Tag Archives: rights

Free Speech, Again

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A New Jersey high school has come under fire after holding a ceremony honoring law enforcement, military and first responders before a football game Friday night.

And

It featured State Police Pipes and Drums of the Blue and Gold, state and local mounted units, personnel from all of the branches of the military and officers from several local offices. It also honored a Linden police officer who was wounded in a shootout with Ahmad Khan Rahimi, who is accused of planting IEDs in Seaside Park, Elizabeth and New York City[.]

So far, so good, you might think.

“It’s OK to stand up for social justice, inequality, and reform,” [Middletown Deputy Police Chief Stephen] Dollinger told the [Asbury Park Press]. “It’s another thing to not stand up for the national anthem.”

Uh oh.  That’s not allowed.  It’s OK to protest.  It’s not OK to protest the protesters or the protest methods.  No, the Left insists we just shut up about that.  The ACLU, the Central Jersey Chapter of National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, and the Greater Long Branch NAACP all objected to such impertinence in a letter to the high school.

According to press reports, however, the event is being used to intimidate and ostracize people who express their views about systemic racism and social just.

Law enforcement officers are sworn to protect the constitution, and it is a disservice to the students and players that an event that should focus on them, their families, and their communities is being used to send a message that people who express concerns about disparities in the criminal justice system are unwelcome, disloyal or unpatriotic.

And

One ACLU organizer, Jasmine Crenshaw, believes the event sent a “frightening message….”

Sure.  It’s frightening—to the Left, anyway—that people not under the Left’s control would speak freely.

She Was Right the First Time

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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, recall, commented on NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling when our national anthem was played before the start of San Francisco 49ers games, saying that Kaepernick and his ilk have the right to protest but that it’s “dumb and disrespectful.”

Now she’s apologizing for saying that, even though she’s done nothing here that wants an apology.  She’s doing so, too, just a short time after she expressed her contempt for Republican Party Presidential candidate Donald Trump, thereby irrevocably demonstrating her prejudice and the fact that she’d prejudged any case that might come before the Court from a Trump administration.

This is another Supreme Court vacancy waiting to happen, and not too long into the next administration.

A Good Move

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WFAY-AM, broadcasting out of Fayetteville, NC, normally carries East Carolina University football games.  No more, at least for a while.

WFAY-AM in Fayetteville announced Tuesday that it would not carry the Pirates’ game at South Florida scheduled for Saturday. The move comes after the school said 19 band members kneeled during the anthem before the game against Central Florida….

Of course, the band members have a free speech right to protest and to disrespect our flag and our national anthem in the course of that protest.

But—and this is a point too many on the Left choose to ignore—the rest of us have the same free speech right to protest the protest and/or its technique, and to take action in counter to that protest.

Good for WFAY, and good for the station’s sponsors, who agreed with the decision.

Free Speech

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We got a good look at the Democratic Party’s view of free speech and press collusion during Tuesday’s debate between Democratic Party Vice Presidential candidate Senator Tim Kaine (VA) and Republican Party Vice Presidential candidate Governor (IN) Mike Pence.

Kaine was so disdainful of what Pence was saying, Kaine was so fearful of letting the audience in the hall and the wider audience watching on television that he kept trying to interrupt Pence in mid-sentence and constantly talked over Pence whenever the Pence started to say anything of which Kaine personally disapproved.  Kaine actually interrupted Pence some 70 times—nearly once per minute in the 90 minute debate.  And since the nominal structure of the debate had each of the two originally speaking roughly half the time, that means Kaine just was constantly trying to shout down Pence at every turn.

When Pence protested at one point, Kaine interrupted the objection in mid-sentence, asking “Isn’t this a discussion?”  Indeed, they were in the discussion part of the exchange on a question.  But what Kaine was carefully ignoring—it’s hard to believe he actually didn’t understand this—is that discussions also don’t involve one person constantly talking over the other—the participants actually discuss, not try to shout down each other.

This is the attitude and behavior toward our individual liberties, this is the level of integrity, we can expect from a Clinton administration.

How Does This Work?

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As one answer to San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel when our national anthem is playing before a football game instead of respecting our flag (which symbolizes his right to protest in this way), the General Manager of Krossroads Rock and Country Bar began using Kaepernick’s jersey—copies of which are available almost as ubiquitously as our flag—as a doormat at the establishment’s front entrance.

Naturally, the Left has gotten their collective panties in a twist over this. They’re calling this counterprotest

“racist” and…calling for a boycott of the bar. [One whiner objector] posted a picture of the taped-down jersey which has since been shared over 5,800 times on the social media platform.

Kaepernick can walk on our nation’s flag with his kneeling antics while our national anthem is playing, but it’s somehow not allowed to literally walk on his football jersey—which routinely is dragged through the mud in the course of those games in which Kaepernick is fortunate enough to play?

This is another example of the hypocrisy of the Left.