Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

There are a fair number of posters here who support absolute free speech. Please defend the bolded parts:

Reps. Louise Slaughter and Bart Stupak have received death threats.

A tea party participant published what he thought was Rep. Thomas Perriello�s home address and urged disgruntled voters to �drop by� for a �good face-to-face chat.�

Vandals broke windows at Slaughter�s office in New York and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords�s office in Arizona.

And angry voters are planning to protest this weekend at the home of Steve Driehaus � who�s already seen a photograph of his children used in a newspaper ad published by reform opponents...

Slaughter, a Democrat who chairs the House Rules Committee, said a caller to her office last week vowed to send snipers to �kill the children of the members who voted yes.� Her office reported the call to police, who were dispatched to provide protection for Slaughter�s grandchildren. She has also been in touch with the FBI and U.S. Postal Service inspectors, who intercepted a letter en route to her home in upstate New York.

Stupak, the Michigan Democrat whose last-minute compromise on abortion guaranteed passage of the bill Sunday, said callers have left messages for him saying, �You�re dead; we know where you live; we�ll get you.�

...Driehaus faults Republicans for providing encouragement to the most extreme opponents of reform. Last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) warned that anti-abortion Democrats would suffer politically if they voted for the health care bill; he singled out Driehaus, saying he �may be a dead man� and �can�t go home to the west side of Cincinnati� because �the Catholics will run him out of town.�

...Mike Troxel, an organizer for the Lynchburg Tea Party, posted what he believed to be Perriello�s home address on his blog this week, sarcastically urging other tea partiers to stop by and �say hi and express their thanks regarding his vote for health care.�

The address turned out to be the home of Perriello�s brother � who has four children � but Troxel told POLITICO he didn�t intend to remove it from his blog. �If they would like to provide me with the address of Tom, then I�d be more than happy to take it down,� he said. �I have no reason to believe it�s not his house.�

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20100324/pl_politico/34907

I'm curious what the arguments are for absolute free speech in these kinds of cases.

[RufusW]

Free speech doesn't mean you can threaten someone or announce people should attack other people; because this directly affects someone's safety and security it is against the law.

Publishing addresses is fine. Saying "he probably shouldn't go to the west-side of town" is also okay, it may just be misinformed opinion. But stating "we should all get our guns and visit him" is the wrong side of the line.

[bacasper]

[The Happy Warrior]

No freedom can be absolute, because if one were, it would impinge on other freedoms.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[ontheway]

All "rights" are absolute and they do not infringe upon other rights.

However, the logically impared are not able to discern what the difference is between real "rights" of individuals and the desires of socialists to regulate others, which are not rights at all but evil regulation.


Free speech is absolute. You have the right to say or broadcast or print or publish on the internet anything you wish. The government has no right to limit, regulate, control or censor speech.

However, the use of your right to free speech can have consequences that follow subsequently. Such consequences do not limit free speech and do not give the government the right to infringe upon free speech.

If you threaten someone, it is not an issue of free speech. You have the right to say it, no one can censor you or prevent you from saying it, but if you have made a real threat (let's say a death threat for example) and it can be shown that you are actually intending to carry out the threat and have the means to carry out the threat, then you could be charged with a crime that is not related to free speech and does not serve to limit free speech.

[Street Magic]

[visitorq]

Obama, the Dems, and the GOP have all committed high treason against the Republic - that is why some have received death threats. They are not the victims, they are predators, dismantling the constitution and selling us all into bondage. Obama-care is quite simply the most un-American and anti-constitutional legislation ever passed in our country's history (arguably even more than the Federal Reserve Act). The public is outraged over it, and rightly so.

Of course I don't think anybody should be assassinated (though I certainly wouldn't feel bad to hear about it), but they all deserve to be thrown out of office, tried, and when found guilty locked in jail. These people have committed real crimes. The whole government has basically gone rogue criminal.

[bacasper]

[Underwaterbob]

[ontheway]