27th May 2004, 5:51 PM
Listen, I also made it clear that these people WERE being rude, and WERE in fact doing something wrong. However, not violating his rights, just being rude. Things CAN be wrong without being illegal, and there are things that are wrong that laws should NOT be made to prevent! In this case, society is in charge of dealing with this, not the government. Should the kids have been punished somehow? I suppose so, that's for the school to decide, but the government doesn't have anything to do with it. They were certainly being in the wrong, but not violating anyone's legal rights in the process.
He could very well complain about how rude those people were being to him, that's fine. He could voice all he wants about that too, that's fine. To say his rights to free speech were violated though, that's just plain wrong. He has the right to say that too mind you, but he's wrong. For example, if you don't want someone pestering you, you just ask them to stop. You aren't repressing their RIGHT to, it's a social thing. Society and government are seperate in some ways. It only steps into the legal realm when something ACTUALLY happens that's not just social.
Regarding the news media thing in Russia, I don't know the details there. If the media is free, and it would seem it's not, but if it IS, and they are all just deciding of their OWN accord not to air this guy's viewpoint, it's not suppressing free speech. The guy just needs to find a way to get it voiced. He's not being silenced, he's just at a severe disadvantage because now he has to go spread the word the old fasioned way. HOWEVER, if it's the government telling the media not to air it, THEN it's different. From there, he might even be prevented from trying to open up his own TV station (low level funding and all), or open up a web page, or just hold speeches in variuos event centers. Companies, acting on their own, can and should be able to decide to simply not air stuff. It's not supressing free speech. It's certainly VERY partisan, but it's not suppression. The guy just has a harder time of it, and likely it'll end in him not winning, but that's the fault of the populace and one of their major deciding factors in the election being "who was on the air the most?". It's a terrible way to decide it, but the guy wasn't literally forced out. Now, on the other hand, that's just on the assumption the media isn't actually being told by the government what not to air.
Keep that in mind, we are only saying a very literal and OBVIOUS violation of these freedoms is the ONLY real kind. The rest are just silly little twists of logic that go nowhere and are thought up by drugged out hippies.
He could very well complain about how rude those people were being to him, that's fine. He could voice all he wants about that too, that's fine. To say his rights to free speech were violated though, that's just plain wrong. He has the right to say that too mind you, but he's wrong. For example, if you don't want someone pestering you, you just ask them to stop. You aren't repressing their RIGHT to, it's a social thing. Society and government are seperate in some ways. It only steps into the legal realm when something ACTUALLY happens that's not just social.
Regarding the news media thing in Russia, I don't know the details there. If the media is free, and it would seem it's not, but if it IS, and they are all just deciding of their OWN accord not to air this guy's viewpoint, it's not suppressing free speech. The guy just needs to find a way to get it voiced. He's not being silenced, he's just at a severe disadvantage because now he has to go spread the word the old fasioned way. HOWEVER, if it's the government telling the media not to air it, THEN it's different. From there, he might even be prevented from trying to open up his own TV station (low level funding and all), or open up a web page, or just hold speeches in variuos event centers. Companies, acting on their own, can and should be able to decide to simply not air stuff. It's not supressing free speech. It's certainly VERY partisan, but it's not suppression. The guy just has a harder time of it, and likely it'll end in him not winning, but that's the fault of the populace and one of their major deciding factors in the election being "who was on the air the most?". It's a terrible way to decide it, but the guy wasn't literally forced out. Now, on the other hand, that's just on the assumption the media isn't actually being told by the government what not to air.
Keep that in mind, we are only saying a very literal and OBVIOUS violation of these freedoms is the ONLY real kind. The rest are just silly little twists of logic that go nowhere and are thought up by drugged out hippies.
"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)