{"id":6389,"date":"2011-11-26T00:04:52","date_gmt":"2011-11-26T08:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/26\/the-republican-approach-to-free-speech\/"},"modified":"2011-11-26T00:04:52","modified_gmt":"2011-11-26T08:04:52","slug":"the-republican-approach-to-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/26\/the-republican-approach-to-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"The Republican Approach to Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the constant memes we hear from the Republican Party is that they are the ones who support and defend our Constitutional rights.  To see how valid this claim is, lets examine am example of how they practice what they peach in real life, in this case, the right to free speech.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"26BrownbackHat\"In a blatant violation of the First Amendment<\/a><\/font>, a public high school in Prairie Village, Kansas disciplined a student for speaking out against Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS):<\/font><\/p>\n

Emma Sullivan, a senior at Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village, was in Topeka on Monday as part of Kansas Youth in Government, a program for students interested in politics and government.<\/font><\/p>\n

During the session, in which Brownback addressed the group, Sullivan posted on her personal Twitter page: \u201cJust made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Sullivan was called to her principal\u2019s office and told that the tweet had been flagged by someone on Brownback\u2019s staff and reported to organizers of the Youth in Government program<\/strong><\/span>. . . .<\/font><\/p>\n

Sullivan said the principal ordered her to write letters of apology to Brownback, the school\u2019s Youth in Government sponsor, the district\u2019s social studies coordinator and others<\/strong><\/span>.<\/font><\/p>\n

It\u2019s troubling that Brownback\u2019s staff is so thin skinned that the felt the need to call down the government\u2019s wrath on a simple high school student who had the audacity to criticize the governor. If nothing else, one would think a state governor\u2019s office has better things to do than troll the internet looking for young dissenting voices they can intimidate.<\/font><\/p>\n

Moreover, there\u2019s no question that the high school principal violated Sullivan\u2019s First Amendment rights\u2026 [emphasis original<\/em><\/span>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Think Progress<\/a>><\/p>\n

Do you remember Joe Wilson (R-SC)?  He the Republican who called out \u201cYOU LIE!\u201d during President Obama\u2019s State of the Union Address on the floor of Congress.  Republicans on the House Ethics Committee blocked a call for Wilson\u2019s censure, claiming that they were protecting his right to free speech.  Such an act far and away outweighs the severity of Sullivan\u2019s Twittering. But Republicans believe in the right to free speech only in so far as it protects what they want to say.  For the rest of us, they think the First Amendment does not apply.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the constant memes we hear from the Republican Party is that they are the ones who support and defend our Constitutional rights.  To see how valid this claim is, lets examine am example of how they practice what they peach in real life, in this case, the right to free speech. In a […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}