# Palin: To Criticize Me Is To Deny My Free Speech Rights **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 31, 2008, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473 "2008-10-31T18:07:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/61 "2008-10-31T20:56:34Z")
> [@askeptic](#): > > Because it makes baby jesus cry? > > I guess I just don’t get Giles’ point when quoting me. Well, I was agreeing with you: I recognised your sarcasm, and responded in a similar vein. Quoting someone does not mean you are disagreeing with them. (Even in this case, when we were rhetorically both saying something that – at a literal level – we were clearly disagreeing with, to make an opposite point). And now my brain hurts, and I’ll have to sooth it with a glass of wine or two. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/62 "2008-10-31T21:00:25Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > Well, I was agreeing with you: I recognised your sarcasm, and responded in a similar vein. Quoting someone does not mean you are disagreeing with them. (Even in this case, when we were rhetorically both saying something that – at a literal level – we were clearly disagreeing with, to make an opposite point). > > And now my brain hurts, and I’ll have to sooth it with a glass of wine or two. oh. My bad. Now I feel silly… ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/63 "2008-10-31T21:03:37Z")
This has got to be the stupidest person to ever run for high office. If she really thinks she’ll have a shot at the Repub nom in 2012, she’s delusional. She’ll be laughed off that stage, utterly destroyed by her competition within her own party. Once they turn on her, too, instead of their fake support this time because they want to win at all costs, it’ll be all over for her. I simply cannot wait until she slinks back into obscurity. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/64 "2008-10-31T21:07:49Z")
> [@askeptic](#): > > oh. My bad. Now I feel silly… Don’t worry: it’s Friday, and Tuesday’s just around the corner; and at the end of Tuesday the nightmare will be all over, with the candidate who’s actually taught constitutional law, and presumably understands a little about the Bill of Rights, having a comfortable majority, and Sarah Palin back to Mooseville. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/65 "2008-10-31T21:11:09Z")
The stupid… it burns, it burrrrrrnnnnssss usssss… ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/66 "2008-10-31T21:11:54Z")
> [@Shayna](#): > > This has got to be the stupidest person to ever run for high office. If she really thinks she’ll have a shot at the Repub nom in 2012, she’s delusional. She’ll be laughed off that stage, utterly destroyed by her competition within her own party. Once they turn on her, too, instead of their fake support this time because they want to win at all costs, it’ll be all over for her. I simply cannot wait until she slinks back into obscurity. Don’t be too sure about that; you never know what the Pubbies might do. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/67 "2008-10-31T21:13:31Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > So her story is that she wasn’t trying to portray Obama’s associations as negatives, but merely pointing out odd little bits of trivia from Obama’s past, and that she didn’t think that information would sway any votes in her direction? By Palin’s bizarro-universe “logic,” her criticisms of Obama’s personal associations are a violation of Obama’s right to freedom of assembly. ---
**Author:** ![11811](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/9d8465/32.png) [@11811](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/11811)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/68 "2008-10-31T21:16:54Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > Sarah Palin is not the first person to think that her First Amendment rights are being trampled on when others criticise what she’s saying. But, in her position, she really outh to know better. Well, her position is one of abject stupidity. So somebody should know better, but don’t count on that somebody being Sarah Palin. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/69 "2008-10-31T21:18:48Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > I see where this is heading: we all need our own private message board, where we can say what we like, and never have to suffer from any criticism, because anyone disagreeing with us infringes on our rights. So let’s just close down the SDMB, for being too confusing with its variety of opinions, and let’s all sit in our own corners. And let Sarah Palin go back to Wasilla, where she can talk to the moose, which (being very smart animals) will never dare criticise her. Debate is far too confusing, and cannot be what th founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment. They have something like that. It’s called myspace, but Palin can’t have one because she couldn’t even handle a yahoo account. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/70 "2008-10-31T21:29:53Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > The difference here is that she really is the government in this case. She wishes. Seriously, though, free speech relies upon the willingness of the press to call the government on its bullshit–indeed, that’s the very _idea_ of free speech as a building block of democracy, something that has been sorely missing over the last eight years. > [@Derleth](#): > > If the government were to attempt to give itself regulatory powers over more of the media, you can be sure I’d do anything in my power to stop that. You would be opposed to the reinstatement of regulations on monopoly media control? ISTM that the current state, in which Clear Channel ideologically and financially controls just about everything you hear on the radio, is not at all beneficial to the marketplace of ideas. This seems to be one of those instances where _limited_ government interference (which, remember, was the status quo before the Bush FCC) can actually make us more free. > [@Giles](#): > > But I think Sarah Palin wants a privileged place in that marketplace, to be heard without being criticised, and the First Amendment does not give such a privileged place to any one, and certainly not to state governors or to candidates for Vice President of the U.S. That’s one of many problems with the current religious right: they wave the banner of “freedom” (of speech, religion, etc.) to argue for their own privileged place in society and the denial of same to others. Hence the absurd argument that legal same-sex marriage infringes on the fundies’ right to freedom of religion. They want their religion to be the only one we can practice freely. When a religion like Buddhism supports SSM, suddenly freedom isn’t such a great idea anymore. > [@Kimstu](#): > > What Palin is whining and bleating about seems to be not that the media are preventing her from saying whatever she wants to—hell, they not only let her say whatever she wants, they broadcast whatever she says. Rather, it’s that the media have the temerity to criticize her remarks, and to express unfavorable opinions about them that might damage her in the eyes of the voters! “OMG they called me out on my negative campaigning! How dare they!” She seems to believe that Constitutional rights are fluid concepts whose main purpose are to protect the government from scrutiny. I ask you, Reaganites: Is this not the expansion of government’s power over the people? I ask you, McCain/Palin voters: Is this not an inherently dangerous concept to bring into the Office of the Vice President? > [@Sophistry and Illusion](#): > > I don’t know why every political thread has to include a dig at Bricker for allegedly being a shill for the Republicans. He is a very fair and honest poster, and (gasp!) has been known to change his mind in the face of evidence contrary to his viewpoint. Frankly, I’m getting pretty fucking sick of my fellow liberal posters making jackasses of themselves falling all over each other to see who can be the biggest dick to the conservatives on this board. I admire **Bricker** ’s fairness in this and some other threads, but he brought it upon himself by pulling our collective chain with the whole bitterly ironic “I might vote for Obama, no wait, I won’t, because he doesn’t do enough to silence his fans who say mean things about Republicans sometimes” thing. As far as I’m concerned, **Bricker** is fair game. Remember, some people have been _banned_ for pulling our collective chain (cf **SqrlCub** ). ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/71 "2008-10-31T21:58:10Z")
> [@Hostile\_Dialect](#): > > I admire **Bricker** ’s fairness in this and some other threads, but he brought it upon himself by pulling our collective chain with the whole bitterly ironic “I might vote for Obama, no wait, I won’t, because he doesn’t do enough to silence his fans who say mean things about Republicans sometimes” thing. As far as I’m concerned, **Bricker** is fair game. Remember, some people have been _banned_ for pulling our collective chain (cf **SqrlCub** ). Okay, but [as \*\*Contrapuntal \*\*pointed out](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10385637&postcount=48), \*\*Bricker \*\*was called out in the OP for something he hadn’t said, but might say. And interestingly, when \*\*Bricker \*\*posted, he posted the exact opposite of what he was accused of planning on posting. He \*agreed \*with the premise of the OP. Who, precisely, is the partisan hack in this picture? I mean, if the libs on the board want to drive the conservative posters away and turn this place into a complete echo chamber, there’s nothing I can do to stop them. But the place will be much the poorer for their absence. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/72 "2008-10-31T22:02:59Z")
I for one still respect **Bricker** ’s ability to communicate his understanding of the law, even if I don’t happen to like the law in question. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/73 "2008-10-31T22:19:39Z")
> [@Sophistry and Illusion](#): > > Okay, but as Contrapuntal pointed out, Bricker was called out in the OP for something he hadn’t said, but might say. And as I pointed out, he deserves every bit of it and then some. > [@Sophistry and Illusion](#): > > And interestingly, when Bricker posted, he posted the exact opposite of what he was accused of planning on posting. He agreed with the premise of the OP. Who, precisely, is the partisan hack in this picture? The OP. That does not change the fact that **Bricker** deserves to be dragged in the mud in every political thread until the SDMB collapses or he leaves, whichever comes first. > [@Sophistry and Illusion](#): > > I mean, if the libs on the board want to drive the conservative posters away and turn this place into a complete echo chamber, there’s nothing I can do to stop them. But the place will be much the poorer for their absence. Oh, come off it with your paranoid bullshit. Taking a potshot at **Bricker** is not going to make every conservative poster on this Board up and leave. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/74 "2008-10-31T23:35:03Z")
> [@Hostile\_Dialect](#): > > The OP. That does not change the fact that **Bricker** deserves to be dragged in the mud in every political thread until the SDMB collapses or he leaves, whichever comes first. _Why?_ You’ll have nobody to argue with. If you want to take shots at him (or anyone else), take shots at stuff he’s said, not stuff he might say. Otherwise, you’re being much more of a dick than you perceive him to be. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/75 "2008-10-31T23:44:08Z")
> [@Really Not All That Bright](#): > > Why? You’ll have nobody to argue with. That’s one of the most absurd non sequiturs I’ve seen in a long time. You’re going to have to do a lot more than just make shit up if you want to convince me that I’m going to have the consensus opinion on this board any time soon, and especially if you want me to connect that absurd notion to criticism of **Bricker**. > [@Really Not All That Bright](#): > > Otherwise, you’re being much more of a dick than you perceive him to be. For one thing, I’m about 98% sure I have never taken a shot at **Bricker** solely for being a Republican shill. What I _did_ do was to argue that **Bricker** deserves the mild potshot he got in the OP, and then some, for pulling our collective chain, which in the past has been a bannable offense for less respected posters. ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/76 "2008-10-31T23:51:11Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > By Palin’s bizarro-universe “logic,” her criticisms of Obama’s personal associations are a violation of Obama’s right to freedom of assembly. Glad to see somebody else brought up this point: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10384982&postcount=4](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10384982&postcount=4) > [@Hostile\_Dialect](#): > > I admire **Bricker** ’s fairness in this and some other threads, but he brought it upon himself by pulling our collective chain with the whole bitterly ironic “I might vote for Obama, no wait, I won’t, because he doesn’t do enough to silence his fans who say mean things about Republicans sometimes” thing. As far as I’m concerned, **Bricker** is fair game. Remember, some people have been _banned_ for pulling our collective chain (cf **SqrlCub** ). Don’t forget the ACORN cul-de-sac. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2008, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/77 "2008-10-31T23:57:09Z")
> [@Hostile\_Dialect](#): > > You would be opposed to the reinstatement of regulations on monopoly media control? First, this is running far afield of the original context. AFAIK, nothing we’ve been discussing thus far touched on monopolies or monopolistic practices at all. But hell, I’m game: Clear Channel should be subject to all of the normal monopoly rules, just like Standard Oil and Microsoft and so on, but enforcing special rules against it would be counterproductive. Instead of one Clear Channel we’d have a half-dozen Near Channels with identical content and identical strangleholds on their respective domains. CC does what it does because that’s what sells. Changing the rules will not make people virtuous. Treating CC like Ma Bell is the wrong way to do it. I want the FCC to give the go-ahead for a lot more micropower FM and AM, and restrict who can own _those_ stations so they aren’t all just rebroadcasting the same satellite feed. CC can have the big national market it wants as long as local options are open to every locality that wants its own radio stations. (Don’t worry too much about how people will be able to broadcast. The hobbyists already have [GNU Radio](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Radio) and only need a way to use it without getting jailed.) > [@](#): > > ISTM that the current state, in which Clear Channel ideologically and financially controls just about everything you hear on the radio, is not at all beneficial to the marketplace of ideas. The marketplace of ideas isn’t on the radio in this country and it isn’t going to be on the radio again. Anyone who wants to participate in the marketplace of ideas can walk down to their local library and get on the Internet, where the FCC has absolutely no power. > [@](#): > > This seems to be one of those instances where _limited_ government interference (which, remember, was the status quo before the Bush FCC) can actually make us more free. It would be less limited with more micropower stations, at least in regions that value radio in the first place. The regions that don’t aren’t going to start because some bureaucrats changed a few rules. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2008, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/78 "2008-11-01T00:26:32Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Well, if you concede to the government the power to regulate based on political content – ostensibly ensuring “equal time” for viewpoints – then you breathe life into Palin’s argument, at least insofar as it applies to broadcast media. She argues that by taking a position that her claims are “negative campaigning” and attacking them as such, the broadcast media is going down a slippery slope, since they are in effect endorsing this view to her detriment. > > Now, this is horseshit, to use a technical rhetorical term. But if you argue now that the government CAN require the media to manage or parcel out how much attention it pays to each side, then it seems to me you’re conceding the gravamen of her argument: that the media can be held to particular positions at particular times by action of the government. How much attention or some? The fairness doctrine required that opposing viewpoints be given some time and air, not equal. As a practical matter it made journalists in broadcast TV try to do it in the story. The quality of TV journalism has declined precipitously since the end of the fairness doctrine. It might be a major cause. (Then again, it might have nothing to do with it.) If people wanted unfettered speech, they could always and still by a press, or put up a blog, which is unregulated except by obscenity laws including laws against child pornography. Those are interferences with property that I think the republic can endure with. > [@Bricker](#): > > Undoubtedly **Mr. Moto** can defend himself, but let me pose the following question to you: > > Let’s say you own a shopping mall. Students from a local high school, supporting the war in Iraq, use the center atrium of your mall to ask mall patrons to sign petitions to Congress to not make soldier’s deaths meaningless by withdrawing from Iraq before we win. Incensed at the students’ view, you order them to leave, and, when they refuse, seek to have them evicted as trespassers. > > Do you see any First Amendment issues wafting around that scenario? The Pruneyard doctrine has been mentioned. It works just fine in California, and despite criticism from the lesser states, Pruneyard is firmly ensconced in California law and even the Conservatives here now back it, knowing that the shoe is now on the other foot and has been in California for at least 10 years. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2008, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/79 "2008-11-01T00:42:42Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Undoubtedly **Mr. Moto** can defend himself, but let me pose the following question to you: > > Let’s say you own a shopping mall. Students from a local high school, supporting the war in Iraq, use the center atrium of your mall to ask mall patrons to sign petitions to Congress to not make soldier’s deaths meaningless by withdrawing from Iraq before we win. Incensed at the students’ view, you order them to leave, and, when they refuse, seek to have them evicted as trespassers. > > Do you see any First Amendment issues wafting around that scenario? I’ll bite. I had no idea what ‘Pruneyard’ was, but …no. If I only _seek_ to have them evicted, then there is no FA issue. It’s only if I _succeed_ in having them evicted that a FA argument could made. Or am I missing something? [sub]don’t hurt me 😕[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2008, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473/80 "2008-11-01T00:44:05Z")
Oh, come on, people! Give her a break! It’s not like she majored in Journalism or something, right? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/palin-to-criticize-me-is-to-deny-my-free-speech-rights/470473.md?page=5)