Posted on 08/20/2002 5:45:04 AM PDT by aomagrat
Who is really trampling on free speech? Is it a private company that tries to limit its association with a particular viewpoint? Or is it a lawmaker who tries to marshal the power of the state to punish the corporation for its policy?
SCANA, the parent company of South Carolina Electric and Gas announced a policy last week aimed to ensure that the company is not associated with certain viewpoints.
SCANA employees are prohibited from displaying the Confederate flag on their vehicles while on company property. They are also prohibited from parking company vehicles in the parking lots of Maurice Bessinger’s barbecue restaurants.
Bessinger has defended slavery and placed literature defending it at his restaurants. Like the supermarkets that distanced themselves from this viewpoint by refusing to sell Bessinger’s sauce, SCANA also wants to make sure that the public at large doesn’t believe that the company supports Bessinger’s point of view.
All this is within SCANA’s rights. SCANA employees have freedom of speech but not necessarily on company time and property. Any business has a right to limit the message that is sent out by its representatives. If SCANA does not want its associates sending a neo-Confederate message on its time, then it can limit the displays allowed on company property.
But state Sen. Glenn McConnell isn’t willing to accept SCANA’s policy. He says the policy “tramples on free speech.”
Then, as if the state needs an example of trampling on free speech, he proposes a perfect model.
McConnell proposes a law that would punish SCANA for this policy. He wants to deny state contracts for any business with a policy such as SCANA’s. He also wants to change the state’s utility structure so that SCANA’s monopoly is taken away.
McConnell says he doesn’t care whether SCANA would lose millions or go out of business as a result of his bill. He says he will push it unless SCANA changes its mind.
The real threat to free speech comes from McConnell. He doesn’t like SCANA’s point of view, and he wants to use the power of the state to punish the company. It’s inexcusable.
Fortunately, most of his fellow Republicans say they won’t support McConnell in his anti-SCANA efforts. But they say they won’t support him because they don’t want to make changes in the state’s utility structure.
It’s unfortunate that his Republican colleagues won’t publicly rebuke McConnell for attacking the free speech rights of SCANA even as he pretends to protect that same value.
McConnell’s proposal is dangerous to the state’s utility system. And it’s an interference in business. But his efforts at government censorship should be denounced for exactly what they are — an attack on the First Amendment.
Bull.
Their right to limit employees' freedom of expression does not extend to vehicles that, presumably, the company did not purchase.
So much for biased opinions. The Spartanburg HJ praises SCANA's actions while denouncing those of McConnell. The hypocrisy of it all.
SCANA employees have freedom of speech but not necessarily on company time and property.
HUH?
SCANA's policy is dangerous to my first ammendment!
It's quite simple. You have the right to say, for example, "You shouldn't be eating that ice cream, lard-butt." If you say it while checking out a customer at my store, however, you'll find yourself looking for a new place of employment.
Don't judge people by the color of their skin. There's two entirely different sets of miscreant bozo's you're refering to here.
I see the pinkos at the Sputenball Herald have done a 180 on the typical liberal's free spech position in order to pretend that a corporation has the same rights as a human being, now that a corporation is bending to their PC jihad against the South. To follow their logic, it would be a matter of 1st amendment protected free speech for this corporation to order its employees to cease union activities on company property. I'll hold my breath waiting for them to say the same thing the next time they accuse a corporation of union busting. Y'all pick me up when I turn blue and fall out, ok?
McConnell is very likely to get a bill passed over this. The class warriors among South Carolina's carpetbagger owned press may as well get used to it.
LOL!! Even the supposed descendants of slaves are arguing the War wasn't about slavery. Non, what are you going to do?!? The lincoln myth is falling apart at the seams
You know, billbears, I wasted a fair amount of time on Saturday watching the C-Span coverage and none of the people I saw on stage came close to being factual on almost anything they said. I just chalk this up to being one more inaccuracy. The closest anyone came to saying something interesting was when that Sister Firestarter started clucking like a chicken. I still don't understand what that part was about.
But I'm curious, billbears old son. Now that your main man DiLorenzo has signed on to the justification for reparations for something like this then how can you not support the black reparations movement? Where is his movement justified and that black one isn't?
Good point.
Well you have factual evidence of houses, whole cities even, being razed to the ground by men that were not following international rules of war as you know DiLorenzo points out. Men who devastated entire regions of the South killing in cold blood whereas in the reparations movement you have a 'Black Holocaust' that you and I well know is virtually impossible. 150 million people died in less than 400 years? 100 million in ships coming over here alone? The numbers are outrageous. And God forbid any of these kind folk like Malik Shabizz do ancestral research just to find out some of their own black ancestors were among the largest slaveowners in the South.
Point being, the Southern reparations movement points out specific actions and has a specific defendant. the entire union army. The slavery reparations movement has an everchanging defendant. Sometimes it's the US government, other times it's the nations of Europe, other times it's folks like myself that are flying the true flag of freedom. What I want to know is why don't they go after the descendants of the men who sold them into slavery? You know, the tribes of Africa that sold their enemies and are now in power in places like Zimbabwe, where they're chasing white farmers out of the nation
This is an incredibly convoluted attitude regarding free speech. I guess they are saying that since individuals are so ignorant as to be unable to recognize that messages on bumper stickers and other similar displays on private vehilcles represent a sentiment of the owner of the vehicle and NOT that of the company on whose lot it parked, then obviosly the company must protect itself from opinions of employees.
MAKES them hypocrites? They have been hypocrites for a long time. Just furthur proof that this, like most other racial issues, isn't about equity at all, but about money and political advantage.
I saw that also and thought, "isn't it funny how it is ALWAYS about slavery when they want to trash the flag but it isn't about slavery OR the south when it is about money and power?"
Why should I pay you? It wasn't your house that was burned or your slaves that were freed. You personally suffered no harm at all from a property stand point. Not a dime out of pocket. Where do you deserve reparations?
If the southern reparations movement has a specific defendant then go collect from the Union army. Did up Sherman and Grant and take them to court. Take what you get from them and give it to every single living southerner who personally suffered material damages from the actions of the Union army. You know, the same kind of offer made on all these black reparations posts. Until you can agree to that then DiLusional's reparations cause is just as phony and just as bogus as N'Cobra's. And until you can show a better reason than N'Cobra can I'll have to assume you support their cause, too.
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