Posted on 10/11/2008 12:18:30 AM PDT by neverdem
"I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors," Barack Obama told a crowd in Elko, Nev. "I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face." Actually, Obama supporters are doing a lot more than getting into people's faces. They seem determined to shut people up.
That's what Obama supporters, alerted by campaign emails, did when conservative Stanley Kurtz appeared on Milt Rosenberg's WGN radio program in Chicago. Kurtz had been researching Obama's relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers in Chicago Annenberg Challenge papers in the Richard J. Daley Library in Chicago -- papers that were closed off to him for some days, apparently at the behest of Obama supporters.
Obama fans jammed WGN's phone lines and sent in hundreds of protest emails. The message was clear to anyone who would follow Rosenberg's example. We will make trouble for you if you let anyone make the case against The One.
Other Obama supporters have threatened critics with criminal prosecution. In September, St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce warned citizens that they would bring criminal libel prosecutions against anyone who made statements against Obama that were "false." I had been under the impression that the Alien and Sedition Acts had gone out of existence in 1801-02. Not so, apparently, in metropolitan St. Louis. Similarly, the Obama campaign called for a criminal investigation of the American Issues Project when it ran ads highlighting Obama's ties to Ayers.
These attempts to shut down political speech have become routine for liberals. Congressional Democrats sought to reimpose the "fairness doctrine" on broadcasters, which until it was repealed in the 1980s required equal time for different points of view. The motive was plain: to shut down the one conservative-leaning communications medium, talk radio. Liberal talk-show hosts have mostly failed to draw audiences, and many liberals can't abide having citizens hear contrary views.
To their credit, some liberal old-timers -- like House Appropriations Chairman David Obey -- voted against the "fairness doctrine," in line with their longstanding support of free speech. But you can expect the "fairness doctrine" to get another vote if Barack Obama wins and Democrats increase their congressional majorities.
Corporate liberals have done their share in shutting down anti-liberal speech, too. "Saturday Night Live" ran a spoof of the financial crisis that skewered Democrats like House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank and liberal contributors Herbert and Marion Sandler, who sold toxic-waste-filled Golden West to Wachovia Bank for $24 billion. Kind of surprising, but not for long. The tape of the broadcast disappeared from NBC's Website and was replaced with another that omitted the references to Frank and the Sandlers. Evidently NBC and its parent, General Electric, don't want people to hear speech that attacks liberals.
Then there's the Democrats' "card check" legislation, which would abolish secret ballot elections in determining whether employees are represented by unions. The unions' strategy is obvious: Send a few thugs over to employees' homes -- we know where you live -- and get them to sign cards that will trigger a union victory without giving employers a chance to be heard.
Once upon a time, liberals prided themselves, with considerable reason, as the staunchest defenders of free speech. Union organizers in the 1930s and 1940s made the case that they should have access to employees to speak freely to them, and union leaders like George Meany and Walter Reuther were ardent defenders of the First Amendment.
Today's liberals seem to be taking their marching orders from other quarters. Specifically, from the college and university campuses where administrators, armed with speech codes, have for years been disciplining and subjecting to sensitivity training any students who dare to utter thoughts that liberals find offensive. The campuses that used to pride themselves as zones of free expression are now the least free part of our society.
Obama supporters who found the campuses congenial and Obama himself, who has chosen to live all his adult life in university communities, seem to find it entirely natural to suppress speech that they don't like and seem utterly oblivious to claims that this violates the letter and spirit of the First Amendment. In this campaign, we have seen the coming of the Obama thugocracy, suppressing free speech, and we may see its flourishing in the four or eight years ahead.
Emotional responses get ignored...I know what you mean about responses, lols.
My husband proudly wears that shirt!
Life rarely ends well for fascist thugs and the mobs who follow.
Pravda, American style.
And just think about when he gets control of the DOJ and FBI. He will take down every threat to his power.
Imagine the person running against him in ‘12? They will be investigated and indicted.. until they are forced to drop out.
And then after ‘12, he’ll rewrite the constitution to run for life. And anyone in his way (including outraged citizens) will be prosecuted and jailed.
Bank on it.
If that takes place there will be a revolution in this country.
Thank You! Applause.
I just made my first “diversity” purchase, the Beretta Bobcat .22 and was pleasantly surprised at the usefullness of the little cat. With CCI minimags it will go through a hard pine 2 x 4 and keep on sailing, I believe the penetration is better than my longer barrelled .22 revolver with the same ammo. Now...what should be next on that list? I think I need a Mossberg or Remington 12 guage pump before another handgun. So many great names and limited money.
For myself I say what I think and don’t give a crap what anyone else thinks.
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You and I would either get along great or beat each other to death. I have the same attitude.
Hopefully, within the next three weeks.
Yes, it's true, they did - but the spectrum of "acceptable" free speech, in liberal eyes, has NEVER included us.
It's just that now, there are more of us, and more ways for us to be heard - and it's pissing them off.
No, no, NO.
Obama is a puppet. He's not important, in himself.
What WILL happen is that his handlers will create a Chavezista power structure which will make it easy to replace him with successors who are also on the bus.
I have often thought that they would have him whacked in a Reichstag fire-type incident, to allow the real power holders to come out of the shadows and to take over.
Unlike in the 1960s, these people know how to use rioters as militia. They've been brooding for 40 years over why "the revolution" didn't happen back then, and they've derived certain accurate insights.
The person who calls himself "Barack Obama" is one component of the answer. They've certainly noticed that the 1968 revolution lacked shock troops, and I believe you will see an SA within a year of Obama's inauguration.
Kel-Tec P32. Don’t laugh. It goes where I go!
......CCI minimags....
What is a CCI minimag? how does it compare with a long rifle?
Will a revolver chambered for a long rifle accept a CCI minimag?
“I want you to argue with them and get in their face.”....
Go ahead Obama! Get in my face and you’ll be missing all your teeth!
For someone who taught "Constitutional" law, he has remarkably little respect for our Constitution. He has tried to suppress speech, he is famously anti-RKBA, and you can assume that he will act just as disdainfully toward all other parts of the Constitution.
Even FDR, who otherwise had little use for our Constitution, never crossed the line of openly attacking the First Amendment.
The New York Times has an archive of some of Senator Obama's finals and his answers to a few of those, and it's clear to me that he was not teaching "Constitutional" law but instead he was focused on narrow issues dealing with abortion/fetal issues, homosexual issues, and race issues.
“Obama supporters who found the campuses congenial and Obama himself, who has chosen to live all his adult life in university communities, seem to find it entirely natural to suppress speech that they don’t like and seem utterly oblivious to claims that this violates the letter and spirit of the First Amendment. In this campaign, we have seen the coming of the Obama thugocracy, suppressing free speech, and we may see its flourishing in the four or eight years ahead.”
With this comment, Mr. Barone casts his vote.
Obama and his thugs will take their cues from the Bolsheviks.
Fearless prediction:
ANY democrati (even so-called “conservative” and “blue dog” democrats) who dares raise his or her voice against ANYthing the upcoming Obamadministration desires, will be hounded down as a “racist” and “oppressor”. Not ONE ‘rat will DARE vote against Obama for this reason.
This is going to be problematic if the ‘rats gain a majority of 60 seats in the Senate (a possibility which grows as the DOW shrinks). It’s becoming apparent that in 2009, the only - let me repeat for emphasis, ONLY - recourse for our side to mount an opposition to Obama will become the use of the filibuster in the Senate. I predict that if the Pubbies show the constitution to oppose Obama effectively in this regard, we will quickly see a “nuclear option” taken by the ‘rats to eiiminate the filibuster, but ONLY for the current session of Congress. Consider this to be a “Fishrrman you read it here first” prognotication.
Once Obama and the democrats begin the dismantle both the traditional culture of the United States _and_ its economic underpinnings, what options will be left to thwart them?
- John
“Unusual for Barone to write such a partisan type article. Usually he sticks to facts and figures.”
Perhaps Mr. Barone has “seen the future”.
And perhaps he is as concerned as WE are....
- John
Already happeing.
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