Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Must not discuss whether politicians should be murdered?


This was a discussion, not a threat, so is entitled to free speech protections


"The US Secret Service is trying to identify the creator of a Facebook poll asking whether US President Barack Obama should be assassinated.

Facebook this week shot down the user-generated poll, which was titled "Should Obama be killed?" and offered answer choices of yes, no, maybe, and "if he cuts my health care".

"Once we found out about it, we worked with Facebook to have it removed," said secret service spokesman Malcolm Wiley. "We are certainly investigating, just like we would with any threat case."

More than 750 Facebook users had reportedly cast votes by the time the poll was yanked from the wildly popular social networking site.

However not everyone wanted to take part. "This is sick and sad," said one Facebook user as the poll fuelled passionate exchanges. "All of this anti-Obama rage is pure racism."

Source. Another account of the matter here.

It specifically targeted a policy -- healthcare policy -- and not Obama's origins -- but it is still "racism", apparently. I think that false accusations of racism should be made a criminal libel.

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

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