How's that "Contract With America" coming along, fuckface?
I don't see anywhere that he said free speech would have to be forfeit. Maybe I missed something, and in all honesty I didn't go read any transcripts on the speech; just the article. I'm not saying he didn't, but what I'm saying is that I find it interesting how easy it is for people to jump on someone for questioning something we all take for granted.
Does this mean I think we should get rid of free speech / free expression? Absolutely not! I do think we should talk about it though and not take it for granted. Perhaps by "a different set of rules" he means something better.
I'm not supporting or un-supporting ol' Newt here; I'm just pointing out that the wording used was vague, and that maybe he could be a bit more specific in what a "different set of rules" entails.
On the other hand: a regulated Internet stops working, and he is an old politician, so maybe it is all the standard political bullshit anyway. Whatever.
"Software is like sex; it's better when it's free." -Linus Torvalds
Sorry to say folks, but the ideals that created America were pure and just, and they have run their course.
What I mean by this is not that we should give up on those ideals, rather, they simply won't work any more in the land mass and 300 Million strong group of people we now call the U.S.A. The ideals need to be there even more than ever before.
In fact, we need to restart, and re-assert with utmost clarity the freedoms that allow humanity to flourish. We need to have another continental congress (of sorts) and begin the process of building smaller groups that support human freedoms from the tyranny that Newt represents.
Statements like those by Newt are sad by not unexpected. Rome failed too, and so will the USA, for similar reasons. In Newt's world, he CAN NOT SEE how people can be truly free and actually realize the real freedoms encoded in the constitution while simultaneously maintaining the system of controls needed for the USA to function the way it does now.
The challenge is different now than it was in the mid 1770s. People have lots more guns, a lot less land to move into, a more technology for those in power to maintain control. Yet - it has to happen, and it will, even if only virtually. People need to reassert the freedoms that we agree upon, and structure the society we live in to maintain those freedoms.
The USA no longer does.
I don't see any Democrats stepping up to repeal the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act. I don't see them stepping up to reduce the abuses of the executive branch. They won't, because they can't. Pelosi will block impeachment. Dems benefit from more powerful government as most of them are career politicos just like the Republicans. The USA version of Left/Right in politics is a false dichotomy supported for power by the right and unable to be opened/changed by the dis-united left.
and were did that get the founding fathers eh? They're all dead. Dead I tell you. If you carry on like that, you'll someday be dead too!
then there's no need to protect it.
Make one exception and the entire concept is forfeit.
Even as a humble European I can understand the concept - what's his excuse?
it's completely unfair to judge Newt's statements. If you've ever listened to Newt speak you would know he's a very intelligent guy, you may not agree with him, but he's intelligent. Jumping to conclusions without any actual details is idiotic (although I guess par for the course around here).
"Political parties in Presidential primary states should host events that invite candidates from both parties to discuss issues, said Gingrich, who criticized the sharpness of today's politics"
*Gingrich* criticizes the sharpness of today's politics?? Is this the same Gingrich who concocted the Contract On America?
"Gingrich said voters unhappy with the war, the response to Hurricane Katrina and pork barrel spending were the main drive behind the GOP's rejection at the polls. But he argued Republicans would have retained the Senate and just narrowly lost the House if President Bush had announced the departure of embattled Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld before, instead of after, the election."
Yeah, that would have made it all better.
People like Gingrich really do take us all for suckers. I guess the money and the fame is more important.
So, this how democracy and freedom slowly starts to erode. Fear is a very powerful tool...
Hey, Newt, take it from a formerly registered Republican. Your buddies lost because they are a bunch of arrogant, elitist R-tards who don't know squat about how to run a country, sort of like the Democrats you wrested control from in '94.
Actually, one could view the Bill of Rights as our own "Tough Guy Manifesto", thus:
1) You can't tell me what to believe, or make me go home and shut up.
2) I'll go armed and defend myself, thank you.
3) You can't make me let someone else live in my house.
4) This is MY house; if you can't demonstrate a compelling need to snoop, stay the fuck out.
5) This is MY shit; keep your greedy hands off it. And don't go accusing me of Evil without evidence.
6) If you've got evidence, lay it on the table. And no fair getting a confession by pitchforking me in the ass.
7) I ain't guilty just on YOUR say-so.
8) You can't keep me in jail just because you want to.
9) As to the rest of my life, you can't tell me what to do or not do.
10) And neither can your big fat uncle in Washington.
Yeah, the Founding Fathers framed it in far more polite language, but the intent is the same. They understood standing up for yourself and not letting the gov't push you around -- your own or anyone else's. That was, after all, what the War for Independence was all about.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Yes I know but its so much more fun to stereotype. On a more serious note, I do visit the US fairly frequently and it is really upsetting to see that a country seemingly entirely populated by people who are just falling over themselves to help perfect strangers like myself (in the north east where I visit at least) has been hijacked by a completely alien political and business elite. I feel for you but I have no idea what anyone can do to help and I don't see anyone changing anything from inside the US when your society is so fractured with everyone being scared of everyone else. I am not trolling now (nicely spotted before). Really, living in Canada and coming from the UK, it is striking how afraid average americans are of well pretty much everything but then again thats what you're told to be by your media which is controlled by the same poeople as everything else. What can I say, I feel for you (and for everyone else in the wolrd who is at the mercy of your deranged leaders).
The first ammendment was designed specifically to allow us to plot the overthrow of our government and the current order... something easily considered terrorism.
To say we need to reinterpret the 1st ammendment to avoid terrorism just makes no sense.
How on Dog's Blue/Green Earth did this get modded Insightful?
We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade
That is Grade A Fearmongering.
Lose a city? Really? How would that supposed threat be worse now as opposed to 10 years ago? Same boogeymen were around 10 years ago, same tools were available. Why is it urgent now?
The systematic abuse of this tactic over the last 6+ years to centralize power and isolate/marginalize any meaningful discussion or disagreement should be a felony crime.
It is the equivalent of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded room. A non-credible statement designed and distributed to keep the citizens in a state of fear and heightened paranoia.
Please, consider the fearmongering more objectively.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
The comment being attributed to Gingrich is outlandish enough that I'm a little skeptical that's what he actually said, but, unfortunately, these days it doesn't seem impossible that he did make comments to that effect. Either way, I'll respond to the idea, because even if Gingrich doesn't actually feel this way there are plenty who do (in fact so many that I can grab some parts from previous posts). I'm also going to leave aside for a moment the point that we probably don't have the ability to effectively squelch free speech world wide.
The freedom of speech is one of our most fundamental liberties. It is this (and arguably the right to bear arms) that underlies all other liberties. In order for a democracy to function properly, the people must be able to criticize the government and discuss all the different courses of action. If the government itself is allowed to regulate speech, this ceases to be possible. Without the freedom to speak out and rally support for ideas, all other freedoms can be taken away. At best, taking away the freedom of speech means that the only control the people will truly have over their government is the threat of violence. A principal virtue of democracy is that it allows us to peacefully settle our differences and protect our freedoms.
Over time, many Americans have died to protect our liberty: American revolutionaries fighting the mighty British empire, soldiers who stormed the beach at Normandy, or civil rights protesters during Jim Crow who were beaten by police and sometimes killed by the Klan. Now it seems circumstances have called upon us to make a sacrifice, to take a risk, in defense of liberty. Terrorists seek to use our freedoms as a weapon against us, be it our freedom of movement or our right to privacy or our right to free speech. So now we are faced with a choice, do we abandon those liberties in order to deprive these terrorists of this weapon, or do we stand up for liberty and accept that with it may come risks?
If you think about it rationally, the statistical chance of you dying in a terrorist attack is quite low, by any reasonable estimate. You're far more likely to die from any number of causes, e.g. a car crash. The government and media have played up the threat and gotten people into an irrational frenzy over the matter, but really the threat is quite small for most of us. See, for example, this paper on the subject. If you say that the threat of terrorism is a good reason to give up freedom of speech, then what you are saying, rationally, is that you are willing to accept a larger risk for the privlege of driving a car than for having your fundamental liberties.
I live in the suburbs of Washington D.C., just a few miles from the White House. I often go into the city, ride the subway, etc. I am probably at a statistically greater risk of being the victim of a terrorist attack than 99% of Americans. I'm still a young man and in no hurry to die. However, there are a few things worth taking a risk for, and one of those is liberty. That was actually one of the few points I thought almost every American could agree on. If I have to accept these small risks to my life in exchange for my liberty, then I say it is a small price to pay, and I pay it gladly.
I am not trying to claim to be any sort of great patriot here. On the contrary, my point is that the sacrifice most of us are being called upon to make to uphold our liberties is so small that it is basically ludicrous in comparison to those that have been made by the patriots that came before us. So, I just can't see how I could possibly refuse to make that sacrifice and still have any respect for myself. As I said, I would have thought any American would feel the same. I'd like to continue to be able to think of America as, "the land of the free and the home of the brave."
I'll close, as I have before, with the famous quotation by Patrick Henry:
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
In situations like this, I am always reminded of a quote from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master." -- Commissioner Pravin Lal
We'd have more success stopping terrorism by stopping the problems that cause it in the first place. Hatred and Fundamentalism. Poverty. Warmongering. The people of the middle east need to find a way to stop that, and so far we really don't seem to be doing much to help. In the case of Iraq, it often feels like we are exacerbating the problem.
The 'terrorists' are fighting to create a world that there will be a head imam, and some other imams under him, and their word will be the law, hence something withOUT free speech,
and this guy is proposing to curb free speech to fight them.
See the irony here ?
All the hussle would be avoided if he turned to islam and moved to iran, hence there would be no trouble of 'free speech' for him.
Read radical news here
Ginrich: Well I got better...
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
I'm baffled by the tremendous amount of attention that terrorism continually recieves in the media and from our politicians. I really don't want to seem calloused when I say this, but let's ask ourselves how many people died in 9/11, then compare that to how many people die a year from smoking. The numbers are staggering- cigarettes and alcohol, yearly, kill enough Americans to give Osama Bin Laden a wet dream. Imagine if we took the money we're spending on the Iraq War and instead invested those billions and billions of dollars into Cancer Research. We'd save far more lives, and would gain back our credibility in the world-wide community. I think that we need to step back and remember that Terrorism isn't necessarily our nation's greatest threat. Whatever is killing Americans is America's greatest threat, and our money should be spent with that context in mind.
"A mind, once expanded by a new idea, never returns to it's original dimensions." -a Super King Buffet fortune cookie
Several points: I have read the transcipt. Newt never said that free speech should be curtailed. Indeed, he said it should be expanded. But what's accuracy between a few friends? It should be pointed that the few attempts at LEGISLATION that would curtail free speech was sponsored by Democrats. It is also worth noting that the PMRC was the brainchild of Tipper Gore and that the panel was packed with Democrats. The two Repulicans on the panel, not any of the Democrats, were the ones who called the opponents of free speech restrictions as witnesses. A lot of folks forget that it was Edwin Meese, the Attorney General at the time and a Republican, wrote a legal opinion opposing the proposed PMRC legislation. He said parents were the bets people to decide whether children should be listening to Frank Zappa or whomever. Next, people like to whine about the suspension of habeas corpus and about warrantless searches, like George Bush invented these things or in responsible for them. Suspension of habeas corpus for prisoners of war has been the standard for nearly 65 years in the United States. In fact, President Lincoln utilized it during wartime. Also, before moving forward on it, President Bush consulted congress, or as I like to call them elected representatives of the people, and had its full support, included the democrats. Meanwhile, there is a legal standard for searches without warrants. Indeed, it's provided for in the U.S. Constitution, and the Bush administration followed the standard required by the court.
Meantime US politicians keep ragging on the "human rights violations" of foreign nations, and even the educated techies who post here keep harping on China's censorship of the internet.
May as well consolidate all those American flag stars into one, and prune back the colours used. Though Newt is probably going to suggest Blue because a Red background would be a hard sell after all the years of anti-communist media and spin.
Or it could be done simple and accurately -- a big dollar sign on a green background. :p
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
A free society is founded upon the freedom to speak one's mind. The ability of the jihadis to propagandize is irrelevant in comparison. Let them have their say, it will only make them that much easier to fight. Whenever there is talk about limiting freedom of expression for fear of the message, my first impression is that this desire is due to the lack of an effective response. You don't seek to silence your opponent when you're winning the argument.
The war of Islam against the rest of the world will last many years, if not decades. Western civilization itself will stand or fall depending on the outcome. Undermining the very principles that make us who we are and that give us our greatest strength will only help our enemies.
If undermining freedom of speech isn't the way to win, then what is? Victory will come by knowing and understanding our enemies. The problem here isn't that our enemies are free to lie and propagandize against us, but that the west has so wrapped itself up in the chains of political correctness that expressing the truth about our enemies is attacked as racism or islamophobia or any other number of convenient buzz-words. Only by casting away these lies that have ensnared us will we be able to defeat those whose only purpose is our subjugation and the destruction of our civilization.
But what is political correctness? Political correctness is censorship. It is a tool used to silence one's opponents through lies and humiliation. The best description of political correctness I've ever read comes from Theodore Dalrymple, a British psychiatrist who said:
"Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to silence and humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. Ones standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to."
The biggest challenge we face in this war is not with our enemies in other lands, but with those enemies at home who defend and praise our enemies and attack those who dare to speak the truth about them. In a very real sense it is not the propaganda of the jihadis that is the problem, but the lies of their sympathizers here at home who undermine our ability to mount an effective response.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
The perfect test for ending free speech should be to lock up Newt the next time he opens his mouth.
Isn't ironic that fighting terrorism to protect "freedom" end up costing our freedom?
Come on. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
Cheap Speech is a lot more realistic.
This is absolutely obscene. The US Constitution was founded to prevent clowns like Gingrich from taking away our essential liberties in this way. I would argue that the true purpose of our armed forces is to prevent external and internal powers from robbing us of freedom. (Of course I am not referring to the current conflicts.) Therefore when Gingrich and others of his kind say things like this, they are NOT supporting the troops. They are dishonoring everything our country and our armed forces are supposed to represent.
Oh come on! Like anyone cares about what Newt actually said. Read the article summary. Read the comments. No one gives a damn about what he actually said.
Your devotion to reality is sadly anachronistic. Get with the times and start hating who they tell you to hate.
On that note, things that make you go "hmmm", from The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas N. Adams:
i) "Anyone capable of getting themselves elected president, should on no account be allowed to do the job."
ii) "The real purpose of the office of the president is not to wield power, but to distract attention away from those who do."
(Slightly paraphrased, with posthumous apologies to DNA)
Gingrich is a political animal, through and through. He would never say something like this in public unless he's confident that there is a constituency out there waiting to hear it. Now that's the scary part.
And remember kids: Never trust a computer you can actually lift.
...it's that they don't give a damn either way and seek to "fix" the problem however seems to be the most expedient or merely to look like they're "doing something" about the "problem".
In this case, there is a very, VERY real problem with the security of the nation and few seem to be willing to deal with it appropriately- they'd rather do things that run against the Bill of Rights or just simply waste money and resources and do little to actually SECURE things. But they're going to do "something" so they can't be accused of doing nothing, By God.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
"and no analysis pointing out how utterly clueless the suggestion is given the Internet's nature and trans-national reach."
As China is proving, it is not so impossible, sure they cannot stop stuff being put on the web from outside the US but they can stop people from within the US actually seeing it thus further promoting the sence of false security,which is all that most anti terrorist measures give anyway.
Sure the china firewall is far from perfect but give the tech another 10 years or so and it will be a 10000 times better.
And once they (US) have it in place in the US they could tell other countrys, follow our rules/standards or will we block everything from your country, thus slowly cascading the policy outwards.
Only problem though for the US is that by this time it will have lost so much financial and political strength (already the US financial markets are shrinking as most companies choose to list/trade elsewhere and politically having the USA backing you is a sure way to lose an election in many countrys)that for many countrys the loss of access to the American markets will not matter THAT much. Rather they will be be a lot more worried about losing access to the china markets, which funny enough is slowly going in the opposite direction to the US, towards a freer and more open society
Our children/grandchildren will be living in a world where everything is turned on it's head in comparison to now, with people trying to escape the oppressive country called the United States of America while millions try to get to china to get rich and live the good life
"Those who would trade freedom for safety deserve, and will have, neither" --Benjamin Franklin
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
--Benjamin Franklin Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759Seems we have gone far from the principles our country was founded on.
"Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither"
Who gave you the right to voice YOUR opinion, asshat!?!?!?
I say we enact this law controlling free speech ONLY for Newt so we don't have to listen to his asinine bullshit any longer.
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
Somebody shut that motherfucker up!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I know Newt.. I've worked for Newt.. and in many many ways he's a brilliant man.. His fatal flaw is he absolutely cannot be compressed into a soundbyte. He's a college professor by trade, he takes 50 minutes to explain ANYTHING. Remember "whither on the vine" where he practically handed the Democrats a golden issue? Yeah that was part of a particularly long press conference where he unveiled the next generation of free market oriented Medicare (Agree or disagree with that is not the point). One line was taken out of context, and in all certainty, this is what happened here.
George Washington was the president
But now he's dead (dead)
Mackenzie King was Prime Minister
But now he's dead (dead)
So don't go into politics
You'll end up dead
Don't go into politics
You'll end up dead
Oppenheimer built the bomb
But now he's dead (dead)
Einstien was very very smart
But not enough not to be dead (dead)
So don't go into science
You'll end up dead
Don't go into science
You'll end up dead
And don't go into politics
You'll end up dead
Don't go into politics
You'll end up dead
Jimi Hendrix, Janice Joplin, Brian Jones, Keith Moon,
Jim Morrison, Roy Orbison,
John Lennon, Bob Marley, Leonard Bernstien, Elvis Presley
Well, we're not too sure about Elvis
But I think you get the point
Don't go into music
You'll end up dead
Don't go into music
You'll end up dead
And don't go into science
You'll end up dead
Don't go into politics
You'll end up dead
Break it down
You'll be burned, you'll be fried
You'll be buried alive
And there's no hope thinkin'
That you're gonna survive
'Cause there's the drowning and choking
And cancer from smoking
And smothered while sleeping
And blood will start seeping
So I have found, you'll end up in the ground
And you'll be dead
So I have found, you'll end up in the ground
I wish there was an option instead
But you'll be dead
Dead
Maybe with a bullet in your head
But you'll be dead
Dead
Very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very dead
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." - Benjamin Franklin
I honestly feel that the only thing that is going to bring the United States back to control by the people, for the people, is a complete breakdown of the existing system. It has become too corrupt and manipulated to ever be "righted" again.
Because of the Internet and various other means of "free speech", that complete breakdown can still happen. Once we lose the ability to communicate en masse, our chances at ever gaining "freedom" again will be lost.
The "War on Terrorism", as explained by those in power, is a hoax. It is simply a means devised by those in power to retain and spread that power. I am just waiting for them to make some huge mistake that really opens the eyes of Americans. I thought Iraq would do that, but the spin-meisters managed to keep it together so far.
But thats just my opinion.
What do you think the founding fathers were?
They violently overthrew the government that was in charge at the time.
They saw their actions as morally justified by principles that superseded the law.
The founders then proposed a system of government based on these higher principles.
Then the idea occurred to them that the inheritors of this government could become just as bad as the folks they just overthrew.
They expected that someday folks would have to do exactly the same thing they just got finished doing.
The bill of rights was added to tilt the odds in favor of the next set of revolutionaries.
Of course it protects the terrorists. That's exactly what it was meant to do.
Gingrich's point is correct as far as it goes--if we plan to win against the terrorists, we will need to discard our freedoms.
The terrorist threat he's concerned with, however, is not a foreign attacker with a different religion.
Rather than fix the government, Newt's solution is to have them keep doing what they're doing and pacify the citizens.
The terrorist threat Newt's concerned with is a populace that's fed up with a government that's betrayed its citizenry.
The fact that the folks in power see this as a threat is an indicator that they no longer believe in their own legitimacy.
Or, more importantly, they believe that enough of the populace has lost faith in their leadership as to threaten it.
Newt's proposal is an admission of guilt.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.
John Adams"
Bullshit. The history of the whole of Europe is the story of autocratic dictatorships losing their power and becoming democracies. The general trend is that liberty tends to increase.
Deleted
More to the point, we already lost a city this decade - New Orleans. It wasn't lost to some surprise terrorist attack noone foresaw, either. Talk about being behind the curve.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
...by the millions, becoming citizens and voting for women not to read/learn, Allah to be the one true God, etc...that would be fine, but with the arsenal becoming available to these nutters, they're not really in a voting mood.
There is no foreign policy or bargaining - they just want you dead.
I don't like loosing freedoms, but we have had a dialed-back freedom from the beginning - the fact that those freedoms are now subject to further tweaking is just reacting to state-of-the-art in criminal intent.
Look at the 2nd Ammendment - it was never enumerated that the people should be able to own a howitzer or a nuke so that freedom has been tweaked to rule those out as the state-of-the-art changed. Speech, assembly, etc... are no different. I'm sure the founding fathers never intended for the 1st Ammendment to include websites and Oprah being beamed around the world influencing people's minds with BS either.
There was a time when republicans stood for liberty and limited government alot like the federalists and democraticrepublicans. Infact the republicans still are endorsed by the federalists society.
But today they do not represent anything in which they claim to stand for. Mainly large bloated government and faschism and using fear like gaymarriage and terrorism to attract votes.
http://saveie6.com/
"Newt Gingrich issued his opinion that the idea of free speech in the U.S. needs to be re-examined in the interest of fighting freedom."
Talk about your freudian slip.
And remember kids: Never trust a computer you can actually lift.
The press in the US (and other western countries) is failing in its basic obligation of questioning our "elected" leadership. And it is not enough to ask the occasional tough question - when Bush (for example) rambles on about something besides answering the question, re-state the question and push back.
The "owners" control the news media and control what people hear and see. Perfect setup, from their point of view.
This whole "give up freedoms to protect against terrorism" is bullshit, but still effective for controlling the masses. The reason that this is working is the same reason that the Nazis in Germany gained control: the economy.
On at least a subconscious level, people in the US (and some other industrialized countries) understand that other parts of the world are catching up and that their material standard of living may soon take a hit. I think that playing to this fear is what makes this "give up freedoms to protect against terrorism" thing work, but I think that it is fear of the future economy, not of the occasional random terrorist attack.
Any solution? Well I think so: if enough people turn away from materialism and get back to the basic joys in life: family, friends, sports, education, job satisfaction, etc. How many people do you know who have bought a new car because their (proverbial) brother in law just got one, when their old car ran fine - just an example.
Instead of BUY, BUY, BUY, how about LIVE, LIVE, LIVE. Readjust priorities and learn to live in a world that may not live up to media-driven materialistic expectations. And, push back hard against elected representatives who want us to give up our freedoms.
Or we may be less vulnerable. While it's true that free speech (and freedom of association, a separate but related right) may allow "the terrorists" to organize and recruit, it also allows their enemies (us, free Americans) to organize and recruit as well. One of the great national strengths that freedom of speech conveys is the power of many. Like open source software development, the power of many means that the more people who can observe and think about a problem, the more likely it is for the most effective solution to arise.
Freedom of speech means that there is greater opportunity for errors in methodology to be found, for problems to be reported, and for more diverse innovation in problem solving. What Newt is proposing does not lead to better solutions, it leads to better concentration of power in the hands of a small number of solution-creators. I prefer an America where journalists, bloggers, or anyone at all can stand up and say "Hey! We're going about this all wrong!" or "Hey, you forgot this important thing: __________" or "Hey! This guy (agency, etc) is not doing his job well!"
It's a competitive marketplace of ideas and I think Americans can compete just fine with our enemies--if we allow ourselves to.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Allright, time for the US to follow Britian in the surveillance war.. Security Cameras with Horns and Microphones, State issued smartcard ids, hell maybe even barcode tatoos and RFID implants. Lets pack our bags and move to Canada.. or.. somewhere.
Meridian 59. EPIC WIN. http://openmeridian.org
Did you know that 100 percent of smokers die? Think about that any time you or someone you know lights up.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
If you compare the article to the article header, there is a disconnect.
While I dislike many of the things Gingrich has done over the years, including dumping his wife while being 'pro-family', I have to say that he didn't specifically say that the First Amendment is forfeit.
My interpretation is that he is warning people that the open society supported by the First Amendment may need to be looked at, especially when it comes to the 'free speech' of recruiting terrorists.
When you think about it, 'free speech' in the name of terrorism is like 'free speech' when it involves shouting FIRE in a crowded theater. While you are physically capable of doing it, it is frowned upon and considered to be outside the realm of 'free speech'.
Unfortunately, there are instances where a casual comment that will never be acted upon can be considered to be terrorism. (i.e. teenagers posting 'Kill XYX' with XYZ representing a public figure) There are also grey zone cases where one person's patriotism could be considered another person's terrorism. (i.e. people who think that complaining about the President is pro-terrorism)
I'm not writing this to in any way support the current crop of buttheads. I'm just pointing out that the buttheads have always been with us, and were even found amongst the founding fathers.
...stupid lyrics sites get the lyrics wrong.
"Now there's a have to hook'in fee" - what the fuck does that even mean? And if you google it, a lot of lyric sites have it this way.:-P
The real lyrics are "No, there's a hefty fuckin' fee" which actually makes sense.:-P
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
In fact, in the Federalist Papers (no. 84, if you're counting) Alexander Hamilton described the very road you're going down as one of the reasons why a country shouldn't have a Bill of Rights:Unfortunately, I think time has shown that the founders greatly overestimated both the leadership and citizenry that would come after him; "men disposed to usurp" have indeed usurped practically every right not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, just as Hamilton feared.
This is not how things are supposed to work. The founders of our country lived in a time that was rife with invention and development; they certainly did not mean for only certain bits and pieces of speech to be protected. To say that books are protected under the First Amendment today, but not the Internet, would be as ridiculous as saying in 1788 that only handwriting was protected, but words printed using movable type were not. Either way is quite obviously the same content and due the same protection.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Now, there's no way a private group could compete with the US Military.
Right. There's no possible way that a bunch of people with improvised explosives and small arms could possibly inflict enough losses on a modern army to cause it to reconsider a major military operation...
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Your resolve was never that strong to begin with.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-Benjamin Franklin
Like Bush has said, the terrorists hate us for our freedoms. If we simply get rid of those freedoms, then they will have no reason to hate us. Problem solved.
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
"It provided encouragement to young men and women who lived in Totalitarian societies..."
Ironic you mention that because the rise in totalitarian philosophies in American politics almost perfectly coincide with the collapse of your nation's great totalitarian adversary, the Soviet Union. You lost the benefit of their constant bad example.
Speaking from experience in both venues, a rural populace is more likely to react with "Says who??" Mob mentality is much more prevalent in urban areas.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
people very much like Bush and Gingrich were in charge 200+ years ago; our founding fathers were jailed as terrorists (although they spelled it "traitors"). the idea of suppressing freedoms to maintain the illusion of security is nothing new; in fact, it might be the oldest idea in politics.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
Right on - if I had mod points, you would get them.
From the governments point of view there are more "bad" guys then we think, (lies) that's only because a bad guy is anyone who counters the agenda. A terrorist could be people who don't even acknowledge the agenda, if I say Newt is irrelevant as is his party's policies then I'm a bad guy. If I say both parties lie about the real agenda I'm labeled a conspiracy theorist and discredited. If I say in the 21st century America's leaders are guilty of the very things England's King was in the 18th century, I'm not a patriot. If I say had the founding Fathers of this country still been alive today they would have started a new revolution and a new form of government I would be labeled as an extremist. There is no good or evil, that we don't make ourselves. D. Rhodes
"A keyboard?! How Quaint!"
2001 saw the highest US death toll due to terrorist activity, which was by most estimates was around 3,000 Americans.
The same year, about 1.1 MILLION people died from cancer and heart disease-- nearly 400 times the death toll from terrorism. Sudden infant death syndrome causes more deaths in this country EVERY year than terrorism did in the worst terrorist year in US history.
We even killed ourselves 25 times more than terrorists did in 2001 (70,000 vs 3,000).
"Fighting Terrorism" costs money, convenience, and civil liberties. Any of which I'd be far more likely to part with if we were fighting one of the real killers in America.
1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions so your result is way off. 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.
It amazes me when people who are supposed to understand how this country should work (according to the Constitution and the rule of law) never seem to. This statement by Gingrich is utter BS. There is no need (and its doubtful they could even be enforced if WE put laws into place) for new laws governing the freedom of speech. And its almost boring what Newt is doing here. He is doing what politicians around the world do all the time. He is inventing a problem. "Oh no, we need to keep the terrorists from spreading their ideology and disseminating their terroristic plans! We need new laws!" Uh, really? Last time I checked there were restrictions on my freedom of speech. I can't incite violence, I can't yell fire in a crowded theater and Fighting Words are legal grounds for me to get my butt kicked (not to mention Slander and Libel). Not to mention laws against conspiracy (so someone who is only involved in the "talking" portion of a plot to harm/kill 1 or more people can be brought to justice). Hmm, so what is it we need laws to protect us against? Those that don't agree w/ the U.S. can still talk freely and openly, but anyone espousing violence, inciting violence are clearly breaking the law. So what new laws do we need? Why do we need our freedoms curtailed? Ah, but here's the trick. Newt is counting on the fact that everyone has already forgotten that little lesson from their high school government class or that our schools are so crappy most people were never taught the curtailments on out FOS (Freedom Of Speech (just in case I need to use that later and don't feel like typing it out)) that are already in place. The second and most problematic issue with what ole Newt said is that it involves passing laws that govern the Internet. These are highly problematic, especially when you are talking about "content" laws on the Internet. What if the server is in another country? Or what if it's in international waters? Are we going to become like China and build our own Great Firewall? And once we do that, where does it stop? There are a lot of nasty ideas out there we may not want our citizens exposed to. Ideas like Freedom of Speech and Democracy. (Sorry, that was a little cheesy). The Internet is a "territory" unowned/wholly-owned by the entire world. The US passing laws that govern anything but the physical parts of the Internet within our borders is pointless and unenforceable. Not to mention, it's as if we were passing laws that were to be enacted in India. The obvious solution would be to set up a government for the Internet. Each person in the world, of a certain age, would get one vote. We could even set up a system to have a true democracy, where everyone votes for everything. Now this "government" would not have any domain over the physical portion of the network. Instead it would be established as a behavioral regulator (cause that's what governments start as). It would regulate content and behavior on the net. Simple as that. Its main mode of punishment would be fines, but it would be able to "Banish" citizens as a last resort. I can see it now. The first, true One-World Government. hehe.
... but government out of religion. As is completely historically evident, religion was never meant to be kept out of government in that the principles of religion could not influence lawmakers, but that the government was to stay out of the religion business.
because religion proposes easy answers, shortcuts if you will, to get people to behave a certain way.makes no kinda sense and was not at all the reason behind the establishment clause. The reason behind the establishment clause was to keep from making people join a religion as a part of citizenship. It was the intent that people should be free to worship the God of their choice. It was NOT meant as a catch-all for the removal of Judeo-Christian influences from the public square. One only need to glance at any early American history book to see that laws were written around religious ideologies, so your notion of the founding fathers removing religion because it influenced how people acted is bunk. They built an entire country around religious beliefs. They were unwilling to force people to believe a certain way... but they still made people act a certain way.
Religion and politics, without the flame. godgab.org
They have never really thought of the United States as a politically free people; the US is simply our team, and we will do whatever we need to in order to win. They are sadistic, and get off on the idea of torture, war, etc. They've never served, but they have adolescent fantasies of blowing shit up and killing bad guys.
blah blah blah Newt's a fascist blah blah doesn't understand our constitution blah rights blah blah stupid blah blah blah freedom blah blah
OK great. We've all totally GOT IT that freedom of speech is a critical and inalienable HUMAN (ie applies to all, not just US citizens) right.
Then again...
It's pretty frikken' easy to stand at the sidelines and lob criticism at policymakers. After all, you're just some wanker on an anonymous login, YOU'LL never be tasked with the responsibility of actually making policy, right?
So, if you can spare a moment between breathless rants about how sacrosanct our rights are, please, let us all in on YOUR secret plan to neutralize a fundamentalist religious creed (Wahabism) that
- believes women are chattel, homosexuals should be killed, etc.
- believes that the Koran is the only source of any worthwhile laws
- will cheerfully kill you because you disagree
How do YOU stop someone sitting next to you whose beliefs are not only inimical to yours, but he WANTS to kill you? Do you 'tolerate' him until he (hopefully) goes away? What about when he starts grabbing the local kids off the playground and starts explaining to them how wonderful his creed of hate is, blaming you for everything wrong that's ever happened to him, and telling them that if they kill you they will be rewarded, even if they die doing it?
And don't say "education" or "poverty" in your answer, as the 9/11 hijackers were all well educated and came from (at least) comfortably middle-class backgrounds.
I can't wait to see how many THOUSANDS of +5 insightful responses we get in here, since so MANY people are so instantly ready to criticize, they MUST have solutions themselves, right? Otherwise they are just typical internet windbag hypocrites.
-Styopa
While I'm not necessarily agreeing with the GP, just because "the enemy has no real chance of succeeding" doesn't mean that we shouldn't attempt to destroy them. Although they probably can't ultimately win -- they don't represent what I'd call an 'existential threat' to the United States -- they could perhaps kill a lot of people and disrupt things in the process.
So the question then becomes, which way results in the smallest number of U.S. casualties? Fighting them or just ignoring them and cleaning up the mess while they ineffectually blow up buildings that we will rebuild anyway?
Leaving aside foreign civilian deaths (they don't vote in the U.S. and are therefore expendable except insofar as people in the U.S. care about them, which seems to be very little, at least those in non-Western parts of the world), there might be military operations against a losing enemy which are worthwhile, if it results in a smaller number of casualties than letting the enemy be.
Then add to that the 'predictability factor' -- the human desire to prefer known risks (going to war) versus unknown ones (maybe being blown up while at your desk): a steady stream of military casualties might be preferable to a smaller number of civilian deaths in unpredictable mass-casualty accidents. Provided that you can find enough people to voluntarily go to war (really not a problem, if you create the right incentives: I doubt you'd need a draft, if you took the money that a draft would cost and increased a soldier's combat pay by that amount), this might be economically far less disruptive also.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
That public information about nuclear power plants includes instructions about where to crash a passenger jet if you want to have the best chance of creating a nuclear disaster, however I didn't read that document so I guess I'll take your word for it.
Now, sure that information could give a smart terrorist some ideas about vulnerable points in the system and so forth. Trouble is that is the exact information that the public needs to know about in order to inteligently evaluate the risks associated with having a nuclear power plant in one's backyard.
It's similar to the opensource "enough eyeballs make all bugs shallow".
Freedom of information and transparency aew key elements in protecting ourselves from the misuse of power by people in the government or in other positions of high power.
I fear the threat of fascism here in the USA way more than terrorism and I live in NYC, one of only places in the continental USA that has ever seen international terrorism. I worry more about the threat that the government will abuse it's power over my wife and child's Visa to live here than about "Islamofascism" or whatever they are using to brand the war of terrorism this week.
When I see our country's leaders (past or present) saying this kind of thing it makes me sick. It should make all of us sick.
Peace, or Not?
They certainly DID NOT build a country arround religious beliefs. "In god we trust" only got onto currency and buildings in the 1950s, after a bunch of religious retards decided they needed teh Jeebus to help fight against the 'evil god-less' Communist threat.
The US Christians aren't happy with allowing all religions the same treatment...witness the nutjobs braying about 'the war on christmas'. Oh now, the store wants to use a generic greeting to reach all shoppers...that's not OK, the USA is an Xian country and Xianity should be front and center.
That's what I'm hearing.
Blar.
Screw him. He doesn't have any say in anything anymore...
Freedom good, Terror better. Freedom good, Terror better. Freedom good, Terror better.
``Gingrich said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message.''
Oh, come on! Yes, terrorists can communicate freely and get out their message. That is _exactly_ why we should be able to do the same. If you apply massive censorship, you'll restrain the lawful and catch the careless, while the criminal and the cunning - the people you really ought to worry about - will simply circumvent your measures and communicate, anyway.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
``Gingrich said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message.''
I have to wonder why Gingrich is so afraid of free speech. If the "terrorists" are using it to get out their message and recruit people, perhaps this says something about their cause and the state of the world? Apparently, the message is, somehow, convincing. What is the message? Why are people so angry that they become terrorists? Perhaps _that's_ what we should be looking at. I have the feeling that doing so might improve things for us and for the people who are now being recruited by the terrorists, making the recruiters less successful, and us safer.
Five years ago, saying this provoked angry reactions and accusations of siding with the terrorists. Let's see what happens in 2006, after years of war, erosion of rights, lies, and public outrage.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
in our modern society, a good 20% to 30% of the population can cling to some sort of decent life (the middle class), even while the top 1% to 5% have their every wish fulfilled. Back in George's day, things pretty much sucked for everyone but that 1% to 5%. With a sizable population not worried about food and shelter from day to day are you going to be able to get that comfortable 20% to 30% (along with probably another 20% to 30% just scraping by) to risk what little they've got for the sake of freedom?
You'll counter that they're already risking everything, and they'll need their freedom to keep it. But they don't know that, and they are openly hostile to that suggestion. And besides, you still haven't convinced me that that 40% to 60% whose lives aren't a constant day to day struggle are willing to put anything on the line.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
While I agree with your point... you brought Nazis into the argument.
Sorry. You lose.
*sigh*
I'll gladly accept the existence of terrorists in exchange for keeping free speech. Free speech is one of those things nobody should ever, ever take away. E. v. e. r.
Stupid politicians.
We must forfeit many of our freedoms so that the "terrorists" can't take them away!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
It's interesting to note that Germany for example suppresses and will imprison people for exercising 'free speech' about certain Nazi-related things and people on this site will rush to their defense to say how bad Nazism is and it's good that people can't talk about those ideas. There you have people talking about a regime that fell 60+ years ago vs. a terrorist network of modern age that still poses a real threat and the reaction is polar opposite.
I don't think either should be suppressed but some people are just jumping in for the good old-fashioned US-hating that is so popular here.
I worked in a government office from 1987 to 1988 as a high-school work study student. As part of my "inprocessing" I was required to do something that will probably sound familiar to anyone who is now or ever was in the military: a vow to uphold the Constitution and to defend the U.S. against all enemies foreign and domestic. Newt Gingrich and the current Republican administration (and I say that as someone who typically leans towards conservative politics) is sounding more and more like a domestic enemy. I'm not sure the Dems would be any better, but people, we have got to vote for candidates that respect the Constitution and the principles upon which the U.S. was founded.
If we don't, the terrorists will have won just as surely as if they had acquired enough nuclear weapons to remove the U.S. from the face of the earth.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Bill Of Rights Pared Down To A Manageable Six.
Why is it urgent now?
Well, for starters we (the US) have been whacking hornet's nests all around the world for years now, that has got to have some repercussions at some point. I mean, it is not unreasonable to be a little concerned about an attack, it is quite likely that more people hate us now than in 2001. Of course, it is very much the fault of the same people who have spent most of that time trying to scare us.
Finkployd
Yes, the 9th Amendment, sort of the red-headed stepchild in the Bill of Rights. Putting that in was a nod to Hamilton's and others' fears that a Bill of Rights would be constructed as a license for the government to regulate everything not specifically mentioned, but I'm not sure that it worked very well. The 9th Amendment has basically been ignored, and Federal powers expanded to a degree that essentially includes everything that isn't specifically mentioned elsewhere.
Had the 9th Amendment been enforced, much of the "jurisdiction creep" and usurpation of State powers under the Commerce Clause would have been prohibited, but successive Supreme Courts have found it easy to ignore, to the point where it's practically (but sadly) irrelevant.
Ultimately, I think Hamilton was right in fact, but not in intent. Just removing the Bill of Rights (as he seems to have advocated in Paper No. 84) wouldn't have helped; the demise of local powers and liberties would have just been accelerated. Nor would have creating more Amendments and enumerating various rights more explicitly helped, since a longer list would have just made individual items easier to ignore, and increased "explicitness" and precision would have created avenues for the subversion of rights on technical grounds.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
He is no longer in charge of anything other than running his big stupid mouth.
People seem to forget that scumbags such as Newt were forced to resign over serious ethics questions late in the 1990s.
What he says is unimportant, as well as being retarded.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" - Ben Franklin?
I mean, come on, I hate Newt as much as the next guy, but Newt said freedom of speech needs to be expanded, not curtailed. This article is a total fabrication, invented by appending two completely different sentences he said out of context.
It isn't even shitty journalism, it isn't even partisan propoganda, this is outright fabrication.
I'm old enough to remember when the threat was all the "evil, godless Communists" who wanted us dead.
Actually, I do believe that the Founding Fathers intended future methods of communications to be covered by the First Amendment. And even though they could not have envisioned the Internet and Oprah "being beamed around the world", they lived in a time when there was also an explosion of global communications and commerce. The notion that they were some primitives and we need to revise their vision because of religious fanatics (East or West), is just another excuse to lock down the freedoms they fought for.
Remember, there are people (some of them comment here occasionally), who really don't like the notion of people actually being, you know, free. They'd be much more comfortable being told what to do and what to think. Many of them find solace in Religion because it's a short-cut to having to make your own moral decisions. After all, if all the rules are written down for you, then you don't have to do any of the hard work yourself. Some people like to live like that. None of them were Founding Fathers of this Nation.
The exceptionalists who want to tell us that terrorism is something so new that we have to start doing a little snip-snip on the Constitution are short on understanding of history or short on brains (I guess short on courage is another possibility). There was a time when the Barbary Pirates brought much of the commerce of United States to a standstill, using terrorist tactics. In fact, they killed more people than Al Qaeda did on 9/11, too. And know what? We made it through by treating them as the criminals they were and putting them out of business. The cool thing is that it took COOPERATION WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD to do it. Tell that to the hairless ape that sleeps in the White House. Not that it will sink in..
You are welcome on my lawn.
Actually, if you look at our history, even with a "bad example" politicos still espoused totalitarian ideas. The McCarthy hearings are the best example of it from the Cold War days, but it was there long before the "demon" of Communism and Marxism were around.
Clones are people two.
Terrorists should be held under a different set of rules. OK. So what does that mean? So far as I've seen, there's no accountability on this matter. A person can be labelled a terrorist, sent to Gitmo and basically left to rot. From what I can tell, there is no means by which anyone can tell that it is a just imprisonment. The information used to determine this is kept locked away. Heck, I'm upset that Congress gave the White House a blank check on what to call torture and not torture, so they can just rewrite the rules as they see fit without any oversight on that either.
I was reading about some events that occurred almost immediately after the japanese attacks on pearl harbour in 1941, mainly the creation of a censorship agency under management of the Associated Press director of the time. The book did not mention if the censorship only applied to reading citizen's letters or also about censoring the news (I imagine both of them) and unfortunately didn't went into detail of the public reaction at the time (also mentions the fact that many US citizens of japanese descent, even third or fourth generation ones, were sent to some sort of "concentration camps"), and I'm from Mexico so I don't have much insight on the issue.
/. community of the time, whatever that is, had a feeling of indignation?) and their reasons to accept/reject the idea.
I think the matter is very interesting: What will the people tolerate given the circumstances, and what will they consider absolutely inappropriate?
AFAIK the US congress has not declared war to Irak, so the context is totally different and I'm not trying to draw parallels between WWII and the current "war" on terrorism, nor do I intend to justify censorship during times of severe crisis, I'm just curious of the people's reaction (maybe the
Are any history-versed slashdotters with more insight of the matter?
I HAVEN'T OWNED A TELEVISION SINCE 1967 AND ONLY WATCH MOVIES ABOUT LEFT-HANDED ALEUT LESBIAN PIPEWELDERS! FUCK HOLLYWOO
I can't tell who's a part of the Axis of Evil anymore.
Freedom of speech is one of the core principles upon which this country is founded, and in this post 9-11/Internet/Pentagon Papers/McCarthyism/American Century era, a re-examination of those principles is perhaps exactly what this country needs. Let us examine such highfalutin ideals like freedom of speech, expression, religion, and the press that our founding fathers saw fit to make the foundation of jurisprudence in this country in light of enemies who really DO hate freedom. How much do we want to become like our enemies in order to be safe from them? Do we need to become like them at all? Is it possible to survive as a nation clinging to principles that are two centuries old? Is it possible for us to survive if we forsake them?
It's definitely time to have this conversation, because we have already given up so much in the name of making ourselves more secure. And while we're at it, let's have this conversation with the Republican party, which is purportedly in favor of tax cuts, smaller government involvement in daily lives, greater personal freedom, and greater personal responsibility. While we're asking the American people if we want to go so horribly wrong, let us ask the Republicans how they have gone so far astray from the core values of the Party of Lincoln.
Fsck Newt Gingrich.
Getting blowjobs and then prosecuting Clinton for the same?
No pontificating for you!
And we excised that cancer at great cost to our young nation. Puritanical laws are steadily being removed from the books as we speak (e.g. Sodomy laws, co-habititation laws, anti-gay laws) This all indicates that society is shifting away from using Christianity as the sole source of our laws. We don't want to shun people for not following some obscure tenent of a savage race of nomads. We don't want to keep other humans as property.
Besides, read up on some of the founding fathers. You'll find that the vast amjority did not believe in religion as we know it, but had a different non-dogmatic, non-doctrinal vision of a 'creator'.
Also, the Treaty of Tripoli is pretty clear that the USA is NOT a 'Christian Nation'.
Blar.
Look, folks, let's think about this for a second. The talk was given to a group handing out an award for protecting freedom of speech. You would have to be heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Idiots to go in front of such a group and claim to want to restrict freedom of speech. Regardless of what you think of Newt's politics, he isn't an idiot, and above all he is a politician. Politicians just don't go around slapping their constituency in the face; it just wouldn't make sense.
The bottom line is that the article got it wrong, either through error or (as I personally would suspect) intent. Newt publishes transcripts of a number of his speeches on his web site, http://www.newt.org/ Maybe if it shows up there we'll know what was said.
(As an aside, I'm registered non-partisan, and lean towards libertarian, so I'm not here toting the Republican party line. I have heard Newt talk on C-SPAN, though, and I do respect a lot of what he says.)
How on Dog's Blue/Green Earth did you go blind and not even notice? 10 years ago the terrorist were not in possession of nuclear weapons...thanks to our Liberal ways in the US, we have alowed these same terrorists to arm and train themselves for a long fight with us "infadels." we have also allowed them to come into our country and prepare for their next attack! Weather they are here on student Visa's (taking out loans they will never pay back), or here teaching their religion (of peace...yea right).
Those of conflicting races, religions, and beliefs will continue to battle with each other until the end of time. Its an aspect of human nature.
The West vs Mid-East fight will see an end only if one side assimilates into the other. Restricting the liberties of US citizens only brings the USA than much closer to becomming like those that oppose us.
Dave
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin
Newt can eat shiznit and go to hell.
Right... However unfortunate it is, the majority of the population, when push comes to shove, is not going to resort to violence (or half the time, even motivated to peacefully protest) over our diminishing individual rights, as long as they still feel "comfortable" in their lifestyle.
It's still easier to moan and groan about each little incident for a little while (until you feel better that you "got it off your chest"), and go back to your own business.
Our "founding fathers" thought a violent revolution was needed over taxes that percentage-wise were far less than what we accept willingly today, for example. But our government is also a lot smarter/more manipulative than England was back then. (When they placed the taxes on tea, for example, they didn't get it there with a bunch of empty political promises and a vote of approval by the people, who were suckered into believing the lies.) They just ordered it, and it was so.
Our govt. has also become smart about "handling the poor" so they don't rise up in protest. Welfare programs abound, but typically, only as long as those collecting it don't work too hard or too long at their jobs. If you want housing assistance (a la section 8), daycare assistance for your children, or even assistance keeping your phone and DSL service activated, you have to make sure your income stays really low. This helps ensure their "loyalty", since at least initially, they're immediately much worse off without the assistance - if they take a full-time job with a little better pay or work a second job.
The "right circumstances" would require a "critical mass" of wealthy people and remaining "middle class" folks being imprisoned for things the masses didn't feel should be illegal, or perhaps enforcing a draft that covered a wide age range of people, for another "unjust war".
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
This has very little to do with protecting us from terrorists and so much to do with protecting the Republican lie machine from being exposed by 'overseas' sources....(radical crap like the BBC -lol) where there is still some real reporting going on. And all those left-leaning blogophiles who apparently were very helpful in the Democratic successes this election cycle. Enly.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
And guess what? Today the terrorists are ... wait for it ... still not in possession of nuclear weapons!
Take your fearmongering ball and go home. I've heard enough of this shit in the past 6 years, and I dare say that goes for most of us here. It's starting to ring hollow (actually, it's been ringing hollow for quite some time now).
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Well then wouldn't a good connotation of "fighting terrorism" be "preventing terrorism?" To fight an urge is to prevent its influence on your actions. Like wanting to slap a kid having a tantrum. We must fight that urge, as we must fight terrorism.
The difference is: tantrums are easy to detect. Oh, and terrorists *should* be slapped. Hard. Repeatedly. Without mercy. Forever. And ever. Amen.
"Man is pre-eminently endowed with the power of voluntarily and consciously determining his own point of view." E. Mach
Gah, I meant 'contradiction', not 'flaw'. My brain was failing me when I wrote it.
I got the impression that "Get out of our country" implied that the penalty should be deportation.
As it happens, I was reading about the UK's Press Complaints Commission Code of Practice, and a BBC article on its possible application to blogs. They've recognised that a mandatory set of rules is unworkable but I think their proposal of a voluntary code of practice is a step in the right direction. But a quote from the article I think is insightful - "Mr Toulmin described the phrases 'free speech' and 'free press' as relative terms." Free speech should exist within reason - I guess the 'reason' bar is set lower in the US than elsewhere.
Our govt. has also become smart about "handling the poor" so they don't rise up in protest. Welfare programs abound...
The situation is actually quite analogous to ancient Rome. They too had a republic with bread and circuses to keep the people pacified while a few ultra wealthy controlled things. Is that where the comparison ends? Nope. They had slaves and subjugated nations doing the hard labor while the locals lived in relative ease. That holds true. So what happened? Well, maybe the germans will invade and crush us, but more likely we will decline and stagnate like the Romans while other places will have more progressive societies. Already we're slipping technologically as research and initial implementation move overseas. Jobs requiring higher education are being outsourced every day. Eventually, the empire sort of collapses, weakened on many fronts.
I have no doubt the US too will fall, whether to outside forces, internal ones or a combination of the two. Unless those in power look to the past and care to use that lesson to shape the future, it is inevitable.
Does anyone have the actual transcript of his speech there so we can figure out who's full of BS and who's not?
There's no transcript for this one on the Newt's website. Several articles listed by Google News are giving the context that the remarks were pertaining to limiting free speech, not just to Geneva treatment of terrorists. If he wants to restrict free speech, he's an idiot. Leave them recruiting on the internet; have the NSA start getting better at hacking into servers to identify where the recruits are located. If he wants the Geneva conventions to address terrorists, there's not much there that needs changing from what I see.
Glancing through the conventions, there seem to be two types of groupings: those based on physiological condition (the blind, women, pregnant women, children based on age), and those based on what they do. The latter in turn may be oversimplified as Civilians/Non-Combatants (civilian non-combatant populace, chaplains, doctors, journalists), Lawful Combatants (members of organized armed forces and guerrillas conforming to the conventions), and Unlawful Combatants (mercenaries, spies, non-conforming guerrillas, et cetera). Forcing someone into a category they have not claimed requires a competent tribunal.
I would propose adding the following rules:
1) Any prisoner before a competent tribunal must claim a status under the Geneva conventions.
2) Falsely claiming a non-Combatant status before a competent tribunal shall be considered an act of perfidy, and a grave violation of the conventions.
At that point, terrorists can be brought before "competent tribunals" to determine their status. If they claim unlawful combatant status, they're idiots. If they claim lawful combatant status, and you can prove they weren't lawful, you can treat them accordingly; if not, you can just lock them up until this mess ends (IE, indefinitely). If they claim non-combatant status, and you can prove they were combatants, they've just violated the Geneva conventions; in the case of guerrillas, that's a failure to follow the conventions, and renders them Unlawful Combatants thereby. In the case of anyone else, well, they just got a War Crimes charge to address.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Perhaps you could give us some examples?
Ed Meese, the AG who had Playboy and Penthouse removed from store shelves? The man who didn't even think consenting adults could consent was in favor of kids having access to naughty music?
Perhaps you could provide us a link to his legal opinion?
Labeling of music, movies, games, whatever is not censorship. It's informed parental consent.
Who is trying to take away the freedoms that the US stands for? Who has been more effective? It seems to me its the Neocon Republicans who have destroyed more of our freedoms than any terrorist....
It is time for those who are so ready to give up freedom to be ejected from the political sphere.
If Newt actually said what the article says he said then he really does not get it. The Freedom of Speech has one simple limitation. You cannot threaten the life of a citizen of the United States and get away with it. Simply enforcing this exception will solve the problem Newt is talking about. The terrorists shall not be allowed to call people to attack civilians the world over and get away with it. I'm not talking about censoring them either. I am talking about cutting them off. Any ISP that willfully disregards a request by the US to take down a viable threat on a citizen of the US from a hosted website should be attacked. First electronically, then via cruise missile. Why do people think it is acceptable to just post plans for murder online? I'm not talking about religious websites or political sites or even sites talking about overthrowing governments. No I am talking about sites that post and support things like Ossama Bin Laden's Fatwa calling all American Citizens to be attacked all over the world. That kind of crap cannot and should not fly.
The War on Terror does not and will not define our generation. Terrorism is an irritating pest that has caused and will continue to cause damage, but it does not merit the creation of a new Cold War-like military industrial complex, nor does it justify vastly subsidizing the petroleum industry, and it most certainly does not merit large-scale reductions in our historically hard-won freedoms and civil rights. The money spent so far on the War on Terror would have been much better spent on rebuilding US infrastructure, subsidizing alternative energy sources, creating water desalination plants, stimulating consumer-oriented tech industries, remediating salinized farmland, etc. There are many, many projects that would strengthen us much more as a nation and as a society than pretending that the War on Terror is some grand and worthwhile project on which to focus all of our attention, mortgage our economic future, and exterminate so many tens of thousands of lives.
In that sense, it is a lie. A deliberate, conscious, and well thought out lie.
...are we scared yet?
I didn't read the article, but there's something there.
Too broad free speech is sometimes a bad thing, because you can use it to preach against free speech, and sometimes be successful in doing so. Just look the Nazi Germany: Hitler was elected, and he was elected because he was preaching against democracy!
On the other hand, we cannot determine arbitrary rules on what speech is allowed and what speech isn't allowed. That would be dictatorial, and maybe even totalitarian.
So, what could be done? I think I have a generic solution that isn't arbitrary, wouldn't damage any kind of legitimate free speech, and might actually work. It goes like this: whatever you say about free speech must be applied to your own right to free speech as if you were committing whatever it is that would prevent it for someone else. In other words, it's a recursive principle. So, whenever you wanted to preach against free speech, doesn't matter for whatever reason, that would render you unable to do so, because you're the first victim to your own restrictions.
The same could go for democracy: you wanna create a political party to fight against democracy? No problem! Your party simply won't be allowed to participate in any election. And if it's against free speech too, it won't be allowed to preach publicly its proposals. The day your party accepts free speech, it'll be allowed to preach its positions. And the day it accepts democracy, it'll be allowed to enter elections. This is simply enough, and perfectly just.
What do you think?
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Gingrich is the same kind of politician that asserted that waging war on Iraq would make us safer, when, in fact, it has done the opposite. And now, he is making similarly wild assertions about how restricting free speech would make us safer.
The problem here is not any difficulty of dealing with terrorism, the problem is that Gingrich and politicians like him are completely and utterly incompetent.
Tragic as it is, an instance of 3000 deaths does not warrant throwing away our democracy or spending billions of dollars on ill-conceived wars; we have tens of thousands of preventable deaths from the flu and from traffic accidents each every year.
And maybe Gingrich didn't notice, but we did lose a city recently. That loss would have been completely preventable if people like Gingrich had done their job. And it would have been preventable at a fraction of the cost of the current anti-terrorism measures and without destroying our democracy.
may he rot in hell for even thinking that my shutting our mouths further that it will hinder terrorism.
set my computer on fire and blows my monitor up into my face, I see no reason to re-examine the 1st Amendment. Seems it's been working fine for some 200+ years..
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
ya, cant suppprt the very document he was sworn to protect and uphold.
Good thing hes pretty much worthless at this point and no one important listens to him.
idiot.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So some liberal assbag writes a hit piece on Gingrich that even slashdot editors admit doesn't have context and you are knee-jerking to it.
Nice job.
If a snow-turd like Newt is the really best our Democracy can do, maybe we need to reexamine Democracy.
... (gasp) ... a Poor Person.
I propose we select public officials by Lottery. Completely at random.
Don't laugh too quick. What's the worst that could happen? An alcoholic in the White House? An bumbling idiot? A chronic liar? A child-molester? An egomaniac? A greedy weasel? A corporate puppet? We've had all these and worse. J. Random Citizen would do less damage, and probably more good.
And this way, we might live to see a Woman in the White House
or a Black man
or an Atheist
or a Homosexual
or
Newt was named after a lizard, a bottom feeder. the man is ilrelevent and has always been. Hell he is a want-to-be evangelical preacher or a sothern college football coach just look at that Hair-doo.
timothy Mcveigh, osama binladen, the USA what is the differents? the use of force to project there oppinons on people. (it all looks the same when they are done)
Now the Right (and maybe the left) want to squelch free speech in the US on the pretence of protecting the country and the world.
I hear the whittling (scrape, Scrape)
Hell again there are states concidering having all new cars fitted with breath analizers (not just the drunks)
What more whittling.
I do not know if these are authentic, however they seem to fit the topic.
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
Also phrased as...
"It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad."
And if some terrorist does kill people, even be it myself.... from Jefferson...
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
as in a slimy, salamander?
That'd be one source, although that stereotype is quite common on the internet (along with a great many others). I wonder, though, at times just who it will be okay to hate tomorrow? Or the day after. It's funny, because I've never met people actually fitting most of those stereotypes.
...
Still, 5 minute hates are quite common, really. I myself have them vs. the RIAA, Sony and co. But even so
Just curious.
I found this comment on another site:
"I'm surprised that the United States now has no protection against people who are recruiting people to kill us. Thank God we have Republicans like this great man to protect us by taking away our rights. He'd make a great president.
If we don't get someone like Gingrich in charge, any day now, I expect to see Ben Laden marching his victorious army down Constitution Ave. What good American wouldn't want to see an attack on freedom of speech so we can finally be protected?
Well sure, but you know that's not really the same thing New Orleans being destroyed is mostly a function of infrastructure, whereas, say, san fransisco going up in a flash of nuclear fire is a function of lives lost AND infrastructure. But you are right, our priorities are out of order.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
Like flag burning ammendements?
How about making making it illegal to inform about contraception on the government dime?
And Bush didn't follow the standards in the Constution, nor the FISA requirements. He warrantlessly searched everyone through datamining.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Listen to this asshole????
no matter how good it is, it is human nature always wants to make things better
It depends on what you want to defend.
If you want to defend your right to say hideously offensive things, to have perverted sex, to follow non-christian religions or no religion at all, to criticize or lampoon the government, mock the powerful, speak publically in favour of viewpoints that oppose economic growth and big industry .... then yes, neoconservative policies are counterproductive.
If all you want to do is go to church, work hard at a meaningless job, obey your leaders, wave your flag, engage in sexual activities solely for the purposes of reproduction, and by absolutely no means die at the hands of terrorists -- then the neoconservative policies will indeed protect you. There is no state safer from external threats than a fascist state. Fascism quenches crime, sedition, rebellion, it roots out conspiracies very effectively, and keeps the population obedient and relatively content. A small number of people will complain and end up dead for their efforts, but fascists consider that a small price to pay for safety, morality, and conformity.
This all makes much more sense when you keep in mind that neocons aren't trying to protect the freedoms YOU like; they're trying to protect the freedoms THEY like. Freedoms like reading the bible, not dying in suicide bombings, and worshipping the Decider. Freedoms that cool people enjoy, like taking some speed and going down to the local dance club to pick up a likeminded neopagan slut for a night of paraphilic sex before going to an anti-government peace riot in the morning ... neocons don't have even the slightest interest in protecting those freedoms. If anything, terrorism is a great excuse to take those freedoms away. And that's what you are seeing right now. Actually, to give them the benefit of the doubt, many of them are just dirty cowards who are afraid of dying ... but more than a few are totally thrilled that they finally get to clamp down on all the terrible sinning going on.
What on Earth is the government's "lunch money", if not the money that they take from you? It's not like governments have some tax-independent revenue stream. It's not like you could simply eliminate all taxes and tell the government to get by on what's left -- what's left would be $0.00. Unless you expect the military, the police, congress, the senate, and the judiciary to all work for free, for elections to cost nothing, for highways to build themselves magically .... then the government has to take your "lunch money". There's simply no alternative -- other than anarchy ("anarchy" being the technical term for the three hour period before despotism is violentally imposed on you).
You're vastly oversimplifying:
...
> Commands you to kill:
> Qur'an - check
Infidels, yes--i.e. anyone other than a Christian or Jew (who pay a tax) and Muslims. We've all heard the infamous "slay them wherever you find them." And various other bits in enforcing certain laws, protecting Muslim lands, killing any Muslim who converts to anything else, etc. Honestly, though, I'm not overly familiar with it. I do understand, however, that there are some people who see it as their duty to kill civilians in certain areas for some combination of political and religious reasons as well as others who decry their actions.
> Bible - check
There's some stuff about ancient tribes, yes, but they're gone. Or can you point out any particular person that either a Christian or a Jew is supposedly obligated to kill?
Oh, right, now you're going to mention the law enforcement part in the same breath... Yes, they did have the death penalty back then, it's true, and even for crimes people no longer recognize as such. But that's pretty much irrelevant to modern Christians, at least--read up on that woman caught in adultery.
You seem to have left out lots of details in your hasty equivocation. I mean, why couldn't we add one more document to your list?
US Constitution - check (death penalty for treason)
And perhaps that should be considered an atheist document? I suspect that I need not relate to you all the arguments against the US being or ever having been a Christian nation, such as the 1796-97 Treaty with Tripoli which spells that out explicitly
Careful. If you said that to Dick Cheney, you could be arrested. Apparently, the first amendment does not apply if you are speaking to a Republican Vice President in a public setting and expressing your anger at the Republican Vice President's mishandling of our nation's resources. I guess Newt has a point about helping the terrorists.
For those who think expressing profanity publicly should get you handcuffed by government officers wielding M-16s, do you also think saying "I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible" warrants an arrest by the United States government's Secret Service?
For Libertarians who think Republicans are on your side, wake up! You are being used. These sick fucks are shredding the Constitution before our very eyes.
if the moderators would indulge me, i'd like to post a youtube link to a one and a half minute segment of John F. Kennedy's speech about free speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkryNyxlubY it isn't my post, just happened across it and remembered this slashdot topic...
If Big Media is the Harvester of Eyes, does that make Apple an arms dealer?
to ensure that his political future is forfeit.
Rumor has it that the Newt is thinking about getting back into politics again. He's proved yet again that he is unfit for public office.
Tech Public Policy stuff
The second amendment does NOT protect the first. It never has. It's highly doubtful that it ever will. The second amendment? Just a crutch for bullies who want a gun to make themselves feel big. None of them would ever actually defend any right other than the right to own a gun.
As a side note, it's interesting to observe how other western nations that don't have anything equivalent second amendment, where gun ownership is minimal to non-existent, manage to have more freedoms than Americans do. They manage to NOT elect neoconservatives that tap their phones, impose draconian security measures, force people to carry identification with them wherever they go, ban consensual sexual activities, put reporters in jail, or torture prisoners. How do they do it? By not being disgusting dirty cowards that need a gun in order to feel like they matter.
I have nothing against gun ownership personally. I don't give a fuck whether people are stupid enough to own a gun that they are 5x more likely to use on themselves than on a home-invader. I just think it's ridiculous to pretend that guns will keep you free, despite the knowledge that governments have bigger and better guns than you, and have demonstrated the ability to defeat their own people multiple times in the past. Guns didn't keep Italy or Germany free. They didn't the Russians free. They didn't keep the Chinese free. They actually helped the Iranians, the Vietnamese, and the North Koreans to impose dictatorships upon themselves (situations that those people are now powerless to rectify, despite still having guns).
Seriously though. I don't think it's about how much money the government takes. It's about how it's treated. It's about how open the spending and budgeting is. The people should treat the government like a service organization. How much value are you getting for your dollar? If it's low, replace the employees with new ones that will provide better value. If certain services are deemed to be unnecessary (due to, say, better services being offered privately), those services get cut. Etc. The problem is that people can get this idea that the government is just a pit into which money is thrown -- and at that point, they stop expecting to get anything back. The government becomes a villainous black-box. And when people expect the government to be corrupt and waste money ... the government will end up doing exactly those things and will get away with it because that's exactly what everyone assumes they're going to do anyway.
"Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a 'different set of rules' may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message."
Or you could counter their message with ideas and actions showing why American freedoms and democracy are better than the alternatives, but I guess that's too much like work for Mr. Gingrich.
I like to think that, job bless, one out of four just keeps on tickin'!
Except when it comes to insensitive language at our places of learning.
Except in the workplace, where even facts might cause a hostile working environment (have a frank chat about the Koran and see if that is hostile, for instance).
Except by the use of the race card to silence ideas and opinions in politics.
Even
Meanwhile, all the man said was that the world has changed and we may need to revisit freedom of speech. Since he hasn't said anything about how to restructure the freedom of speech, how can anyone fault what he said? He didn't say "eliminate it," you know. Given the article didn't delve much into his reasoning, nor any way in which he might want to restructure freedom of speech, it seems silly to be in opposition.
Ed Barbar, President and General Manager, Furnit USA
The Drive by Media are there own worst enemies. They had absolutely no business releasing that kind of information and yes that is exactly what they did under the guise of Free Speech. Realize if extremest Muslim terrorist where ever to gain a foot hold in the US of A the first to go would be that New York Time and other First Amendment Rights enthusiasts.
Democrats => Authoritarian, Too pretentiously arrogant for a Constitution, e.g. individual rights
Republicans => Authoritarian, Too managerial for a Constitution, e.g. individual rights
If you don't like it, don't elect them. The big parties are all the same now excepting abortion.
When I vote, I see who's running, check to see whether the Libertarian is a good candidate (so far, soo good), and I go for it. There are lots of other small parties out there that represent exactly what you want in US government. Go for it! If you don't, you get what you ask for.
Terrorism is not a threat to the life of a nation. It is a nuisance. A deadly and horrifying nuisance. But a nuisance nevertheless. It should be dealt with forcefully, but in dealing with it, America should not give up its fundamental principles of freedom and become a defacto fascist state.
A standing army across your border waiting to invade IS a threat to the life of a nation. The German army waiting to invade Poland and France was a threat to the life of those nations. North Korea poses a true threat to South Korea, as North Korea can kill MILLIONS of people within a few minutes using artillery barrages. Compare this to the threat of a few bombs going off. Individually, these events are terrible and horrifying, but in reality, these bombs will affect a relatively small number of people. Their real effect lies in the fear they generate and the reactions caused by that fear. I would ask you to imagine living in London during the blitz of World War II, when huge areas of the city were destroyed. Imagine what those people had to live through. And then compare that to the above list of bombs and suicide attacks.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Let me get this straight... In order to fight terrorism the usa pushes democracy and freedom abroad. In a new twist, some seek to limit free speech in order to fight terrorism. I have one question. Since our democracy and freedom rests squarely on our first amendment rights to free speech(that is why it's our first and most important amendment), how can we say that democracy and freedom is important to fighting terrorism, perhaps the terrorist are right and we are wrong?
...and I'll get the wrists."
If you're gonna try to eliminate free speech that you don't like, then do it for a really, really good cause and avoid the backslash. Doesn't hurt to be a Democrat, either.
Newt disgusts me with his remarks that freedom of speech needs to be examined for fear of organizing terrorists. The truth is, the majority can never be terrorists. That label is reserved for any minority that uses force against the majority. Restricting freedom of speech can only truly be effective in attempting to stop the majority from organizing, it has little effect against any minority group (political, racial or otherwise) - who generally organize behind the scenes anyway.
I have a question for all of you reading this - at what point do patriotic Americans that are willing, like the parent poster, to die for their beliefs regarding freedom, become terrorists in the eyes of a tyrannical government?
This is a serious question. If we imagine a government that is truly evil and further imagine patriotic freedom loving Americans standing up to such a regime, then who are the terrorists? In the eyes of the evil tyrannical elite, the idealistic American population are terrorists. In such a situation, you can be damned sure they want to shut you up.
Question everything. Don't be scared to question deeply held beliefs. Much of what you learned in your life was programmed in. Question it.
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
Newt Gingrich may be many things, good and bad, but "utterly clueless" he is not. I doubt the poster has 1/10 of the knowledge about either world history or our constitution that Gingrich has. You may not agree with him, but anything Gingrich says should be taken seriously - Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity he is not.
I DO! That is one of the reasons I own guns.
.....That reason and the fact that there are idiots who would rather steal stuff than earn the money to buy it on their own.
POLITICIANS PREFER UNARMED PEASANTS.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
I also call bullshit, because clearly, the amount of sex you have is totally related to the amount of profit you have made. And since sex is central to happiness, raising children and pretty much everything else that matters, clearly profit is the central idiom of modern life.
Do you really believe this stuff? You are drinking Israeli coolaid, my friend... Why Israeli coolaid? What was WW I and WW II really about? Do you know anything outside of what you have been taught mostly via Israeli propaganda? Do you know about the founding of Israel and how that is related to those two wars? Do some research.
Israeli civilians get blown up because their military accidentally kills a few innocent people? Are you serious?
Israel has effected a genocidal program of ruthless extermination against a mostly poor unarmed population for the last 90 years. For that period of time, the Israelis have been ruthlessly killing women, children, the elderly and pretty much anyone else they can get their claws on - attempting to terrify the palestinian population to move from regions of interest. And once the population moves, the Israelis exclaim "We are taking this land because nobody lives here.". They bulldoze everything and then set their sites on the next region of interest. In the interest of propaganda, the Israelis occasionally hand some land back and then tell the world, "look how generous we are to the terrorist Palestinians". Then, after their little press release, they go back
> All of the Founding Fathers knew that a free society is inconvenient for our leaders. It makes it a little harder to govern a nation that is free to say and do what they want as long as it doesn't step on the toes of others. It's one of the reasons Jefferson, Washington and others maintained that we've got to keep religion out of the government, because religion proposes easy answers, shortcuts if you will, to get people to behave a certain way.
:)
Whoa! You actually believe that hogwash!? Jefferson's Seperation of Church and State was intedended to keep the government out of our public schools, which is not exactly excluding religion from government as some believe. Washington introduced religious expression during his presidency and even Jefferson attended church. I think you're confusing challenges to religious views (in some cases their own beliefs) with deism. Dare I suggest, that if you're not questioning your beliefs, than your susceptible to becoming credelous to those same beliefs. I believe our Fore Fathers feared as much and were displaying wisdom by challenging religion and challenging their own beliefs. This was not a disdain for religion. Of course when you charactize religion as being confined to "shortcuts" and "easy answers" in the intellectual sense, you're not exactly hiding your bias against religion. I think you're unfairly conflating faith with intellectual laziness. Can people of faith become intellectually lazy? Certainly, but having faith doesn't necessarily entail intellectual laziness. Laziness is often the result of complacency. Our Fore Fathers were anything but complacent. So, go ahead with your bad self and challenge the complacent, but don't be so foolish to think that complacency is limited solely to religion!
Try turning off Fox News, CNN, etc. and maybe get out of the house and meet people or something. If you are feeling really ballsy, try visiting another country and see firsthand what some of these places are like.
Is this seriously how people in the US see the Muslim world? Damn...every day I find more and more reasons to be glad I left 5 years ago.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
"Newt Gingrich issued his opinion that the idea of free speech in the U.S. needs to be re-examined"
I believe he has the right to say that, and that the right to free speech should not be removed from anyone, even Neocons.
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Frankly it's an indication of the rot permeating Washington that reprobates are permitted to continue darkening the halls of power, as well as garnering public attention, long after their time has gone.
A post-Watergate Nixon returned as an elder statesman, conferring with four or more sitting presidents before his death. Did anyone else sense a disconnect there?
Newt is a toad, a disgraced has-been, reincarnated as a political pundit / talking head, uttering idiocies at the behest of the media cartels.
Anyone tainted by scandal in the course of public office deserves be ridden out of town on a rail, or at least made to crawl back under the rock from whence they came.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
...they think they solve the terrorism problem by impairing the intercommunication between the cells and between the organisations and possible recruits. It doesn't work! - It never has!
The only thing that works is taking out the organisations themselves - the leaders in particular. We know who they are and often where they are. Arrest or kill these people and the rest will die. It worked flawlessly in West Germany against RAF, Bader Meinhof and whatever they were called - as soon as the leaders were taken out, the rest died quickly and quietly.
It will also work now as these people we fear now are even more mindless robots controlled and manipulated by their leaders. They know nothing about reality but live in their closed and very limited world. Forcing them out into the real world will open their eyes and break the hold.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
But you can't choose the rules or dictate the terms under which someone fights you.
That's the point of being a terrorist. They have a grievance (real or imagined), and know that in a conventional war situation, they would lose, because the opposition (be it the USA, UK, Spain, Russia) has superior military force. So they choose not to play by those rules, and instead rely on non-conventional warfare, which gives them the only possibility of success.
You can't fight terrorism with soldiers, tanks and guns. Every terrorist you kill has the possibility of recruiting more people for their cause. You have to remove the their grievance - which may be difficult if it's imaginary. If you're not willing to do that, and taking the military option to its ultimate conclusion, you get Genocide.
It is my opinion that this should be modded Off Topic. The subject matter is freedom of speech, not Katrina or the equitable redistribution of wealth. It may also be a Troll, although that may be debatable. I'll respond none the less.
"FEMA outsourced all their equipment to the former head of FEMA....just gets the profits."
So FEMA get's the profits? FEMA is making a profit? It is my understanding that FEMA does not have a CEO or stockholders.
"but the actual fact was that buses were planned and ordered but never arrived."
Unfortunately, these buses were under the control of Mayor Ray Nagin and he refused to send them. Why he would do this nobody knows. But this was not FEMA's problem, it was Ray Nagin's problem. See article here.
Although this is a perfect example of government failing. People entrust something important to a large bureaucracy thousands of miles away and are surprised when it fails. The National Weather Service did not fail in provided radar images and a forecast but FEMA certainly failed to act on them. This is why local communities are much better at organizing things like this. A community watch type program would go much further in helping people evacuate than some faceless government project composed of people with no vested interest in helping people because they don't know them.
"I'm sick of the mentality that accepts 100% corporate control or it's Communism. Our drug companies make huge profits on drugs our government subsidized to research... but above on beyond the argument that "profits=progress" why is it every woman in this country must spend about $35 a month for birth control? Wouldn't it make sense, that the government research this basic need, and provide it for free or perhaps a $1 month? Where did the Public Good, change to "someone needs to profit?" There is no inherent right to profit or even existence for corporations -- yet that's how our government now acts."
The main reason for this is something called human rights. We in this country have traditionally believed that a man deserves the fruits of his own labor. And that he deserves to be paid according to what his labor is worth. Nothing in the world is free. For your free services to exist there must be someone to provide them.
There are three different ways they can be provided. People can be held at gunpoint and forced to work to create theses "free" products (which is what Marx and Lenin suggested), other people in other industries can be held at gunpoint and forced to pay the people who create these free products (mixed economy) or people who believe anyone should have access to birth control pills can voluntarily give money to the cause (Capitalism.) So if you like the idea of free birth control pills it may be a good idea to start a charity and get out and convince people that they should give to your cause. Although it will be hard to convince many people since they have worked all their lives and bought birth control pills themselves. It's hard to imagine a case outside of disability or insanity where a person would be unable to save $35 over a course of a month.
"what people earn or "work for" is an arbitrary value"
On the contrary, it is a very specific value whether it is 12,000 or 12,000,000. It is exactly the amount that that person will work for.
From this point onward you seem to collect a few different claimed problems and present them. The exact point of all these escape me, you're saying the country is bad off? Yes, we all know that. Bush has been a complete fool. But some of the problems you mention cannot be fixed, many should not be fixed (I can eat what I choose to) and some simply do not exist.
I can't believe posts like this still happens. The entire remainder of the post seems to be a plea for central planning. For anyone who is interested in historical analysis of the subject matter, I sug
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. - Hunter S. Thompson
If the article takes the statement out of context and doesn't even give or link to where you can find the full text of what he said, how can you claim the statement (or the speaker) is clueless? To me, or any objective observer, it seems that the person that's actually clueless is the one reaching a conclusion based on incomplete or flawed information or data.
Be cool and be good humans
The Gonz
Disgraced, adulterous doucebag politicians have to STFU.
It would be more interesting if Newt were proposing to sacrifice something he likes. Its never interesting to listen to anyone say "there should be a law against it" just because they don't like it. It would be better if our officials focussed on taking positions that could withstand questioning rather than taking the position that no one is allowed to question them.
Currently, the government actually has the power to restrict speech, even up to and including prior restraint of expressive speech. But at each increment of restriction, the government shoulders a higher burden of proof, to show that the restriction restricts what is necessary and nothing else. Prior restraint of expressive speech is nearly, but not quite impossible to justify. You can probably stop the publication of details of an ongoing covert operation if that would endanger the life of operatives. But you can't stop the media from revealing details of past operations, as in the case of the Pentagon Papers.
The world did not change dramatically after 9/11. All the threats revealed by 9/11 were forseeable and, at least by some, forseen. We don't need new rules, we just need to apply the existing rules in light of new information.
"The world changed" argument is not strategic, it's political. In strategy, details matter, in politics they get in the way. Political arguments like this are commonplace:
(a) There exists restrictions on speech that could prevent a city from being blown up.
(b) Policy "X" restricts speech.
(c) Therefore policy "X" will prevent a city from being blown up.
(a) is not disprovable, therefore it is formally true. However (c), while possibly true, doesn't follow in any way from (a).
And if we dont have policy X, and a city gets blown up later, that's no proof that policy X does anything. The USA Patriot Act is a mixed bag of good, bad and imponderable. 9/11 doesn't logically justify anything in USAPA; those things must be justified on their own.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
i'm reminded of the movie black robehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Robe_(film)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The only possible reason to want to curtail freedom of speech is to maintain a tighter control on a domestic population, which falls right in line with the current Republican agenda
It falls in line with corporate/elite agenda.
Who's corporately funded?
Remember:
it's not just religion, it is religion + money.
it is religion plus money from oil.
and it is an explosive cocktail on both sides (the USA and Islamic fundamentalism).
DON'T forget OIL.
Here is a link to an artical about "Fighting Words", in case anyone is interested: Fighting Words
We may, indeed, share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees, but then, we share 47% with cabbages.
Does anyone here even know what free speech is?
Free speech (in this country) is NOT about reading about bomb making in a library, it is NOT about screaming "fire" in a crowded theater.
Free speech is the right to criticize our government, to freely assemble, and petition for a redress of grievences.
OF COURSE some scumbag polititian wants to get rid of that. It has been a thorn in their side for the last 230 years!
Aahhhhh...how wonderful the image...please say the, "san fransisco going up in a flash of nuclear fire", part again...only slower please. The thought is practically orgasmic.
Allow me to say AMEN to your post.
I support a no compromise policy on the 2nd Amendment, PARTICULARLY because of things like Ruby Ridge. Those ATF agents should have been tried and executed for the murder of that unarmed woman.
The Government HAS to be kept in check by an armed citizenry that follows the rule of the four boxes: soap box, jury box, ballot box, and finally, if necessary, the ammo box.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
It may be that to maintain our liberty we will be more vulnerable to terrorist attack. Well, that's a price of freedom, but one that with a sensible and progressive foreign policy we can attenuate.
by not being (or at least not acting/giving in to) afraid, terrorism becomes useless.
the terrorists won when our/western gov'ts responded the way they did.
RTFA - the go and read the "Gingrinch".
/.-er who doest read the article) is politics.
He is not advocating that the first amendment and net be shut - he is PREDICTING that after a large destructive terror attack, the first casualty will be the First Amendment.
He is basically warning we have to get on the ball now fighting terrorist organization, or else our society will suffer in the backlash of an attack. And the other point which was made was that there is no appeasing the terroist - they are religious fanatics who will attack without provocation. Our mere refusal to submit the the Calihpate (as the Salafists and Wahabists demand) and Sharia law are provocation enough under their warped view of Islam.
The rest of it (and the typical knee-jerk mischaracterizations on both side here, but especially the typical lefty
Don't shoot the messenger, look at the message.
There is some scary truth there - and we shoudl act now to prevent far worse abuses (and deaths) later.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
Generic drugs at WalMart: $4. Therefore, generic birth control (you know, the pill, not the trendy patches or implants) is incredibly affordable.
If you are ever curious about what the safest way to run a store is, find out what the requirements to get a store, its merchandise, and the life and health of its employees insured. Here's a hint: the policy will require that the store NOT have a gun and that the employees provide NO resistance to armed robbers. THAT'S the safest way to deal with robbery.
... a gun store, a pawn shop, a mall with a jewelry store and the statistics change. You get a security guard with a gun, in most cases. Think about the situation. Not everything can be extrapolated back to a gas station.
Yea, sure, in a gas station for crying out loud. How much cash do you have in the register? And what are they gonna steal, a six pack and a bag of chips? And do you think they are gonna go through the liability of licensing a bunch of 18-21 year olds to fire said weapon? Hell no.
Switch over to robbing something high(er) profile like
Its pretty ironic that people are posting about damage to free speech on a site the mods down and even filters from view opinions they feel are undesirable
No it's not. In fact it is a vital aspect of embracing the Right of Free Speech.
It's dishartening that our schools fail to adaquately teach about Free Speech and other important rights, dishartening how often I'd seen people complain about "Free Speech Hypocrisy" or "violations of Free Speech" that do not involve the Right to Free Speech at all.
The Right of Free Speech is about attempts to use the force of government to prevent (or punish) speech. Full Stop.
When someone says something, and someone else goes on an abusive insulting rant against that person for what was said, that is not an attack on their Freedom of Speech. That is answering speech with more speech. The Right to Free Speech is not a right for that speech to be accepted or even respected.
When some private entity such as a magazine or website declines to carry some speech or some point of view, that is not a violation of Free Speech. You have the right to speak, but you do not have a right to paint your message on the side of my house. I am not obligated to assist you in making your speech. You can call it editorial discretion, you can call it self censorship, you can call it private censorship, but it is not a violation of Free Speech rights. It is their private right not to participate in someone else's speech.
If someone, or some group, refuses to listen to you, that is not a violation of Free Speech. You have the right to speak, and everyone else has the right to ignore you.
If you are standing on a street corner trying to speak to the public, and my friend and I stand next to you on that street corner saying something different just as loudly and the two of us drown you out and passers by on the street don't hear your message, that is not a violation of your Free Speech rights. That is merely competing speech
Slashdot is offering a platform assisting people to speak... and one of the ways it allows people to speak is by offering moderation speech. I can engage in speech in the form of modding you -1 Troll. My speech of modding you down is merely my advice to other people, and those people are free to accept or ignore my advice. They have the right not to listen to you, they have the right to use my advice to decide whether or not to invest (or waste) their valuable time to read your speech. And even aside from that, the owner of Slashdot is not oblgated to carry your speech in the first place.
Each of those above points is a vital element of Freedom Of Speech. Each point above either embodies the mutual right to both speak, and/or embodies an important private saftey valve needed to handle the ocean of other people's speech.
Private filters are one of the most important elements for Free Speech to be able to work.
way to promote / demote speech
Yes, vitally important. We all need methods and assistance to find speech we are interested in / find valuable, and ways to avoid slogging through limitless quantities of unwanted noise. This is exactly the job we pay magazine editors and film critics to do for us.
If you merely want to complain that the Slashdot moderation system is imperfect, I will fully agree with you. If you merely want to complain that the moderation system is sometimes abused, I will fully agree with you. But none of that is hypocritical or violates Free Speech rights. It's an imperfect system in an imperfect world. You still have every right to offer your speech here and deal with it, or to seek out somewhere else to offer your speech where the audience may be more receptive.
Freedom of Speech, just as Freedom of Religion, is freedom against the force and power of government.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.