Belarus police beating protesters
Rusty Shackleford thinks its outrageous that Belarus persecutes an editor for publishing the Mohammed cartoons.
Why is it outrageous for other countries to have less freedom of speech than Americans do? We are the world’s exception, not the rule. That’s the American Exceptionalism: we are the freest, and possibly the only truly free society on earth. That’s why more people come here than any other country, dwarfing the immigration to Canada or other so-called “liberal” societies.
On Friday the trial against Belarussian editor Aleksandr Sdvizhkov opened in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Sdvizhkov, former deputy editor of the now closed independent weekly Zgoda, is charged with ”incitement to religious hatred” after having published the Danish Mohammed cartoons back in February 2006. If convicted Sdvizhkov can be sentenced from three to ten years in prison.
Outrageous.
I don’t think its outrageous, nor is it even shocking. That’s Belarus law. Listen, the guy knew what he was in for. Americans seem to be shocked when every other country in the world doesn’t have the liberal free-speech laws we have. The guy surely knew what he was in for.
Yeah, its a shame every country in the world doesn’t have the rights Americans enjoy, but its hardly “shocking”. This is why all the bashers of the US are full of shit. Even in Canada you don’t have freedom of speech, as evidenced by the recent videos posted showing the bureacratic lynching of editors who posted the same cartoons. You sure don’t have freedom of speech in Britain either.
“Progressives” in the US would take away our rights to post them with their so-called “hate speech” laws. Thankfully, so far they have been thwarted.
The United States is the free-est society in the world, period. It has the only true free speech rights embedded in its bedrock document, the constitution. The guy from Canada is having to rely on UN declarations and other crap like that.
Remember that the next time some code pink wacko is whinging about the ‘chilling effect’ the Bush Admin has on free speech. Its bullshit. Americans are the ONLY citizens who truly enjoy free speech.
I’m disappointed that this is so, but I’m not shocked, and no one who follows world events should be either.