Althouse: "What’s behind the shocking suppression of free speech at U.S. political conventions and the London Games?"

July 25, 2012

"What’s behind the shocking suppression of free speech at U.S. political conventions and the London Games?"

Asks Dahlia Lithwick.

Word that I searched for in her piece and did not find: Munich.

18 comments:

I'm Full of Soup said...: She is referring to the Dems refusing to allow the pro-life Governor Casey speak at their convention?; 7/25/12, 8:12 AM
Sebastian said...: What she really means is, "why won't those mean Republicans let Code Pink set up a booth on the convention floor?"; 7/25/12, 8:16 AM
The Drill SGT said...: Way overboard. The nut graf was the one that banned spectators from taking pictures or video on uploading to Facebook or Youtube.

Good Luck with that one :); 7/25/12, 8:16 AM
The Drill SGT said...: Does Code Pink still exist? Now that the Nobel Peace President has come to terms with the Taliban, surely there are no more war dead. I haven't seen any Dover shots, since O'bama did the last photo op of his salute there.

I think the only approved images are of the Walter Reed wards where the victims of George Bush's war are warehoused; 7/25/12, 8:20 AM
traditionalguy said...: She notices that the Govern-us-ment is controling the message that goes out on world TV broadcasts. It's their stage, and the will make us cry if the want to.

Welcome to the real world, Dahlia. What took you so long?; 7/25/12, 8:26 AM
traditionalguy said...: At the Munich Olympics of all places, the official message should not have been complaining about the Olympic Movement's bad pub for slaughtering a few more Jews.

The moment of silence challenge is clearly a ploy to honor ayhletes rather than the Olympics Aristocracy. It shall not be permitted!!! Heil Olympics gods.; 7/25/12, 8:33 AM
cubanbob said...: Reading anything written by Lithwick is cruel and unusual punishment. I'm sure if the TEA Party held a demonstration out side of the democrat convention she would be cool with that, but I rather doubt it.; 7/25/12, 8:36 AM
edutcher said...: Maybe it has something to do with times being so bad and protesters having something more vital to do than be part of the next rent-a-mob.

Or maybe community organizing has been somehow discredited over the last 4 years.; 7/25/12, 8:43 AM
Bryan C said...: She has a point about the overreach surrounding the Olympic symbols, words, etc. The IOC should never have been granted such broad control over other people's intellectual property. There was never any moral or legal justification for that, and it's predictably being used as a precedent to make copyright and trademark laws ever more Orwellian.; 7/25/12, 8:55 AM
Anonymous said...: Law enforcement, running wild.; 7/25/12, 9:10 AM
Bender said...: Creepily enough, the law is being enforced by (wait for it) the Olympic Deliverance Authority

Well, anyone who has been watching the documentary show Twenty-Twelve on BBC America knows the routine snafus that they have run into with branding and legacy and sustainability issues, etc.; 7/25/12, 10:46 AM
Known Unknown said...: Well, anyone who has been watching the documentary show Twenty-Twelve on BBC America knows the routine snafus that they have run into with branding and legacy and sustainability issues, etc.

Sustainability or legacy? I always get those two confused.; 7/25/12, 10:52 AM
Richard Dolan said...: Free speech is mostly an American idea. Yes, the Brits and Canadians pay lip service to it, as do the EU and most of the European countries. But in all of those jurisdictions, the principle is subject to a lot of exceptions -- the basic idea is that speech is free provided it doesn't infringe on good social order, as determined by the powers-that-be. The net result is that legislatures have (pretty much) free reign to impose whatever limitations on acceptable speech they deem best. In most of those jurisdictions, those restrictions are now quite similar to the PC-speech codes popular among university administrators in the US, and are enforced in the same way: favored groups can say what they want, un-PC voices tend to get suppressed, with little regulation of speech in the middle.

In the US, it's quite different, and mostly just an exercise in time-place-manner restrictions. Except for a few, limited areas (slander/libel, pornography, threats/incitement, fraud/perjury), the First Amendment prohibits any attempt to police speech based on the content of what the speaker is saying. Lithwick obviously knows the difference but chooses to lump it all together.

I suppose that is par for the course in legal journalism today.; 7/25/12, 10:54 AM
Joe said...: Had Dahlia looked at the absurd broadcast contracts for college and professional sports? It's the same damn thing. To make lots of money from events like this you have to control them very tightly.; 7/25/12, 11:40 AM
CWJ said...: Richard Dolan nailed it @10:54; 7/25/12, 12:01 PM
john said...: I think the clampdown on free speech by the London OC is just beyond the pale. In protest, I intend to add pairs diving to basketball as "sports" I will boycott. I will put that time to good use watching more women's beach volleyball.

This kind'a shit wouldnt happen in the winter olympics.; 7/25/12, 12:36 PM
Known Unknown said...: Political conventions are nothing more than parties for the delegates of one particular party.

They're not demonstrations of civics.; 7/25/12, 2:25 PM
Alex said...: This is the inevitable result of "speech codes" mentality fostered by liberals for decades.; 7/25/12, 2:30 PM