Mensch tracht, und Gott lacht

Friday, April 21, 2006

Free Speech at the White House

Well now, I see that the Bushies, after admonishing Hu Jintao about human rights in China, have arranged for charges to be filed against the Falun Gong woman who yelled "President Hu, your days are numbered. President Bush, make him stop persecuting Falun Gong." Apparently the law under which she is being charged proscibes "harassing, intimidating or threatening a foreign official in the performance of their official duties."

So: Was Hu harrassed, intimidated, or threatened? You be the judge. As for me, each day and every way El Presidente W more and more reminds me of the old adage from Animal Farm: Four legs good, two legs better.

5 comments:

Devang said...

Well said... I just had to find all 7, to go underneath the old adage :)

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.

James F. Elliott said...

Raise your hand if you find this at all surprising from the Administration that brought you protest zones, the arrest of hecklers (or people who look like they might be hecklers, or who just wear shirts that might indicate some kind of dissent), and blissful bubbles filled with yes-men and women and enforced by armed guards.

What, no one?

S. T. Karnick said...

The Clinton administration did the same things, remember. Both are wrong.

Tom Van Dyke said...

I'm good with protest zones and blissful bubbles. There's no constitutional right to disrupt somebody else's thang.

You want to assemble, fine. Do it somewhere else.

Hunter Baker said...

I think the court has generally gotten free speech right. Reasonable regulations on time, place, and manner of protest, but NOT (no, no, no) on the content.