The Stout Republican

Whether it be dropping the F Bomb in a paper, or having the puppet of Khamenei speak at your university…people seemed to have missed some points about free speech.

Freedom of speech does not mean you have the right to be heard. – You can say whatever the hell your stupid little heart desires…I’m not required to listen to your dumb ass.

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequence. – You can say “Fuck Bush” in your college newspaper…but if the advertisers pull, don’t be shocked. People, especially the youth, need to understand that your words aren’t just free floating ideas that strike, and yet somehow simultaneously shield you from the strikes of others.

Freedom of speech does not exist just for you. – If I have to see one more video tape of a college kid shouting down some conservative speaker just so his ideas aren’t heard, I’m going to punch a baby square in the face. You heard me. A cute orphan baby…it makes me that angry.

And here’s the coup de grace:

On second day of his entry in New York, and amid standing ovation of the audience that had attended the hall where the Iranian President was to give his lecture as of early hours of the day, Ahmadinejad said that Iran is not going to attack any country in the world.

…

The audience on repeated occasion applauded Ahmadinejad when he touched on international crises.

People don’t seem to understand the propaganda machine that is the Middle East, specifically Iran. Hippies simmer down, this is not license to segue into America blows for this or that reason. We have a free (yet decidedly biased) press here in the US, and if MoveOn.org has taught us anything, it’s that our press can say pretty much whatever it wants to our leaders with or without the government’s consent. Our free press checks, rechecks, and then our blog community checks and rechecks, leading to one story having multiple angles, analysis, and editorials. Iran does not. Iran instead now has the ability to publish a story about how their leader was accepted, applauded, and agreed with at one of the United States’ premier Ivy League schools. What did we gain? In GEORGE ORWELL AND THE POLITICS OF TRUTH: Portrait of the Intellectual as a Man of Virtue by Lionel Trilling it’s written of Orwell:

Shaw had insisted upon remaining sublimely unaware of the Russian actuality; Wells had pooh-poohed the threat of Hitler and had written off as anachronisms the very forces that were at the moment shaping the world-racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, patriotism, love of war. These men had trained the political intelligence of the intelligentsia, who now, in their love of abstractions, in their wish to repudiate the anachronisms of their own emotions, could not conceive of directing upon Russia anything like the same stringency of criticism they used upon their own nation. Orwell had the simple courage to point out that the pacifists preached their doctrine under condition of the protection of the British navy, and that, against Germany and Russia, Gandhi’s passive resistance would have been of no avail.

Well, Bollinger and the intellectual “intelligentsia” got the self edifying knowledge that they were able to prove their mental prowess by confronting a man in a “debate” (hardly) setting. What did they gain? Well, the knowledge that they met with this man, and attempted to reason with him. They’ve done their part. What did Iran gain? Surely the Iran people saw these intellectual heroes stand up to the likes of Ahmedinejad in their homes via their television.

1) VOA Television nightly services on HotBird and TeleStar 12 satellites were disrupted in Tehran for about 20 minutes, as soon as he was to be introduced at Columbia university’s podium. Iranian citizens did not hear the criticism of Ahmadinejad by Columbia President Bollinger. The way the Islamic Republic does this is to scramble the signals of these satellites locally, using stationary and mobile microwave dishes.

So our obsession with exercising our blind right to free speech doesn’t seem to have done much for our people, except those few who can pat themselves on the back, or those fewer who can say “I like the guy” in a classic enemy of my enemy is my friend type of way.

Free speech is one of the highlights of what makes our nation great…it’s a shame that those who have been blessed with it’s fruits don’t have the forsight and fortitude to know that sometimes, just sometimes, knowing when to shut up or say no, can be just as important a contribution to our country as letting your chablis sipping lips flow freely. This isn’t about free speech…this is about understanding that our speech can be used, cut, manipulated, and redubbed to show Ahmadinejad shaking the hand of the President of a major university, saying the holocaust needs more research, denying that gays exist in Iran, and cut to the audience standing, laughing, and applauding.

Good for us though…we were able to wax poetic with a dictator.

UPDATE: Hotair has the details…but Free Speech doesn’t extend to Iran…go figure. Excerpt:

In a statement released by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission the organization noted that the comments had been removed from the Persian language version of the site, but left in the English transcription of the speech. Following an inquiry by PageOneQ made to the Iranian embassy, the entire question and answer period has been removed from the site…

According to IGLHRC, no Persian language papers have reported on the remarks.

Iran