Happy Birthday American Censorship

[jgruber]

Today is the 206th birthday of the  The Alien and Sedition Acts.

They died many years ago but their spirit lives.

[buster]

Jeffjoe, you crack me up. And I mean that in a good way.

[Lydia]

Thank God the spirit of these wonderful laws is alive and well in the Patriot Acts. 

JJ, you rock.

[jgruber]

Thank God the spirit of these wonderful laws is alive and well in the Patriot Acts. 

JJ, you rock.

The Patriot Act is intended to preserve the freedom of true Americans.  If you are not a terrorist, you have nothing to worry about.   


God, I am funny.

[jgruber]

To show that this grand tradition of America has not died, think of two stars.

Whoopi Goldberg was fired by Slimfast after she stated her opinion of dubya.

Linda Ronstadt was escorted out of a Las Vegas casino after patrons booed her and commited vandalism, because she recommended seeing Farenheit 9/11 before singing her last encore.

Long live freedom of speech.

[Minc]

I'm sorry to be the downer, but come on - these two examples aren't exactly fair.

Whoopi got fired not because she "stated her opinion" of Bush, but because she used nasty comments to get it across and SlimFast got some complaints from customers. Now if you had to handle this situation, what would you do? Dump Whoopi or lose some customers? SlimFast wasn't saying Whoopi can't say what she wants, rather just responding in a way to best prevent the company from feeling any impact from her remarks. I'll bet they don't give a damn who she supports. They just don't like their covergirl saying things that offend their customers and result in complaints and threatened loss of customers (profit), regardless of who she directs her commments at.

Same with Linda. She wasn't kicked out because what she was spouting off happened to fall to the left. She was kicked out because what she said pissed off some patrons and the casino didn't like that. After all, the patrons are where the casino gets its money. Some argue that there were those in the crowd that supported her comments. That doesn't really matter, though, if there were also some who didn't. The casino had every right to ask her to leave - not for liberal speech - but because she could have cost the casino business.

Freedom of speech is still alive and well in America, guys. Gimme a break.

[Lydia]

I'm sorry to be the downer, but come on - these two examples aren't exactly fair.

Whoopi got fired not because she "stated her opinion" of Bush, but because she used nasty comments to get it across and SlimFast got some complaints from customers. Now if you had to handle this situation, what would you do? Dump Whoopi or lose some customers? SlimFast wasn't saying Whoopi can't say what she wants, rather just responding in a way to best prevent the company from feeling any impact from her remarks. I'll bet they don't give a damn who she supports. They just don't like their covergirl saying things that offend their customers and result in complaints and threatened loss of customers (profit), regardless of who she directs her commments at.

Same with Linda. She wasn't kicked out because what she was spouting off happened to fall to the left. She was kicked out because what she said pissed off some patrons and the casino didn't like that. After all, the patrons are where the casino gets its money. Some argue that there were those in the crowd that supported her comments. That doesn't really matter, though, if there were also some who didn't. The casino had every right to ask her to leave - not for liberal speech - but because she could have cost the casino business.

Freedom of speech is still alive and well in America, guys. Gimme a break.

Right!  That's why our news media is so fair and balanced.  Thanks for clearing everything up.

[jgruber]

How do you know the motives of the companies?  And what is the difference if I say she was fired for expressing her opinion and you say it was because she said nasty things?

I'm sorry to be the downer, but come on - these two examples aren't exactly fair.

Whoopi got fired not because she "stated her opinion" of Bush, but because she used nasty comments to get it across and SlimFast got some complaints from customers. Now if you had to handle this situation, what would you do? Dump Whoopi or lose some customers? SlimFast wasn't saying Whoopi can't say what she wants, rather just responding in a way to best prevent the company from feeling any impact from her remarks. I'll bet they don't give a damn who she supports. They just don't like their covergirl saying things that offend their customers and result in complaints and threatened loss of customers (profit), regardless of who she directs her commments at.

Same with Linda. She wasn't kicked out because what she was spouting off happened to fall to the left. She was kicked out because what she said pissed off some patrons and the casino didn't like that. After all, the patrons are where the casino gets its money. Some argue that there were those in the crowd that supported her comments. That doesn't really matter, though, if there were also some who didn't. The casino had every right to ask her to leave - not for liberal speech - but because she could have cost the casino business.

Freedom of speech is still alive and well in America, guys. Gimme a break.

[jgruber]

Besides, the result is the same.  Whether to save customers or because you don't like what Whoopi said, she was censored.

[Minc]

Censored? You mean she wasn't allowed to say those things? Wait, though - she said them. Too damn bad her company got pissed.

Besides, the result is the same.  Whether to save customers or because you don't like what Whoopi said, she was censored.

There's a huge difference. If she was fired because SlimFast didn't want to lose customers, that is perfectly legitimate. Otherwise, you imply that SlimFast should just shut up and take a loss of customers to protect Whoopi's freedom of speech. Screw that - she deserved to get fired if what she said was gonna mess with their profits. Yeah, that might suck for her, but that's a risk she took when she exercised her freedom of speech. If it would have had no impact on sales and they just fired her because she was a lib and, say, all the slimfast execs are conservatives, then yeah - that would be infringing on her right to speak freely.

Additionally, in response to Lydia, the news media is so incredibly unfair and unbalanced precisely because we have freedom of speech. You can basically print whatever the hell you want, with whatever spin you want.