Posted on 09/24/2007 6:10:02 AM PDT by 3AngelaD
Barry Rosen, executive director of public and external affairs at Borough of Manhattan Community College, was a hostage in Iran from 1979 to 1981. He studied Iranian culture at Columbia University.
I wonder what the Founding Fathers would think of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia University tomorrow.
They instilled the belief in all of us: Everyone has the right of free speech. But I believe they'd be in a quandary about this one. I'd certainly like to talk to James Madison, who drafted our Bill of Rights, and ask him whether Ahmadinejad deserves that right.
Ahmadinejad is a reprehensible leader who violates free speech in his own country and cracks down on those Iranians who attempt to open up his repressive regime. He uses speech to spread age-old anti-Semitic stereotypes in the Middle East, denying the existence of Israel, and denies that the Holocaust ever happened.
Ahmadinejad was one of those outrageous Iranians who took me and more than 50 other Americans hostage for 444 days, violating international law and making us suffer indescribable moments of terror. There is simply no reason to give him a platform to spew his venom.
No matter how hard-hitting Columbia's president questions Ahmadinejad, the Iranian leader is a winner. Every word he utters is meant for his radical constituents at home and legitimizes his standing among other dictators...
It's only when Ahmadinejad permits his own people to march and speak freely, that I believe Columbia President Lee Bollinger would be justified in giving the Iranian president an open forum. Not before then.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
They granted those rights to citizens, right?
I guess it is time to trot out Adolph to make an analogy: Would we have or should we have invited Hitler to come over and speak? Why give an implacable enemy any podium in our country to spew his propaganda? Will President Bush be allowed to go over and address the Iranian student body of his choice?
“who is responsible for the death of American soldiers, denies the Holocaust, and calls for the destruction of Israel”
Point number one (and Iran supporting terrorists and progressing to getting nukes against the U.N. rules) should be the reasons why this guy should be tarred and feathered and strapped to a rail and taken to the nearest Federal lockup to await his trial and then hanged.
The other two, even as a non-U.S. Citizen are still within his rights I think (no matter how bizarre and disgusting). Shoot - I imagine numerous speakers on the circuit hold these same two later views.
I think a better analogy would be: would Columbia University invite Osama bin Laden to speak, and give him a platform to lie and evade?
You know, that would be a pretty good ruse: appeal to Osama’s vanity. “Your buddy Nutjob came over and spoke. Would you be interested too?” Then nail him when he appears.
Snort. That dude is not gonna leave his cave. He might be vain enough to take the bait, but his handlers wouldn’t let him. I suspect he has little if any personal freedom, and that he is surrounded by fellow thugs who severely curtail his movements and communication with the outside world. He is the ultimate in whack-a-mole targets. He pokes his head out of that cave, he is toast. They are toast. The cave is toast. I am not even sure he is still alive, I think the last couple of videos were made by doubles. It’s not hard to find people who look like him in the Middle East.
No kidding! I think I saw him driving by in Houston recently. Who knows?
He is also all over the Washington, D.C. metro area, driving cabs, selling kabobs, hanging around the National Mall, running a chain of furniture stores, working in the Congressional office buildings, organizing madrassas in northern Virginia. I see his doubles every day and it is always disturbing. I wonder if people in the rest of the country are aware that their national capital has been overrun by Osama look-alikes. The cabs are the worst, because of that unmistakable Middle East smell.
You have the right to speak on your own dime and your own time; I have the right to not listen and to not have your speech funded by my government confiscated wealth.
He sounds confused about what the Founding Fathers meant about Free Speech!! geesh.
There was once a man whose wife had a cat he purely despised. The cat got to missing and at the bequest of the wife the husband went to the local paper to put a reward for $7000 for the cat's return. The publisher said, "are you sure you want to put THAT much of a reward? suppose someone returns the cat?" The guy kinda laughs and says, "Ain't nobody ever gonna find THAT cat.."
Bin Laden is the Government's cat...
The fact is that Rosen and his ivory tower friends do not have the hutzpah to face down a fascist on their own campus turf. He and all of his friends deserve an ignominious termination of their academic careers. Effective today.
Well said, from someone who saw Mr. Iwannajihad up close and personal when he first began his war against "The Great Satan".
1) He’s not a U.S. Citizen and has NO SUCH RIGHT!
2) Nobody has a right to a microphone or a stage.
3) Nobody has a right to be heard.
Please take time out of your busy schedule to read the article I posted. Rosen DID NOT SAY “....even genocide has two sides,” someone else said that. Rosen is a former U.S. hostage in Iran who is ARGUING AGAINST ALLOWING THIS NUTJOB TO SPEAK AT COLUMBIA. Rosen is a Jew. Rosen does not work at Columbia. Your comments make no sense.
Maybe I’m just too common-sensical, but it appears to me that those who are making a Constitutional issue of this (Lee Bollinger et al.), are really missing the point. The way I read the 1st Amendment, it has to do with Congress being prohibited from making laws that abridge the freedom of speech. I see nothing in the 1st Amendment, or elsewhere in the Constitution, that requires a private entity like Columbia University to make available a public platform for a leader of a foreign nation to make a speech. They can, or cannot, as they so choose. In this case, they have chosen to do so, as it their right, but they also must be prepared for the consequences of the choice. That seems to me to be the issue. Bollinger is trying to hide behind the 1st Amendment. It isn’t intended for that. You make your choices, and either are prepared to defend them, or not. But don’t do so on bogus grounds.
You got it. the First Amendment argument is absurd. Also absurd is Barak Obama’s argument that this is an issue of “academic freedom,” as if the nutjob were a member in good standing of the Columbia faculty.
Nothing in the Constitution, as I read it, says we have to make our private property available to anyone and everyone who wants to spout off. We can do so if we choose. We can also not do so if we choose. Columbia decided to invite this nutcase to their campus. Fine, let them live with the consequences, and at least be courageous enough to admit it was their choice to do so and take the heat.
Here’s my question for him:
“Did you crap your pants the day Ronald Regan was elected president of the United States”
It's not too late. He's still in the country. But, and it's a big but, it will have to be a citizens arrest.
Maybe if Rosen,and the other hostages, filed a complaint charging Ahmanutjob with kidnapping, illegal confinement, and most importantly in the short run, running guns into New York City, they might get some action.
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