90 second news commentary heard on the American Christian Network
After the tragic shootings in Arizona, once again debate broke out as to whether or not angry political rhetoric should be permitted.
I’m John Loeffler at steelonsteel.com and here’s how it seems to me.
Our form of government has been an interesting experiment in freedom. Instead of exchanging blows, bombs and bullets when we disagree, our founding fathers proposed a better idea: How about we just exchange words instead? That’s why we have freedom of speech.
Now sometimes that speech is angry, but that’s nothing new to American politics because political history in our country has been full of angry rhetoric. Just look at the hateful things colonists said about King George during the time of the American revolution.
When someone says we have to ban hate speech, you then we have to define what hate or angry rhetoric is, and very quickly it becomes your political ideas somebody else doesn’t like.
But, they claim, it incites violence. Well, every society unfortunately has mentally unstable outliers such as John Brown. John Brown was a radical abolitionist in favor of doing away with slavery prior to the civil war. You might agree with his cause, but he murdered people in pursuing it and he was executed for his crimes.
In reality when words – even angry words – are suppressed, that’s when the real violence begins. So be very very careful about listening to people who claim we shouldn’t tolerate speech they don’t like. Because when words stop flowing, freedom and people begin to die.
I’m John Loeffler at steelonsteel.com and that’s how it seems to me.
John Loeffler is 40-year broadcast news veteran and host of the nationally syndicated talk show Steel on Steel (www.steelonsteel.com) on the IRN/USA/Family Radio Networks,and co-host of The Financial Sense Newshour (www.financialsense.com).
Copyright 2000-2011 Steel On Steel, All Rights Reserved.
P.O. Box 3358 Hayden, ID 83835-3358
PHONE – (800) 829-5646 Fax: (208) 765-2033
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January 15, 2011
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90 second news commentary heard on the American Christian Network
After the tragic shootings in Arizona, once again debate broke out as to whether or not angry political rhetoric should be permitted.
I’m John Loeffler at steelonsteel.com and here’s how it seems to me.
Our form of government has been an interesting experiment in freedom. Instead of exchanging blows, bombs and bullets when we disagree, our founding fathers proposed a better idea: How about we just exchange words instead? That’s why we have freedom of speech.
Now sometimes that speech is angry, but that’s nothing new to American politics because political history in our country has been full of angry rhetoric. Just look at the hateful things colonists said about King George during the time of the American revolution.
When someone says we have to ban hate speech, you then we have to define what hate or angry rhetoric is, and very quickly it becomes your political ideas somebody else doesn’t like.
But, they claim, it incites violence. Well, every society unfortunately has mentally unstable outliers such as John Brown. John Brown was a radical abolitionist in favor of doing away with slavery prior to the civil war. You might agree with his cause, but he murdered people in pursuing it and he was executed for his crimes.
In reality when words – even angry words – are suppressed, that’s when the real violence begins. So be very very careful about listening to people who claim we shouldn’t tolerate speech they don’t like. Because when words stop flowing, freedom and people begin to die.
I’m John Loeffler at steelonsteel.com and that’s how it seems to me.
John Loeffler is 40-year broadcast news veteran and host of the nationally syndicated talk show Steel on Steel (www.steelonsteel.com) on the IRN/USA/Family Radio Networks,and co-host of The Financial Sense Newshour (www.financialsense.com).
Copyright 2000-2011 Steel On Steel, All Rights Reserved.
P.O. Box 3358 Hayden, ID 83835-3358
PHONE – (800) 829-5646 Fax: (208) 765-2033
Web Development by Premier Hosting, LLC
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 15th, 2011 at 11:27 am and is filed under It seems to me... You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.