April 5, 2016

Threats To Free Speech in The United States




[From article]
Ms. [Wendy] Bell, who worked 18 years at WTAE-TV [Pittsburgh, PA] and won multiple awards, posted a Facebook comment on March 21st, several days after an as-yet unsolved multiple murder spree that left six adults and children dead. Bell speculated that the killers were probably young black men from single-parent homes with multiple siblings by different fathers, who had committed crimes before the murders. She also wrote about personally commending a young black man working at a local restaurant, and asked her readers to be kind to others around them.
Nowhere in her post did Bell use the N-word, or make any other derogatory comments about African-Americans.
[. . .]
One of the TV station’s executives justified Bell’s termination thusly: “Wendy’s recent comments on WTAE Facebook page were inconsistent with the company’s ethics and journalistic standards.” Another of her former bosses allegedly asserted, “Her post offended us…. It was an egregious lack of judgment.”
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How free is speech when one has constantly to be worrying about how someone else might interpret (and react to) what he/she says?
[. . .]
Sadly, Ms. Bell’s experience is not the only instance in which someone suffered following expressing sentiments alleged to be racist. Recall what happened to Donald Sterling, who was banned from the National Basketball League and forced to sell the LA Clippers in 2014 after his mistress taped his presumably privately uttered racially inflammatory comments, or to Rush Limbaugh, who had to resign from his gig on ESPN’s "Sunday NFL Countdown" after comments about Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback Donovan McNabb and local sportswriters in 2003.
[. . .]



Oddly, America’s sensitivity to racism seems one-sided. Let some white boob say something considered beyond the pale racially, and it’s Katy-bar-the-door. On the other hand, prominent blacks, such as Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton, Jeremiah Wright, and those in the Black-Lives-Matter movement, can rail against whitey, sometimes in the foulest language, and no one should raise an eyebrow.
[. . .]
Regardless of what one thinks about Donald Trump, he should be praised for being ready, willing, and able to speak against PC.
If other American politicians and ordinary citizens would also consign PC notions to the dustbin they so richly deserve, freedom of speech and of the press would be in more robust condition.
Race is not the only factor generating calls for limiting free speech in America. On March 31st, thefederalist.com blog posted an essay noting that Senator Elizabeth Warren (D, MA), a.k.a. “Fauxahontas,” recently sent a letter to Mary Jo White, chairwoman of the Federal Elections Commission, asking for an investigation of insurance company executives who have criticized new federal regulations of their industry. Warren asked the FEC to stop these execs from “saying whatever they want about Washington policy debates.”
Warren’s assault on the First Amendment is not the only instance of a left-wing Democrat seeking to curtail freedom of speech. In 2013, Senator Diane Feinstein (D, CA), among others, tried to limit the notion of “the press” to just people who are employed by government-approved corporate mainstream media outlets. Feinstein, and those who worked with her on this effort to strip Internet and other media outlets of their First Amendment guarantees, would have had a decidedly chilling effect on press freedoms.
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Donald Trump is alleged to be hostile to freedom of the press.
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The Supreme Court has enunciated a variety of opinions affecting free speech and freedom of the press. Perhaps two of the best-known Scotus rulings regarding limits on speech entail the equivalent of yelling “fire!” in a crowded theater, and making extreme comments that constitute a “clear and present danger” to national security. Journalism is not entirely unfettered, either. A reporter, for example, cannot libel even a public figure with “malice aforethought.” Moreover, if Jones is strictly a private person, her/his rights against libel are broader than if she/he is in the public arena.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/the_threat_to_free_speech_in_america.html

April 5, 2016
The Threat to Free Speech in America
By Richard Winchester

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