RE: [Leica] BD's Point and Free Speech

["B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>]

Marc, the role of the press it not to "protest," but to report. And
report on every meaningless twist and turn of every Clinton scandal the
press did - including the 'missing' law-firm records. ;-)

No President I can think of - including Richard Nixon - was ever as
hounded by the media as Bill Clinton.

- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of Marc James
Small
Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 10:55 PM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: [Leica] BD's Point and Free Speech


At 04:09 PM 11/12/03 -0500, B. D. Colen wrote:
>I have no idea what the specific conditions are in those other 
>countries. But even given my total ignorance, I'll put the best of the 
>U.S. media - and the freedom of the press in this country, up against 
>that in, oh, say Latvia, any day of the week.

Well, BD, I find that the Bush 43 Administration is a bit more open than
was the Clinton Administration -- it took Hillary, what, four years to
find her law firm billing records and no one in the Press protested?
But, save for that minor cavil, I agree with all that you say.

I believe it was Voltaire who sated that "I might not agree with what
you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it", and so I
feel.  I believe in absolute freedom of the Press:  I like having an
insolent prig such as Rush Limbaugh and a reasonable and calm fellow
such as Neal Boortz and a Christer such as Hannaday (all US talk-radio
jocks, incidentally) available on a local station through the day.  I
appreciate the fact that my local paper could teach lessons to PRAVDA
and the NEW CHINA TIMES on how to spin things for the drooling morons of
the Left -- but I WANT them to keep it up, as they only make themselves
increasingly marginalized as time goes by.  (They endorsed 27 candidates
in recent elections, and three won, including one whom I had opposed,
for a success rate of 11%.  This is as low as they've gotten so far but,
then, they've been falling since 1943, when they did hit 47%.)  And I
appreciate that, for most of the day, I tune in to National Public
Radio, with its far left-wing news slant coupled with lots of really
grand classical music and a fair amount of jazz, some of it even being
decent.

Free speech DOES mean what it says, and we have it here.  Arnold
Schwarzenegger can use Jay Leno and Jay Leno can use The Gubernator,
each for their own ends.  Leno made an ass of John Kerry last evening
with some dog-puppet (well, I would see it as John Kerry making an ass
of himself for being on the show in the first place, but, then, I do
have my biases against Leno.)  BD can write a letter to the editor of
the Roanoke TIMES decrying the presence in this community of one Marc
James Small, whom he probably would accuse of being a "crypto-Fascist"
- -- I have a retort to that, though William F Buckley used it first.
Heck, I can write a letter to the President of whatever school it is
that gives BD a forum and tell him what a jerk BD is, with attachments.
None of this matters:  I have my friends and BD has his and we both have
our opinions and thank God the US is big enough to include the both of
us.

The US is an INCLUSIVE polity.  We have room for those who believe in
monarchy, such as Norton I, and those who believe that we should all
become members of the Communist Party, and those who are skinhead
Fascists, and bikers and drag queens and cocktail waitresses and those
who build bridges.  This is a humongeous country with a humongeous
appetite to absorb differing views.  Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg and
that last of the strolling troubadors, Vachel Lindsay, could describe
its scope.  I cannot. But it is broad and deep and it is a call for
liberty of expression and belief, and thank God for it.  Should Free
Speech ever depart from these shores, BD and I will be among the first
who are swept into the camps, as we are too outspoken to hold our
tongues, though our words are worlds apart.

Thanks, BD, for defining this issue so clearly.

Marc

msmall@infionline.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
Cha robh bąs fir gun ghrąs fir!


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