Here is a post from AP that should interest anyone and everyone interested in maintaining their right to free speech in this country. We have written recently articles: Open Letter To Ron Paul and
MSM Continues Assassination and Open Letter To Mark Zucherberger that apparently received over site complaining about the content violating guidelines.
This is a common thing today. Our content was simply about a difference of opinion and one's individual right to express those opinions without being labeled a hater or some other often used epithet. These well-chosen epithets are hardly benign. There are designed to strike fear at the least and to silence at the most.
In journalism there are at least three defenses against slander or libel: truth, fair comment and matter of public record. Unless those three have been redacted, buried in some hidden legislation, we believe they are still valid.The comments we made that were allegedly deemed offensive or in violation were not only true but matters of pubic record.
We realize that slanted news presentations, like attractiveness, is in the beholder's eyes, but it's a known and well-publicized fact that many MSM organizations, right and left, slant their news. And numerous polls, if one can believe them, reflect that fact. And people who legitimately voice them are hardly the ones who need sensitivity training.
Nor were they in any way meant to be malicious or mean-spirited, two more poplularly used labels against anyone who dares to differ with current so-called accepted wisdom. Differences of opinions can run deep, but that doesn't make them hateful speech or racist.
BEIJING
(AP) -- Police scuffled with protesters and journalists at a Beijing
courthouse Monday as a prominent rights lawyer stood trial on charges of
provoking trouble and stirring ethnic hatred with online commentary
critical of the ruling Communist Party.
Chinese
protesters and foreign rights groups said Pu Zhiqiang's trial at the
No. 2 Beijing Intermediate Court amounted to political persecution, and
foreign governments including the U.S. called for his release. Pu denied
the charges and the trial concluded about midday, with Pu's lawyer
Shang Baojun saying a verdict and sentence would be delivered at a later
date.
"Pu Zhiqiang is a lawyer with a
conscience," activist Yang Qiuyu said in a brief interview outside the
courthouse while a policeman tried to grab him. "This is why he is now
under arrest. We support him, and that means that we are also defending
our own rights."
It should stirke you as curious that U.S.government offcials often call for a person's release when it happens in a foreign country but not when it happens here.
That's our view. We hope you know yours.
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