Why is the maker of the infamous video wrongly blamed for the violence in Benghazi in jail?
Who is he, she or it, and why hasn't the ACLU or other activist liberation group filed briefs on his, her, its, or their behalf?
Why haven't these same groups –– or at least some "Civil Rights Attorney" trying to make a name for himself, herself, itself or themselves –– made loud noises in the enemedia protesting the clear violation of his, her, its or their First Amendment Rights?
I've done no research, because no American citizen should have to dig for information on an issue as fundamentally significant as this, and yet no one I know in the blogosphere has expressed the slightest concern about it.
Why? Why? Why? Why Why?
If you know anything about it, care about it, or have any opinion pro or con, please step forward and share it here.
Thanks,
~ FreeThinke
The questions are not being posed by anyone with "power" because the Obama administration is the Teflon administration. **sigh**
ReplyDeleteAll right, AOW, I'll buy that, but why isn't anyone in the BLOGOSPHERE concerned about this FUNDAMENTAL VIOLATION of our FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS?
ReplyDeleteDo we have to be stimulated by the ENEMEDIA before anything penetrates our thick skulls?
This has been bothering me for two months, and I keep waiting for SOMEONE to make the necessary fuss.
If "they" can do this to ONE puny little film maker, they can do it to YOU or ME or ANYONE "they" don't want to deal with fairly and squarely.
The implications are vast.
THAT should bother the HELL out of ALL of us.
I easily found
ReplyDeletehttp://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/11/innocence-muslims-filmmaker-sentenced.html
for example.
I support freedom of speech, including criticism of religion. However, reports I've read indicate that that actors were overdubbed in Arabic without their knowledge, saying things they weren't saying in English. That's not free speech -- if actors want to take part in an dangerous film, fine; but it's not OK to put speech in their mouths, endangering them without their consent.
Jez: I don't dispute the facts you present, but your conclusion is faulty.
ReplyDeleteYes, the filmmaker may not put words in other peoples mouths without their consent, especially if it endangers them, but that is not the issue here.
The issue is, may a filmmaker make provocative films.
Let's apply the left's gun logic to free speech:
A statistically miniscule segment of society creates a tragedy with a gun, so we must ban everything but a single-shot gun for everyone.
So why is no one calling for restrictions on Hollywood?
SF: Which conclusion? I think you should not be prevented from making provocative films.
ReplyDeleteEmbassies have been attacked for many administrations.
ReplyDeleteMany embassies, many countries.
The story here is that the fringe right are down to seeds and stems now that the birth certificate issue only has Donald Trump frothing.
@Silverfiddle -- The issue is, may a filmmaker make provocative films.
ReplyDelete----
The issue is that he violated his parole.
Unfortunately you don't need to dig too deeply to find examples of other individuals that have been harassed into silence. One reason is that few individuals would have the deep pockets necessary to fight it out in court against the unlimited resources of the state.
ReplyDeleteEven elected officials suffer in relative silence when they take on the overwhelming power of the state to intimidate and bankrupt them ... e.g. James Traficant (D, Ohio) who did hard time in the big house. Of course he's another one who has had to deal with the anti-Semite label, thanks to big Abe Forseman, the head of the ADL, apparently.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CXYw82RH0E
Any opinion of this man's(Traficant) statements at his hearing. He says people should not fell intimidated by their government...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1pr4YemnMU
NUTS! I prepared a complex statement, forgot to save it and it got "finessed" by this damnably inadequate Blogger software.
ReplyDeleteMainly I wanted to thank Kurt and Waylon for their solid, intelligent responses, then to chide others for dragging smelly red herrings into the discussion, as leftists usually do, to distract from the point at issue, and derail the proceedings to serve the putrid agenda leftists favor.
The POINT here, of course, is that someone has been PERSECUTED as a POLITICAL EXPEDIENT for the Obama Administration merely for exercising his First Amendment Rights.
Everyone should be thoroughly alarmed, outraged and marching in the streets demanding REFORM.
Waylon,
ReplyDeleteack when I used to watch large chunks of congress in session via C-Span I grew extravagantly fond of James Traficant.
NATURALLY our thoroughly rotten Establishment had to find a quasi-legitimate way to put Traficant out of commission. He was the ONLY member of the House of Representatives who told the truth -- plain and unvarnished.
A most uncommon common man. I still feel very sorry he was made to suffer so mightily for his extraordinary frankness and considerable virtue.
Good lord, Waylon, are you down to trotting out Elvis impersonators?
ReplyDeleteThe fringe right and their conspiracy theories. When do they end.
FT,
ReplyDeletewhy isn't anyone in the BLOGOSPHERE concerned about this FUNDAMENTAL VIOLATION of our FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS?
I have seen concern at Jihad Watch, Atlas Shrugs, and some lesser-known anti-jihad sites.
But, overall, it seems that people are cowed regarding the issue you mention. Perhaps the deafening silence has something to do with what Anders Breivik did in 2011?
Calling somebody an Elvis impersonator hardly refutes his argument, Ducky. He paid a stiff price for standing on his principles.
ReplyDeleteWas Edmund Wilson a principled man? Not likely since he was just another leftist quack looking for ways to promote ideas that you are sympathetic ... which are far from enlightened or principled.
What deafening silence, AOW.
ReplyDeleteThe "director" was on parole for various fraud charges and he violated the terms of the parole.
Pretty cut and dried.
If I go to a crowded place in Harlem, in NYC, and shout the N-word and get beat up, I'd be to blame for inciting a fight just as much as the people who actually did the fighting. Freedom of speech does NOT mean freedom from the consequences of said speech.
ReplyDeleteBut, as Ducky said, this guy is not in jail for making a movie, he's in jail for violating his parole. That's why no one is talking about it.
Also, we came to find out that Benghazi had nothing to do with that movie.
Doug Hagmann speaks eloquently to the problems we face today, not only in America but the world ...
ReplyDelete"We must realize that we are not witnessing the fundamental change of America as represented by the mindless mantra of the Obama campaign, but something much deeper, much more nefarious, and something that will not be rectified through the ballot box. As uncomfortable as it is, what we face cannot and will not wait for the next general election.
Actions have consequences, but so does inaction.
We are living in a time in history where some will rise to be held in high esteem as heroes in history books that have yet to be written, and victims who never saw their unfortunate status coming or were fooled into believing that things are not as bad as some make them out to be. The former will suffer greatly by selfless acts performed to save what previous generations have fought to preserve, while the latter will remain complicit by their cluelessness and catatonic in ignorance that will be anything but blissful.
The fuse that will ignite one of the most turbulent times in American and global history has been lit and now burns with incredible speed. Its ignition is neither an accident nor does it originate from good intent, but a deliberate act by a “deluded elite” advancing an agenda that is so breathtakingly evil that it defies all rationality."
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/52295
Jack said, " ... we came to find out that Benghazi had nothing to do with that movie."
ReplyDeleteJACK! That was the entire POINT of today's post.
His cockamamie no account video had NOTHING to do with Benghazi, yet this rotten stinking scumbag administration spent WEEKS making FRAUDULENT CLAIMS -- on national TV -- that it was THE cause of the violence.
God in Heaven!
Waylon quoted, " ... The fuse that will ignite one of the most turbulent times in American and global history has been lit and now burns with incredible speed. Its ignition is neither an accident nor does it originate from good intent, but a deliberate act by a “deluded elite” advancing an agenda that is so breathtakingly evil that it defies all rationality."
ReplyDeleteThat is exactly what I have been trying to say for several years, but it gets no traction with most "fellow conservatives" who either ignore it or eagerly dismiss it as "gossip from the lunatic fringe."
David Rockefeller, HIMSELF, publicly pilled the beans in 1991 at Baden Baden, I believe, and has been widely quoted taking great pride in this heretofore covert agenda, and STILL the charges are dismissed with a great wave of the hand.
Even Marx, and the infamous Frankfurt School has been USED by these "Oligarchs," as I persist in calling them for convenience, have been USED as PAWNS in "The Great Game" seeking despotic One World Government.
Oh yes! Anders Breivik -- Norway's answer to Timothy McVeigh.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't bringing up Breivik sort of muddle the issue? I was trying to focus on the coming disappearance of Freedom of Expression. The Breivik case seems more pertinent to the too-prevalent issue of pending gun control legislation -- probably by Executive Order or Judicial Fiat.
It appears the powers that be are eager to knock off both the first and second amendments asap.
It looks like you're implying that Nakoula's official charges of parole violation are trumped up, and that he is in fact serving time in order to punish him for his speech.
ReplyDeleteSince you go no further than implication, perhaps in your mind this theory is not only correct but goes without saying. While I disagree on both counts, I could certainly be persuaded. In fact this is one of your less outlandish theories, but even so it's clearly a lot more contentious than the greenness of grass. Maybe you cannot or will not recognise that: such is your right of course, but don't mistake it for virtue.
But if this theory is true, isn't the 1 year sentence a bizarrely weak? You don't crush dissent like that. Egypt sentenced the guy to death -- impotently, sure, but still: that's how you do it! A tyrant wants "justice" to be swift and terrible. This case is terrible only it its dullness. It's a boring case about a fraudster (and one-time drug pusher) violating his parole, and then receiving a completely unexceptional sentence for that violation. Personally, I can see why the national press hasn't reserved the front page for it.
There is a great deal you cannot see, Jez, but it's not up to me to correct the deficiencies in your perception of reality.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt the violations reported by the L. A. Times -- an organ of communication with an avowed leftist orientation, it refuses to acknowledge -- have occurred. However, without the implicit threat to the reputation of the Obama administration contained in the administration's exceedingly poor judgment in having used this film to obscure and attempt cover up its negligence in failing to protect and defend the personnel attached to the American Embassy in Benghazi I doubt very much if this low-life with the many aliases would have attracted much attention on the part of the authorities, who under normal circumstances would have much bigger fish to fry.
As G&S whimsically observed well over a hundred years ago: "Things are seldom what they seem. Milk can masquerade as cream ..."
My dislike and distrust of authority is so great I have long made it a policy never to accept the "official" version of anything.
I'm certain we are lied to frequently, but I think this level of paranoia is more appropriate in other states than our own.
ReplyDelete"It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism -- free government is founded on jealousy, and not in confidence which prescribes limited constitutions . . . In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
ReplyDelete"When we consider that this government is charged with the external and mutual relations of these states; that the states, themselves, have principle care of our persons, our property and our reputation, constituting the great field of human concerns, we may well doubt whether our organization is not too complicated, too expensive; whether offices and officers have not multiplied unnecessarily, and sometimes injuriously, to the service they were meant to promote."
“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Thomas Jefferson sees clearly the nature of man and recognizes the importance of limiting the power of the state to violate the individual rights of the citizens. That this was so expertly and clearly spelled out by the Founding Fathers makes it all the more insane to observe the actions of the state today, in the one republic created to limit those intrusive powers of the state.
ReplyDeleteAMEN, Waylon. AMEN!
ReplyDelete