September, 2008
It's Only Free Speech Until it Offends the Left
Johnathan Lott
I was sitting at the College Republicans table on the Plaza of the Americas on Tuesday when a very rude individual came up to me. He said he noticed the hammer and sickle we had put in the hands of our large Obama cut out. He said that “Obama is not a communist” and that “we should take it down.”
I proceeded to tell him that we have the right to our opinion and our right to free speech, and it was only just a bit of tongue-in-cheek in the first place. Looking at Obama’s health care and tax plans, after all, it’s difficult to argue that the massive redistribution of wealth makes it anything but a socialist idea.
The individual disagreed. He said that “lies” were not protected speech and we shouldn’t be allowed to put it up. He walked away for a moment, then walked back, and ripped the hammer and sickle out of Obama’s hands and stormed away. I had to get up and chase him down to get them back.
We once again see that the far left hates free speech. We saw it last year with Obsession, and we saw it again on Tuesday. Radical liberals cannot tolerate opinions that are different from their own, and they will and do use force to suppress it. Once again I affirm that this radical individual is not representative of the entire left; a few Obama supporters who witnessed the incident kindly apologized for his behavior.
And yet this radical individual reveals the gritty truth. Contrary to their own proclamations, the Democratic Party is NOT the party of free speech. Liberals supported unconstitutional campaign finance laws, they supported the unconstitutional “fairness” doctrine, and, of course, they supported stealing other people’s property because it sent a message that was contrary to their beliefs.
Think about the actions of the candidates and parties, not their words, in November. Otherwise, when “offending someone” becomes illegal, you might regret your vote.