26th May 2004, 10:36 PM
That's a form you say? No it's not, it's no more a form of "denying free speech" than walking out of the room is, because the result is the same, the person actively doing something to avoid hearing what the person had to say. It's only prohibiting free speech when the person is threatened to shut up or is physically detained to prevent them from talking. Neither thing happened here. Look, you start saying that other people just finding ways to IGNORE what people say is somehow prohibiting free speech, you end up with a world where EVERY time someone opens their mouth, every single person in the world is required by law to memorize exactly what that person said. Infeasible or not, that's where it leads. People should have the RIGHT to be complete obnoxious brats. Yes, it WAS rude, but it's not violating free speech. The SECOND someone threatened him with violence or some law suit or something like that, THEN it's violating free speech, not just drowning the person out in sound. He CAN still say what he wants, he's just being ignored. It's the classic silent treatment, in reverse. They could have been much more tactful and polite, but people have the RIGHT to completely ignore what someone has to say.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)