At the UN, the Obama administration backs limits on free speech.

At the UN, the Obama administration backs limits on free speech.

www.weeklystandard.com

The Obama administration has marked its first foray into the UN human rights establishment by backing calls for limits on freedom of expression. The newly-minted American policy was rolled out at the latest session of the UN Human Rights Council, which ended in Geneva on Friday. American diplomats were there for the first time as full Council members and intent on making friends.

President Obama chose to join the Council despite the fact that the Organization of the Islamic Conference holds the balance of power and human rights abusers are among its lead actors, including China, Cuba, and S

(visit the link for the full news article)

I don't know what exactly to say about this.

I found this while surfing the internet. I am not sure what the website is or their beliefs.

I put it out there for others on this forum to comment on and discuss while we still have the right to express ourselves without censure and fear of retribution.

Only time and history will tell us for sure.

www.weeklystandard.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Awesome. I love it when our political leaders and UN negotiators bow down to the whim of other countries regardless of what it costs us. Especially when those whims are based on some nutjob's determination that anything unfavorable said about their flavor of religion is discrimination. After all, it's common knowledge that you can't disagree with a religion or religious person without discriminating against them.

Suppose this means I better get it all out now before I get turned in to the speech police...

So, the EU is going to have Blair as president. Obama has been giving away the store while he was at the UN.
China owns us.
Saudi wants to dump the dollar.

And I can't get abducted to save my life!

Friggin' great!

Where the # is ET when we need him?

reply to post by mikerussellus

And I can't get abducted to save my life!

The new resolution, championed by the Obama administration, has a number of disturbing elements. It emphasizes that "the exercise of the right to freedom of expression carries with it special duties and responsibilities . . ." which include taking action against anything meeting the description of "negative racial and religious stereotyping." It also purports to "recognize . . . the moral and social responsibilities of the media" and supports "the media's elaboration of voluntary codes of professional ethical conduct" in relation to "combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance."

Well, there ya go. "...taking action against anything of 'negative racial and religious stereotyping'..." is now, apparently a requirement of free speech. We are now supposed to vociferously combat negative connotations of racial or religious groups.

Okay, I'm up for it.

Black people speaking negatively, or otherwise aggregating and aligning themselves against white people, or otherwise grouping 'white people' in to a 'community' of like-minded people then speaking about that community of white people, either individually or in aggregate, in the pejorative will no longer be tolerated.
Not every white person has had a black slave in their heritage and we, collectively being "white" cannot nor will accept the stereotype pepetuated against whites by the black community that suggests all white people are racist and want to restrain or otherwise restrict the black person from being the best person they are mentally and physically capable of being.

reply to post by calcoastseeker


He may very well have signed his own resignation.

Nah..

The united states has been doing things like this for years now!

Hell, maybe we should push forth a revolution requiring that the president can only say something he knows to be true.

But then his speeches wouldn't be very good.

So does this mean black folks will have to quit calling each other the N-word or face UN sanctions?

If that happens there will not be a black comedian left standing. It will be a sad day on Earth.

[edit on 6-10-2009 by StinkyFeet]

I'm still reading through the UN human rights counsil resolution jointly drafted by the US and Egypt. In this article....

www.huffingtonpost.com...

You can click on the blue print in the first sentence you can pull it up and read it yourself.


Here's another article on it.....

www.politico.com...

And this......

Today, the Human Rights Council adopted, by consensus, a resolution affirming the fundamental universal values of freedom of speech, opinion, expression, and freedom of the media. The resolution also speaks out forcefully against efforts to interfere with the exercise of free speech, including journalists, writers, internet users, and human rights defenders. It calls on all states to end these violations and provide adequate remedies for those victimized by them. Finally, the resolution confirms the central role of free speech, open debate, and the battle of ideas in combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and other forms of intolerance.

The obvious importance of this resolution is amplified by a key fact of which you may not be aware: This resolution had two sponsors; the United States and Egypt. Over the preceding weeks, we have been engaged with discussions with the Egyptians toward a shared goal, discussions conducted in the spirit of openness and cooperation. The resulting draft resolution eventually attracted 49 co-sponsors and underscores the important truth best expressed by the President in Cairo, when he said – quote – “I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly to each other things we hold in our hearts and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other, to learn from each other, to respect one another, and to seek common ground.” – end quote. Thank you.

Is from a briefing by Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs Esther Brimmer, on Saturday, October 2nd.


www.state.gov...

Originally posted by StinkyFeet
So does this mean black folks will have to quit calling each other the N-word or face UN sanctions?

If that happens there will not be a black comedian left standing. It will be a sad day on Earth.
...

Oh, we can only hope....
And Bill Cosby will be left standing.

So free speech is only free so long as it doesn't offend someone? Man am I in trouble. Obviously the guy has never read the constitution, or if he has he's willfully violating his oath to protect and defend it. When are we gonna impeach this guy?

If these dumb regulations apply to comedians, Carlos Mencia will become a war criminal.

If they apply to me, I'll become a war criminal. I'll see to that.

The part that is really absurd is where it says:

which include taking action against anything meeting the description of "negative racial and religious stereotyping."

I understand the part about racial slurs. A person's race in an innate thing. You can neither choose it nor change it and as such should not be subject to negative stereotyping.

Religion, on the other hand, is a man made construct. It is indeed not beyond the need for scrutiny. Someone could come up with an absolutely absurd religion, like one that preaches all people of other faiths should be killed for example. That kind of religion most definitely should be criticized.

That is where this new policy is a mistake; and a serious one at that. What was the American delegation thinking when they agreed to it??

You know what annoys the hell out of me about this ? The fact that theres a town full of Nazis in america somewhere, which the government cant touch, but they dont mind slapping every last man jack of you with an order to carefully tailor your words.... very odd.

Originally posted by abecedarian

Black people speaking negatively, or otherwise aggregating and aligning themselves against white people, or otherwise grouping 'white people' in to a 'community' of like-minded people then speaking about that community of white people, either individually or in aggregate, in the pejorative will no longer be tolerated.

Well I got a news flash for anyone who thinks thats gonna work. It will be with that the same as it is with racism. Black people cannot be racist and are obviously not subject to the same hate crime penalties as white people, that fact has been proven several times recently by failure of prosecutors to enforce the law equally.

This may sound melodramatic but I fear another dark ages is apon us. Accept mainstream beliefs or suffer the consequences? If people did not go against this sort of behaviour in the past we would still think the sun rotated around the earth and those who knew otherwise would dare not speak the truth.

Talk about assumptive.

So let me get this straight, Obama, as president gets his foot in the door with these problematic entities in order to understand them and hopefully foster them into a new social construct that is more in line with modern thinking.

And because he does this he now stands for what he wants to bring change to in those countries?

sounds like a bunch of BS right wing doublespeak to me.

down with the fascists. let the government do it's jobs and you can all crawl back under the rock you came out from under. thanks.

I do not see how this ego maniac can even consider doing things like this. First off it clearly contradicts the constitution and bill of rights. For all you left wingers out there that love the Glorious Leader Obama, there is no way to spin this, its illegal, unethcal and just flat out wrong.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"

a⋅bridge  [uh-brij]
–verb (used with object), a⋅bridged, a⋅bridg⋅ing. 1. to shorten by omissions while retaining the basic contents: to abridge a reference book.
2. to reduce or lessen in duration, scope, authority, etc.; diminish; curtail: to abridge a visit; to abridge one's freedom.
3. to deprive; cut off.

They can pass all the bogus laws and crap they want, I for one will refuse to acknowledge any that are clearly unconstititional. Any one that wants to dillute or take away any of our rights or freedoms can go straight to hell. I for one am sick and tired of all the blitthering idiots in Washington telling everyone what they should be doing. I do believe that the greater share of those guys (in DC and in the UN) are pretty much just a total waste of oxygen.

I am fore more than against with one caveat!

I totally agree there should be no racial discrimination, religious descrimination anywhere. Most problems in the world are generated mostly on these two subjects. Stopping people from being abusive towards other people based on their race or religion is wonderful!

However, my caveat is this, and I urge everyone to read this amazing book by Richard Dawkins 'The God delusion'. I was amazed by it and being a white Brit always sitting on the fence, being an agnostic I have swung across to Atheism.

I mean my caveat is that wonderful Atheist's like Richard Dawkins may not be able to write another book questioning the beliefs of God and religion per se.

But I hope it does stop silly religions (so called) like Scientology and extreme fanatical groups of a hypocritical book like the Bible.

Just my thoughts.
Regards,
E.T

Not exactly the 'change, hope, unity, transparency' that Americans hoped for. I feel bad for those that believed him to be what he clearly isn't. It's gotta' be a major disappointment.

He goes around the world apologizing for the USA and then shows up at the UN pushing to take away one of our basic Constitutional rights.

:shk: