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#45: Who Lost By Three Million Votes
April 4, 2019 by kmabarrett
The PC people should live up to that quote – or have they ever heard about freedom of speech?
Hi GP,
I’m just curious… Is there a specific complaint you have with the PC folks about freedom of speech.
It should be noted “freedom of speech” (like all of our rights) in the Constitution refers to what the government (the Federal government directly and the states and local govs via the 14th Amendment) can NOT do: pass a law abridging speech (the right). It really doesn’t give individuals rights over others – or even over businesses / private companies. Of course, individual limits are subject to the separation of the entity from government involvement. For example: historically, churches are not “allowed” to promote individual political candidates. The trade-off for being apolitical is no taxes. If a given church wants to promote individual candidates, they are free to surrender their tax-free status. Then they can say anything they wish from their pulpit. Of course, this trade-off has been under fairly constant pressure for the last 50 years as “conservatives” (small “C”) have sought to gain / maintain the support of religious followers. They seek (for a temporary political advantage) to diminish the barrier between Church and State which the Founders initially proposed / imposed.
The “explanation” behind my posting was my feelings about increasing obsolescence of the Electoral College. I (unlike – it seems – most Democrats) feel there is still a role for the Electoral College. There is something to be said for forcing seekers of national offices to at least visit the sparsely populated states of the mid-West. Otherwise, the country would be governed by New York, Florida, Texas and California (with a handful of others in the mix). My view is not democratic (small “D”), but I believe it is more equitable and therefore beneficial to the nation.
Kevin
My complaint is that nowadays I have to watch every word I say or type – or I just might be sued for injuring someone’s feelings. Some one, some where, somehow will be annoyed with me and I’m plastered across the screen on the 6pm news! We cow-tow to every nation in the world, try to help them and what do they do- hate us – so, so much for being the good-guys.
I recognize we are in a highly litigious times, but if the your comments are about the government (Federal, State or local), I’m pretty sure you’d be safe from suit. Freedom of speech does not apply to private citizens or businesses, but I believe as long as your comments are not slanderous or libel, I still think you’d be pretty safe. And, if you were sued, “truth” is the ultimate defense against both types of suit. That only means your comments must be true or not knowingly false and made with disregard for the truth. That’s the difference between “the law” and good manners. If someone does (or proposes) something stupid, you can say it is (or they are) stupid and be safe under the law – hurt feelings or not. Again, it might not be good manners, though.
I’m also not sure why you believe so many “nations” hate us. That is not my experience. I agree many countries dislike (and even hate) “some” of our countries policies, but even then, the general populace doesn’t hate “us” as American citizens. As far as I can tell, the only nations we “cow-tow” to are China and Russia and both of those are fairly recent examples (this Administration) and for specific reasons – mainly President Trump hopes to make money off of them while in office and more once he is out of office. I think he will find them friendly (and profitable) to him as long as he is in office. Once out of office, they will both treat him like an incontinent pet dog.
This is a quote from your reply – please explain…
“Freedom of speech does not apply to private citizens or businesses,”
As far cow-towing to, how about Germany, Turkey, Pakistan…. look into our foreign aid list and decide for yourself.
Hi GP,
Examples:
1) You can call me a freedom & Constitution loving Liberal. (True. No imminent threat. Nothing I can do.)
2) You can call me a 2nd Amendment loving conservative. (True. No imminent threat. Nothing I can do.)
3) You can call me a thief, murderer, and rapist. (None of which is true. No imminent threat. I can sue you for slander and libel – depending on whether you say it or write it).
In any of the above instances, if you are in my face and I feel threatened with imminent violence (assault and / or battery), I can defend myself “appropriately”.
None of this has anything to do with Freedom of Speech, because you are not the government and neither am I.
If you are in a government position and try to pass a law saying I can’t complain in public or private about the President, Congress, or my city mayor, that’s a violation of Freedom of Speech. You can regulate how and when something is done: I can’t use a bull horn in a residential area at 2am or scream “fire” in a crowded theater, but generally, if anyone is allowed to say something, everyone is allowed to say something. Again, provided you are not trying to actively provoke someone else into an act of violence against persons or property.
As for “cow-towing”… Can you provide some instances and demonstrate the relationship between it and foreign aid? From my “general” knowledge of foreign aid (like the Marshall Plan and almost all foreign aid since WWII), most foreign aid is really just socialist support for American private industries. Example: $X,XXX billions for loan guarantees to European nations (to American companies) to buy cement and other manufactured items to rebuild Europe (Germany, France and U.K. specifically). “Foreign Aid” is “usually” completely different from the bribes and plane loads of cash the CIA uses to manipulate corrupt foreign governments and companies.
I lived in the U.K., Germany and Saudi Arabia and “generally” speaking, none of their population “hate” us. They may hate the things our government does to support their government or enemy states or some such, but most of them want to be just as wealthy as they imagine us to be or don’t really think about us at all. They just want to get on with their own lives, in their own culture, without our interfering.
But, again, if you have some specific examples, I’ll be happy to look into them.
Kevin
Thank you and I’m glad they don’t hate us, perhaps some of the rotten name-calling they do just threw me a little.
GP,
Don’t misunderstand me… I am absolutely certain there are millions of folks around the world who hate the United States AND Americans (including many Americans who were born and live here currently).
I knew an Iranian in Saudi (when I was working there back in the 1990’s) and I asked him if they (the Iranian people) hate Americans since he always seemed friendly enough with me. We were co-workers in the same IT Dept. He said no, they don’t hate us (Americans). They simply dislike (hate) our government’s policies and how we over-threw their government and installed (and then propped up) the Shah for all those years. Of course, he was college educated and knew other Iranians who had lived, worked and been educated in the U.S., so it’s possible some of that may have softened his views of us. They (the Iranians) actually had a bigger problem with the Saudi’s because of their difference in Muslim faith (Shiite vs Sunni) and resented U.S. support of Saudi Arabia.
We also need to remember we are being fed news and images folks want us to see. Iran has 80 million people (roughly). If only 1% absolutely hate the U.S. and all Americans, that’s 800,000 people. I doubt we’ve ever seen a protest that large (in reality) in Iran. Even during the fall of the Shah, the largest protests were in the 500-700,000 range (if you believe Wikipedia). Please understand that crowd sizes are always estimates and can vary wildly.
Look at it another way, there are “about” 1 Billion Muslims in the world. If 1% of them truly hated the U.S. and Americans AND were willing to die to kill us all, we would be in a bad way. That 1% would be over 10 million people and that would be more than the sum of the top five(5) standing armies in the world. (And, yes, I know mere numbers aren’t everything in war / combat.)
And, a third view: I was watching a guy get interviewed at a Trump rally. He and his friends were wearing t-shirts with eagles on them which stated: “I’d rather be a Russian than a Democrat.” Now, maybe they thought they were just being funny (Ha Ha). All I know is I’d much rather be a conservative (small “C”) American Republican than a Russian ANY day of the week. …And twice on Sundays. I’m sure most Russians are decent God fearing human beings who just want to raise their families in peace, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever want to trade places with one. But, hey, that’s just me – a liberal (small “L”) American Democrat.
Kevin
I always thought that old comedy movie “The Russians are Coming – The Russians are Coming!” was a good example of the governments not getting along, but the citizens are normal human beings.
I don’t recall ever seeing that movie. I’ll add it to my watch list. Thanks for the recommendation.
Kevin