An Associated Press article on fresnobee.com reports that thousands of people jammed two blocks of 47th Street across from the United Nations to protest Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to New York. The speakers, most of them politicians and officials from Jewish organizations, proclaimed their support for Israel and criticized the Iranian leader for his remarks questioning the Holocaust.
"We're here today to send a message that there is never a reason to give a hatemonger an open stage," New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said.
Yes, there is. It's a component of the First Amendment of our Constitution, and it even applies to speech we disagree with.
(Photo by Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images: People protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad outside Columbia University in New York where he was invited to speak. Ahmadinejad is in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly.)
Since Iran, (or is it their military?) has been given the the statis of "terrorist," I must be careful not to appear sympathetic in any way,(detention is a bitch)...but I will say, why is it so hard to find a good Farsi translator? it was agonizing...
Hopefully his less than stellar appearance at Columbia will affirm his "madman" status. His comments were at times incoherent.
But please do not claim that Ivy Leagues like Columbia support free speech where many have banned the ROTC and boo and cat call any conservative speaker off the stage. This also extends to our own UC Davis that disinvited Larry Summers after some feminist professors complained.
Conservative columnist Cal Thomas (http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/wo/story/147547.html)addresses that very issue on today's Opinion page. And last week, we published an editorial (http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/story/142463.html) chastising the UC system for impeding the free flow of ideas, by uninviting Lawrence Summers from speaking and by reacting to concerns that Erwin Chemerinsky was too liberal to be appointed dean of U.C. Irvine's law school.
Informed people make decisions by hearing all sides of an argument, not just the side they agree with.
The NYC council speaker may suffer from that hard-wireing malaise that makes it difficult for the afflicted to apply critical thinking, or entertain ideas outside of the narrow scope of their "beliefs"...the other day OUR president said that Israel would make a fine model for Iraq's future, leaders say stupid things, fear not the content, but rather the lack of discourse.
Now that we have extended freedom of speech to known terrorists, wouldn’t it be nice if we also offered that same right to moderates and conservatives (to speak at universities)? Is that too much to ask from the libs?
Some conservatives are already getting invited to speak at universities, T.C. You can't get much more conservative than Ahmadinejad. He's probably even to the right of you.
touche mike d...and didn't the president of columbia u. represent conservative views in his "introduction"? gosh, t.c, next, you'll be demanding your own news network ....