freedom of speech

Former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman has been tapped as the next chairman of the National Council of Intelligence (NIC), according to Foreign Policy. And while there is a fair amount of grumbling about his ties to the Saudi royal family (having been paid $1 million to lobby on their behalf) and his views on Israel, this 2006 Freeman mail to a listserv called CWF, uncovered by the Weekly Standard, is pretty stunning:

From: CWFHome@cs.com [mailto:CWFHome@cs.com]
Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 9:29 PM

I will leave it to others to address the main thrust of your reflection on Eric's remarks. But I want to take issue with what I assume, perhaps incorrectly, to be yoiur citation of the conventional wisdom about the 6/4 [or Tiananmen] incident. I find the dominant view in China about this very plausible, i.e. that the truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud, rather than -- as would have been both wise and efficacious -- to intervene with force when all other measures had failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major urban centers in China. In this optic, the Politburo's response to the mob scene at "Tian'anmen" stands as a monument to overly cautious behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash action.

For myself, I side on this -- if not on numerous other issues -- with Gen. Douglas MacArthur. I do not believe it is acceptable for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be. Such folk, whether they represent a veterans' "Bonus Army" or a "student uprising" on behalf of "the goddess of democracy" should expect to be displaced with despatch from the ground they occupy. I cannot conceive of any American government behaving with the ill-conceived restraint that the Zhao Ziyang administration did in China, allowing students to occupy zones that are the equivalent of the Washington National Mall and Times Square, combined. while shutting down much of the Chinese government's normal operations. I thus share the hope of the majority in China that no Chinese government will repeat the mistakes of Zhao Ziyang's dilatory tactics of appeasement in dealing with domestic protesters in China.

I await the brickbats of those who insist on a politically correct -- i.e. non Burkean conservative -- view.

Chas

You got that? The" truly unforgivable mistake" the Chinese authorities made at Tiananmen was not the brutal massacre of peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators, but rather "the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud." The Chinese communists were not "rash," but rather "overly cautious."

Former Vice President Dick Cheney will have to give his account -- under oath, in a legal deposition -- of what happened at a Colorado ski resort in June 2006 when a man stepped up to protest the Iraq war and was arrested, a federal district judge ruled Monday.

The protester, Steven Howards, sued five Secret Service agents in Mr. Cheney's security detail after the encounter at the Beaver Creek resort. Mr. Howards's lawyers have argued that Mr. Cheney's version of events is crucial to getting at the truth.

Mr. Cheney's lawyers had responded -- successfully until Monday's ruling by Judge Christine M. Arguello in Denver -- that a deposition was unnecessary. A federal magistrate agreed with Mr. Cheney last April; Judge Arguello's ruling reversed that decision.

Mr. Howards has admitted to approaching Mr. Cheney and saying the administration's policies in Iraq were disgusting, or words to that effect. He walked away unhindered by Secret Service agents, but he was arrested by them about 10 minutes later for what they said was the "assault" on the vice president.

Mr. Howards was detained by the Secret Service and local law enforcement officials, then released. Misdemeanor harassment charges were filed, then dropped by the local district attorney. Several of the agents, in their depositions, have accused one another of unethical and perhaps even illegal conduct in handling the matter.

It's a sad day when you can't tell the vice president to his face what you really think of his administration.

Los Angeles, CA (1-12-09) - In a shocking new tactic attempting to ban peaceful protesters from picketing the Scientology compound known as "Gold Base" near Hemet, CA, Scientology lawyers have obtained medical information regarding two protesters, and are using their HIV positive status in an attempt to prevent them from picketing at the location.

Worldwide pickets against Scientology have surged in the last year, and Scientology has been fighting to stop them, especially near the Hemet compound. Scientology has used tactics ranging from physical attacks, false reports to police, and the emission of an estimated 110db organ note from loudspeakers in an attempt to drown out the protesters' chants.

The latest tactics, however, are downright sickening, illegal, and an insult to members of the LGBT community and HIV patients worldwide.

Attorney Graham Berry and activists "Angry Gay Pope" (AGP) and "Happy Smurf" (a former Scientologist) are openly homosexual. Scientology, which policy states that homosexuals are "low on the tone scale" and should be "disposed of quietly and without sorrow", has obtained AGP and Happy Smurf's private records and discovered that they are HIV positive.

Proponents of a ballot measure that banned same sex marriage filed a lawsuit in federal court this week seeking to overturn state campaign finance laws that require that names and personal information of donors to state political campaigns be made public.

...

"This harassment is made possible because of California's unconstitutional campaign finance disclosure rules as applied to ballot measure committees where even donors of as little as $100 must have their names, home addresses and employers listed on public documents," Ron Prentice, head of the Protect Marriage Coalition, said in a statement.

Since 1974, state law has required that donors who give more than $100 must have their names disclosed.

You can have your freedom of speech, but there's nothing that says you get to remain anonymous.

An atheist group is turning to the Bible, just this once.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation last week placed a sign protesting the display of religious symbols in the Illinois Capitol, but the sign was stolen from the Capitol rotunda overnight Monday.

A spokeswoman for the foundation said Tuesday it will be replaced -- and it will be joined by another sign that takes its message from the Bible: Thou Shall Not Steal.

So, what to do. I have an idea. Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There's no way I can personally get them -- my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I'm sure -- but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I'll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won't be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart. If you can smuggle some out from under the armed guards and grim nuns hovering over your local communion ceremony, just write to me and I'll send you my home address.

Since the original post, William Donohue and the Catholic League are up and arms and they want the university or the state to do something. Myers is looking to rally the troops and getting more comments than he can handle (sounds like they could use Drupal). Meanwhile, there is concern that Myers might be violent and that more security is needed for this year's Republican National Convention. Fellow SBling GrrlScientist is quick to point out Americans mocked Muslims for issuing death threats over the cartoons in Danish newspapers. Another SBling, Mike Dunford, gives us the backstory that many people lost in Myer's original post due to its inflammatory nature:

To be fair to Paul, it's not like he pulled that idea out of the blue. A college student in Florida smuggled a consecrated host out of a Catholic Mass at the school. When this became widely known, a large number of Catholics became extremely outraged, and the student received a number of death threats. The college responded by supplying armed university police officers to stand guard - not over the student who received the death threats, but at Mass, to protect the eucharist from future kidnapping. The university police will apparently be receiving additional backup from a nun that the diocese is sending to help protect the Eucharist. (No, I'm not making any of that up.)

It's easy to understand why Paul - and, for that matter, any number of rational people - were outraged by that story. The kid removed something from the church that is, as far as anyone can tell from any measurements of any physical properties, a thin wafer made out of wheat. It's about the size of a quarter, costs a lot less, and has both the texture and flavor of glue. It is absolutely, completely, and utterly insane that there are people who are willing to threaten the life of another human being who failed to display proper reverence for an object that is, by all objective standards, nothing more than a Necco Wafer that's been subjected to a flavorectomy.

Regardless of what we believe about the Eucharist, we should all be able to get behind the idea that it's absolutely wrong to threaten to kill someone who treats it disrespectfully.

Richard Dawkins has weighed in in support of Myers now.

On Wednesday, Iranian members of parliament voted to discuss a draft bill that seeks to "toughen punishment for disturbing mental security in society." The text of the bill would add, "establishing websites and weblogs promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy," to the list of crimes punishable by death.

In recent years, some Iranian bloggers have been sent to jail and many have had their sites filtered. If the Iranian parliament approves this draft bill, bloggers fear they could be legally executed as criminals. No one has defined what it means to "disturb mental security in society".

According to tweets from Marc van der Chijs, CEO of Spill Group Asia and Cofounder of Todou.com, China has issued orders that all entertainment web sites and regular television programming be shut down completely for the next 3 days. Only web sites covering the recent tragic 7.8 magnitude earthquake and television stations broadcasting CCTV earthquake programming will be allowed to remain live.

A U.S. government-funded medical information site that bills itself as the world's largest database on reproductive health has quietly begun to block searches on the word "abortion," concealing nearly 25,000 search results.

Called Popline, the search site is run by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Maryland. It's funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, the federal office in charge of providing foreign aid, including health care funding, to developing nations.

The massive database indexes a broad range of reproductive health literature, including titles like "Previous abortion and the risk of low birth weight and preterm births," and "Abortion in the United States: Incidence and access to services, 2005."

But on Thursday, a search on "abortion" was producing only the message "No records found by latest query."

A growing underground network of young people armed with computer memory sticks, digital cameras and clandestine Internet hookups has been mounting some challenges to the Cuban government in recent months, spreading news that the official state media try to suppress.

Last month, students at a prestigious computer science university videotaped an ugly confrontation they had with Ricardo Alarcón, the president of the National Assembly.

Mr. Alarcón seemed flummoxed when students grilled him on why they could not travel abroad, stay at hotels, earn better wages or use search engines like Google. The video spread like wildfire through Havana, passed from person to person, and seriously damaged Mr. Alarcón's reputation in some circles.

Something similar happened in late January when officials tried to impose a tax on the tips and wages of employees of foreign companies. Workers erupted in jeers and shouts when told about the new tax, a moment caught on a cellphone camera and passed along by memory sticks.