Free Speech
I don't know what's going on with a lot of people, but there seems to be some confusion as to what "freedom of speech" means.
I don't remember the situation, but there was some Obama rally or something, and some "anyone but Obama" Clinton supporters started yelling about something and she was overwhelmingly booed and shouted down. Later someone commented "so much for the party of free speech," as if this was somehow a violation of her rights. Seriously, it would be one thing if she was put in prison, but she was at a private event - it would be like bringing a boom box to a theater production and deciding to listen to Metallica during Shakespeare: the people are there to listen to Shakespeare, not Metallica, and they would be well within their rights to expect a security guard to throw you out.
More recently, I heard that the disgusting energy drink (and I'm pretty sure that's redundant) Rockstar is owned and operated by the wife and son of right-wing AM talk-radio host Michael Savage. This information understandably prompted a boycott of Rockstar because of Savage's numerous inflammatory comments, like that everyone who's gay should get AIDS and die or that women who feed the homeless should just get raped or that 100 million Muslims should die. Some have responded to this, again, by complaining that liberals don't respect freedom of speech. The irony, of course, is that a boycott is protected by the first amendment as "political activity."
Not that any of this is important or noteworthy... it just strikes me that the more a person supports conservative activists, the less likely it is that they've actually read the constitution.
I don't remember the situation, but there was some Obama rally or something, and some "anyone but Obama" Clinton supporters started yelling about something and she was overwhelmingly booed and shouted down. Later someone commented "so much for the party of free speech," as if this was somehow a violation of her rights. Seriously, it would be one thing if she was put in prison, but she was at a private event - it would be like bringing a boom box to a theater production and deciding to listen to Metallica during Shakespeare: the people are there to listen to Shakespeare, not Metallica, and they would be well within their rights to expect a security guard to throw you out.
More recently, I heard that the disgusting energy drink (and I'm pretty sure that's redundant) Rockstar is owned and operated by the wife and son of right-wing AM talk-radio host Michael Savage. This information understandably prompted a boycott of Rockstar because of Savage's numerous inflammatory comments, like that everyone who's gay should get AIDS and die or that women who feed the homeless should just get raped or that 100 million Muslims should die. Some have responded to this, again, by complaining that liberals don't respect freedom of speech. The irony, of course, is that a boycott is protected by the first amendment as "political activity."
Not that any of this is important or noteworthy... it just strikes me that the more a person supports conservative activists, the less likely it is that they've actually read the constitution.