In his effort to capitalize on this weekend’s New York bombings, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump blamed freedom of speech in general and freedom of the press in particular for the attacks, insisting that he is “totally in favor of freedom of the press” but wants to dramatically curb the ability to print certain things.
Trump claimed “where you buy magazines and they tell you how to make these same bombs” should be illegal, and that the US “should arrest the people that do that.” He didn’t mention the magazine’s name, but speculation is he was referring to al-Qaeda’s online magazine, Inspire, which is not available for sale anywhere.
Trump went on to insist that “websites are the same thing, those people should be arrested,” saying that the US has been using freedom of speech as an excuse not to arrest people for such unacceptable speech. This is not the first time Trump has come out critical of press freedom.
Trump campaigned early on to open up libel laws to allow the press to be more easily sued, and just last month complained that the New York Times made up a story about him to benefit Hillary Clinton, insisting that “it is not freedom of the press when newspapers and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want.”
While Trump’s anti-press comments got the most attention, he also called for the US to dramatically shift policing to allow police to racially profile, citing Israel’s police system as doing “an unbelievable job, as good as you can do” and wanting to copy them, particularly in the anti-Muslim stuff.
He finally complained that bomber Ahmad Khan Rahami would be getting “amazing” medical care in the US with “a fully modern and updated hospital room,” comments which appear to undercut his longstanding complaints that Obamacare is dramatically worsening health care quality in the US.
There is no freedom of the press in America today.They are all zioliars,with absolutely no thought for freedom for Americans.
Our freedom is just at their pleasure,and never has America been in a deeper hole,because of this terrible lock on propaganda that the zionists own.
The Hell Bitch,a creator of all this terror,is allowed to pose as a terror fighter by the liars.She is their puppet,and an enemy of America.
Everyone in DC is an enemy of America. If by America you mean “Main Street”, the “flyover people”, the “deplorables”.
“Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason.”
John Harington
A revolutionary fever grips the US. Something’s gonna pop.
“This is the impostume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies.”
Hamlet Act 4 Scene 2
“Impostume” is an archaic word for “abscess,” “a localized collection of pus surrounded by inflamed tissue.”
If all the infection was deep under the skin, it wouldn’t show, until suddenly it bursts and the victim dies from blood poisoning.
“it is not freedom of the press when newspapers and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want.”
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Who exactly gets to decide what is a true story and what is a false story?
Life is filled with hard calls. As commented above, clearly the common sense is that freedom of speech does not give someone a right to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater. That precedent being established, we’re stuck with having to make hard calls. The best we can do is agree to approach them in good faith.
Should we also suppose that laws against yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater are an assault on free speech?
We don’t need antiwar.com to run inflammatory headlines that exaggerate and distort what someone actually says. We get plenty of that that for free with mainstream news. When the press exaggerates everybody suffers.
He obviously didn’t say he’s against freedom of the press in a general sense. That’s your spin, your editorial interpretation. An accurate headline would say, “Trump says we should ban certain kinds of terrorist literature, but WE think that this violates the 1st amendment.” And then supply your reasoning. Then maybe we could have a constructive dialog about politics. But your headline is merely feeding discord.
There is no “we think” about it.
Also, if the concern is to protect freedom of speech why not write an article about California Bill AB2844, which would prohibit State agencies from doing business with anyone involved in a boycott (BDS) of Israel?