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Friday, April 21, 2006

Freedom of Speech

Posted by on April 21 at 11:35 AM

If only they had more of it China. You know, like we’ve got here in America.

A heckler from the Falun Gong spiritual movement who disrupted a White House appearance by Chinese President Hu Jintao was charged in federal court on Friday with harassing, intimidating or threatening a foreign official.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington said the misdemeanor charge carries a penalty of up to six months in jail.


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When a religious fanatic causes a scene, they should accept the consequences. Freedom of speech isn't the same as freedom from the consequences of speech.


If The Stranger was critical of the Tobacco companies that pay for advertisements you couldn't complain when those companies stopped giving you money.


If The Stranger were critical of Microsoft, many of its readers would abandon the paper (being employees of the company).


Seattle is sucking up to China, Yahoo is sucking up to China, Microsoft is sucking up to China - of course we're going to see some restrictions in free speech .


Microsoft employees are fired for writing Blogs critical of the company. Crazy women can't yell at President Hu. Tough Shit.


US corporations need access to China's markets. You don't see Bill Gates whining about human rights to President Hu. Once Microsoft gets into China, human rights will take care of themselves.


All the examples you're talking about are private companies. I'm pretty sure when the U.S. arrests people for their speech, that can be construed as infringing on their right to free speech.

If saying "Buch is a retarded monkey-faced douchebag" were a crime that got you 6 months in jail, can you honestly say that no one's freedom of speech would be affected? They'd just have to endure the consequences of their speech? That's ridiculous.

There's plenty of things you'll be arrested for saying about our President. Especially durning wartime, one expects more restrictions in speech and our current war will be going for a long, long time.


The is no longer a bright line between US Corporations and the US Government. Much of the current war is being fought by contractors to the US government. That's a good thing, it means a cheaper, more efficent military that actually turns a profit for someone.


You can't write a blog critical of Microsoft and remain employed there so why should you have the right to yell at Bush or the President of China? If Bill Gates deserves protection from those employees critical of his company, our President deserves even more to not have to listen to anti-American nutcases.

It's not a war. Congress never declared war, and only Congress CAN declare war.

Man, how many neocons does it take to change a lightbulb ... none, they all say the light is still working, even though it's not.

The Seattle economy is based on the Defense Industry so as long as the war is on this place is recession proof. You should be glad about that. Seattle is working because of the war not in spite of it.


If you want to read anti-corporate liberal blather why not pick up a Weakly?


I prefer the neocon slant even though I consider myself liberal. In America you are free to say whatever you want, but you are not free from the consequences of what you say. That's accepting responsibility for your own actions.


If Microsoft employees can't blog about their company, why should some liberal nutcase be able to be overly critical of our President?

Shouldn't our political leaders get the same respect our business leaders get?

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