Free Speech: Poster Children
Samuel Moore, the Club Velvet owner who served a brief stint in jail for having sex with a minor, probably wouldn't be any political movement's first choice for poster child. But the strip-club owner is becoming a minor crusader for free expression.
Moore already has stared down the City of Richmond in a dispute over a sign he erected opposing a baseball stadium proposal for Shockoe Bottom. Monday he drew a small crowd of protesters from the NAACP who object to an anti-Obama sign Moore has put up. The protesters say the large Obama/Joker poster is disrespectful and racist.
Whether the poster is racist -- whether its accusation of "socialism" is accurate -- whether George W. Bush received much the same treatment from his administration's critics -- is by now thoroughly well-plowed ground. No need to dig it up again here.
We will note, however, that the NAACP is doing exactly what defenders of free expression say ought to be done in cases when one party finds another party's point of view outrageous. It is answering speech with more speech. We'll take that any day over campus speech codes, corporate censorship through lawsuits, and First Amendment ghettos masquerading as "designated protest areas."
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We’ll take that any day over campus speech codes, corporate censorship through lawsuits, and First Amendment ghettos masquerading as “designated protest areas.“
It’s a shame that the RTD doesn’t always practice what it preaches. They have a very heavy handed censor for their comments sections who routinely deletes and closes comments when they don’t suit his/her standards which vary from article to article. Especially hard hit are comments negative against Obama and certain other subjects which are deleted but comments favorable to Obama are allowed to remain if the comments are left open for posting. I can see obscene language which the majority is filtered and vile personal attacks but all other speech should be allowed even though the RTD censor personally doesn’t like it. An example were the several articles on the “Banner” put up by Moore. All the comments were deleted and the posting closed. A later article the comments were allowed and are viewable now online.
One thing the RTD should remember is the heavy hand of censorship could fall on them one day. We must never ever give up the right of free speech or allow anyone to take it from us.
“We’ll take that any day over campus speech codes, corporate censorship through lawsuits, and First Amendment ghettos masquerading as ‘designated protest areas.‘“
Or local newspapers pretending that they provide detailed, objective information to their communities.
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