Bloomberg Weighs in on Free Speech and Umar Abdul-Jalil

Mayor Bloomberg can certainly give one pause whenever he has access to a microphone. I am sure that other Republicans worry each time he has access to the media.

Yesterday, he staunchly defended Umar Abdul-Jalil's right to free speech, declaring that this prison chaplain be allowed the same rights to free speech as anyone else.

The shocker is not that Umar Abdul-Jalil was the subject of comment, but rather that Bloomberg said it all.

How can the same Mayor who worked so hard to suppress free speech during the Republican National Convention, going so far as to tell citizens that this right is really a privilege, and one that they might soon lose if they abuse it, do such a sudden about face? Interesting, isn't it?

Bloomberg stated that : “...the great dangers that we are facing are not people saying things, it is our reaction in this country to when people say something that we don’t like..... We are forgetting what distinguishes America from every place else and it’s something that I have felt very strongly about and get more and more worried about with time..."

He was willing to shut down free speech for the Convention, but not willing to shut it down for a city employee who has made some highly inflammatory statements over the past few years. And who does he mean by "everyone else"?

These definitions are all tricky and legalistic. Who has a right, when does a right convert to a privilege (like a drivers license), what is free speech, who decides what it is, who decides who has the rights, who decides who gets to decide any of this?

The Mayor should be worried. We should all be worried.

Were his recent statements just another roll down Bluder Boulevard, or is he feeling that he might be next? What does he know that rest of us do not?

Just thinking out loud...

Tags:   bloomberg, blunder boulevard, free speech, umar abdul jalil

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Posted on 3/15/2006 ( Permanent Link )
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