Fewer and fewer people seem to understand the significance and importance of the freedom of speech these days: the avalanche of criticism that was heaped upon my colleague Pamela Geller for our event in defense of the freedom of speech in Garland, Texas last May demonstrated that. People who should have known better, including Donald Trump, Bill O’Reilly, and Laura Ingraham, among many others, rushed to denounce Pamela Geller for offending Muslims by holding a Muhammad cartoon contest. The importance of standing up against violent intimidation and refusing to be bullied was lost on them.
And now this from Howard Dean. It sounds high-minded, but it is actually nothing less than totalitarian. Who will be entrusted with the responsibility of deciding what speech is respectful of others, and what speech is disrespectful? That individual or group will have dictatorial power over the rest of us. And that dictatorship is coming, courtesy of people like Howard Dean.

px fragonard says
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
john spielman says
absolutly, Howard “screech” dean is a political opportunist and will say anything to get publicity. RESPECT MUST BE EARNED, while free speech is aright guaranteed by the Bill or Rights
mortimer says
-“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” – Harry S. Truman
Howard Dean is an enemy of the US constitution. Harry Truman did not fight the Axis nations by making excuses for them!
Note to Howard Dean: IT’S THE IDEOLOGY, STUPID!
mortimer says
People have rights. AN IDEOLOGY HAS NO RIGHTS!
Jay Boo says
No doubt that he makes his reservations for a dhimmi prayer mat beside Justin Trudeau months in advance.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
RESPECT MUST BE EARNED
That seems to have gotten lost over the last few decades of socialism. The word property is all over the Constitution, and for a reason. With self reliance comes good habits, and with good habits come good people. Free people. The Moslems we brought in to shore up our declining birth rate tend to be mooches, not all, but probably most.
jihad3tracker says
May I write the obvious ? Howard Dean is a career political “elite” who, like about 90% of them, has his head so far up his poop chute that his eyes never get a chance to read the Qur’an.
And anyway, he is too busy having lunch with uber-left academics and talking to mainstream know-zeroes that he would not have time even if a helpful proctologist offered to suction it out.
Pig Jizya says
“Free speech is good. Respecting others is better”
I hope Hilary adopts this as her campaign slogan. It will guarantee a republican victory.
Dean is a dunce.
Mr. AR-10 says
Respecting others? Excuse me?
I have the right to freedom of speech, and of religion, and other rights. You do not have any right to be respected whatsoever. In fact along with my right to practice my religion I also have the right to think and say that I believe that the religion of the Mohammedan is a barbaric lunatic disgusting belief system that no thinking and moral man would ever think highly of. In fact I absolutely disrespect such men with the greatest of vigor. I loathe the musloid and their horrible beliefs.
And yet I believe just as strongly that they are free to believe whatever they want to, as long as they respect the rights of all men in our society.
The right to freedom of speech, of religion, of the press.
The right to keep and bear arms.
Unspoken above is that I have the right to disrespect any that I so choose, and the right to defend myself and my family.
Why is this so difficult to understand?
Mathew Solo says
Banned Islamicist Expert’s Lecture on ‘Hitler’s Legacy: Islamic Antisemitism in the Middle East’
Open This Article Up…It Show a good example of suppressing the truth…disallowing free speech.
PrayerWarrior says
There was another society that believed respect for others was better than free speech. We met them during WWII. The Japanese. As a heavily populated society on a small chain of islands, they developed the ethic that the purpose of speech was not to convey truth, but rather to foster harmonious and respectful relationships up and down the line of their highly hierarchical society. That was the reason for their blundering into war with us:
Ogden Nash, The Japanese (1938)
How courteous is the Japanese;
He always says, “Excuse it, please.”
He climbs into his neighbor’s garden,
And smiles, and says, “I beg your pardon”;
He bows and grins a friendly grin,
And calls his hungry family in;
He grins, and bows a friendly bow;
“So sorry, this my garden now.”
While I was reading about their infamous WW II Unit 731 (which conducted chemical and biological human experiments on their subject Chinese and Mongolian civilians and POWs,) I learned that the civilian medical intermediaries in the Unit’s chain command could not bring themselves to criticize what was going on because their cultural bias towards maintaining respectful relationships with their superiors was too great for them to overcome. In Japan then, criticizing somebody above you simply wasn’t done. This is the road that “free speech is good. Respecting others is better” will take you down.
Captain says
Excellent analysis.
Westman says
Well, now we know the Deen of Dean.
“Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths.” – Joseph Goebbels.
Myxlplik says
Great interview on Larry King, John Rhys Davies:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/john-rhys-davies-is-something-846137
Sober salient points made, a must watch.
miriamrove says
Inch by inch they are taking our freedom away. M
mortimer says
IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO HOWARD DEAN:
Every ideology must be subjected to open, free discussion in regard to its value, ethics or truthfulness without fear of reprisals. No exceptions. ‘Islamophobia’ is not RACISM any more than ‘communistophobia’ or ‘fascistophobia’ would be. Islam is an IDEA, rather than a race. In a civilised society, no idea…religious, political or philosophical…can claim a special exemption from critical analysis or be set beyond the reach of empirical evidence.
Rev g says
Absolutely correct!
eduardo odraude says
If anyone ever had any doubt that Howard Dean’s judgment is not to be trusted, his tweet should make everything clear.
somehistory says
A lesson guys like dean need to learn: There is always a bigger bully, a richer man, a politician with more power, etc.
Today, dean and hillary, and stasi and all the others can say as they please that people should not be able to speak as they please.
First of all, the logic of it escapes them. So intelligent, they can’t see how lopsided is their speech that free speech be limited. It would limit their freedom to speak when someone more influential, more powerful, richer, etc. than they or their friends are comes along with a different idea of what is acceptable.
God gave us all freedom to speak. He can rightly take it away if He chooses. For a human to take away freedom to speak is overstepping human authority and can only lead to pain, suffering and ultimately, to death.
The death of free speech means truth is limited by the desires of the dictators. When truth is limited, so is life. Many in other countries have suffered in times past because they were not allowed to tell the truth. Many were killed for speaking anyway.
dean may get his way, but the day will come when he is told he is speaking *out of turn* as someone with richer friends comes along, or they just get tired of hearing dean. But he is too unintelligent to know this.
خَليفة says
I partially agree. Respecting others is good, so why do so many Muslims fail to do so?
Having free speech and using it are two different things.
You can use free speech to make fun of others.
You can use free speech as a means to inform people of an evil tyrant trying to take control of your country.
You can use free speech to talk about jihad, so people know what it is and the dangers it poses to non Muslims.
OR YOU CAN BE respectful until some crazy Muslim cuts off your head.
Respect is a mutual thing. You are not obligated to respect anyone that does not respect you.
Christians and Jews have shown tremendous respect for Muslims in spite of the fact that muslims have no respect for them.
Free speech is the mearns to ensure the truly respectful citizens are not killed by the hypocritically respectful ones.
mortimer says
One-way ‘respect’ is called DHIMMITUDE.
PrayerWarrior says
“Lynch recalibrates message on hateful speech”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2015/12/lynch-recalibrates-message-on-hateful-speech-216488
Lynch has pulled her horns in.
“Asked by POLITICO why she was reluctant to publicly say even that the shootings were inspired by ISIL, Lynch stressed the need for investigators to keep an open mind to all possibilities.
“At this point…we’re not prepared to limit any particular ideology to what may have inspired these individuals,” the attorney general said. “There are a number of groups that are on social media, looking to encourage people to commit acts of violence within the homeland, so at this point we simply do not want to rule anything out.”
Yes, those online Girl Scout cookie drives are really quite alarming.
Angemon says
A self-defeating proposition. According to Mr. Dean, who clearly didn’t gave this much thought, others should respect me by allowing me to exercise my right to freedom of speech.
More Ham Ed says
The real Howard Dean:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtsWKFMYJJs#t=19s
Dean Scream vs The Hillary Cackle:
Katowice says
I’m simply not to going to be told to “respect” an ideology, and that’s that. I’ve been dismissive and disrespectful of plenty of ideologies much less repulsive and self-evidently worthless than Sharia. And I’m certainly not going to be spoken to like that by a man as useless as Howard Dean. Who would? What’s come of us?
That such a thing can be said openly and with zero fear of consequences while associated (even tangentially) with a major political party in a western country is evidence of how far down the hole we’ve fallen.
Matthieu Baudin says
Yes Katowice, folks like Howard spend so much time prattling away with other like minded people that they don’t notice when they’ve given away the crown jewels – the right to plain speech.
Arthur says
Howard, finish your thought:
Free speech is good.
Respect is better.
Total submission is best.
Matthieu Baudin says
Very witty Arthur.
Michael Copeland says
Respect has to be earned.
Matthieu Baudin says
Too true Michael.
Peter says
What does “respect” mean?
Respecting someone else’s cultural values, beliefs, and assumptions could be disrespectful of my own; expecting someone to respect mine could be disrespectful of theirs. Why should we compromise our values for newcomers?
Howard, since you are an infidel and have no right to life or property under Islamic law unless you subjugate yourself to it (or convert), why don’t you draw the rational conclusion: your very existence is insulting and offensive to pious Muslims and Allah, so “respect” them and do yourself in.
Matthieu Baudin says
Plain speech is essential to civil society and more important than false or forced respect. I have learned more over my lifetime from people who argued honestly with me even when they didn’t respect me or my arguments. Politeness should never be a substitute for plain speaking as this leads us away from an honest grappling with the truth.
Perhaps we have had such a high level of freedom of speech available to us for so long that it’s been taken for granted and its value overlooked and degraded. The citizenry of the Central European States, having only recently won their rights to plain and uncompromised speech, have a fresh appreciation of this essential source of freedom.
The creators of Postmodern, Inclusive or PC speech are the new censors of personal freedom; they are motivated by a need to protect chosen cultural and group identities and to maintain the social standing of these social groups and to demand regular gestures of homage and respect. This is a wholly prejudiced and selective process and a totally unwarranted imposition on individuals who wish to think freely and to express themselves plainly and openly.