#TBT - Free Speech For Me And Not For Thee

By Jeff Simpson

I am not sure if our friends on the right have a really bad memory, think we are stupid or just have a need to perpetually play the victim.

Let's dig a little deeper into their perpetual whining about the John Doe Investigation and free speech rights.  

I pointed out yesterday about how the Right Wing Speech police targeted me when I was part of the Purple Wisconsin forum.   They never tried to argue policy philosophy or facts, they just had a coordinated email campaign to get me removed after every one of my posts.

As Collin Roth wrote on Right Wisconsin pay website:

 3.) Cutting Off Debate - The political left is constantly looking for ways to cut off debate. It starts in the political and cultural realm where issues are determined to be “settled.” Once a consensus is reached, voices try to discredit and delegitimize those holding different viewpoints and dissenters are dealt with like pariahs or worse - criminals.

Lets go back to the early 2000's after the horribel acts of 9/11 when a controversial Professor from the University of Colorado Boulder named Ward Churchill was out and about telling people that he felt the attacks of 9/11 were a consequence of US foreign policy.  

Well we know that at that time, Fox News made it perfectly clear that if you aren't with us(or a Saudi) you were against us.   

Mr. Churchill received an invitation to speak at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and that made Steve nASS, at the time, chair of the Assembly's Colleges and Universities Committee, head explode:

 In 2005, Nass wanted the Board of Regents to order UW-Whitewater to rescind a speaking invitation to Ward Churchill, a Colorado professor who had compared the World Trade Center victims to Nazi Adolf Eichmann. And last year, Nass pressured UW-Madison to fire Kevin Barrett, an instructor on Islam who believes the U.S. government orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. Nass even went on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show to vent his outrage over Barrett.When the university refused to purge Barrett, Nass responded by threatening to cut its budget. And this year, he came up with a slew of targeted budget cuts. These include eliminating funding for the Havens Center - which sponsored a talk by Barrett - and the UW's School for Workers, which educates union activists. (The Assembly version of the budget would also cut all state support to the UW Law School, end the Wisconsin GI bill that pays the tuition of state veterans and mostly eliminate state spending on Wisconsin Public Radio and Public Television, affiliated with the UW-Extension.)

As a matter of fact nASS, even had his staffer threaten legislation to set up a Republican written "code of conduct" for faculty:. 

Mikalsen, who has worked in the Legislature for 16 years, including 12 with Nass, behaves like Nass' critics might expect him to. He sputters and growls and waves his arms. His tone ranges from mild disgust to infinite disdain as he describes the UW's various transgressions.
He also makes more inflammatory comments than his boss. Explaining Nass' 2005 push to make faculty follow codes of conduct, including not making "anti-American" statements, Mikalsen says, "Part of the issue is we have foreign-born professors. Those professors say things."

Free speech is important as long as the words you are saying are approved ahead of time by the Big Government Republicans.  

But wait - There is more!   

The two Republican stooges mentioned above never stop.   During the Act10 protests, the UW School of Workers wanted to have an art show based on the works of local editorail cartoonist Mike Konopacki.   Konopacki, as one would expect, was not very kind , via his medium, to the Republicans in WI.     

This did not sit well with nASSalsen and he threatened to pull funding from UW Madison if they went ahead with this exhibit.   The UW School of workers did go ahead with it but had to find a different venue.  (edit note -full run down here). 

One ironic side note, Konopacki, being an editorialist and satirist, issued a press release that made it look like it came from Steve nASS himself.   

In true sharia law fashion, nASSalsen immediately tried to get Konopacki arrested and sent to jail for teasing them.  

Seriously.   

While we do have some problems in America today with the lack of anyone wanting to hear the "other side", lets not pretend that our Republican friends are the victims and realize they started the whole process and it has gotten so it affects them and they do not know how to handle it.