[ April 19, 2024 ]
Free Speech Battle in Small-Town Tennessee Robert Spencer, FrontPage Magazine
Last
Tuesday, Bill Killian, U.S. Attorney of the Eastern District of
Tennessee, FBI Special
Agent Kenneth Moore, and Zak Mohyuddin of the
American Muslim Advisory Council hosted an event called “Public
Disclosure in a Diverse Society” in the town of Manchester, Tennessee.
My American Freedom Defense Initiative colleague Pamela Geller and I
called for a protest of what was clearly an event designed to intimidate
Americans into being afraid to criticize the elements of Islam that
give rise to violence and supremacism – and patriots turned out in
numbers far beyond what we expected.Nearly 2,000 protesters assembled at the Manchester Convention Center
to register their disapproval of this latest Obama Administration
attempt to silence criticism of jihad and Islamic supremacism, and to
stigmatize the critics. When the event started, the room was filled way
beyond capacity, with people filling the aisles and standing in the
doorways – while many hundreds more continued to rally outside and wait
for news of what went on.Story continues below advertisementThe event, predictably, was all about hate crimes, hate speech, and
how Tennesseans needed to be more inclusive and welcoming of the
increasing numbers of Muslims in their midst. Mohyuddin, Killian and
Moore all spoke with extraordinary condescension to the crowd, as if it
were taken for granted that their only reason for being suspicious of
Muslims was the color of their skin (Killian said exactly that) and
cultural differences. The audience, however, was having none of it, and
frequently shouted responses to the various (and numerous) disingenuous
and manipulative assertions coming from the speakers.
That gave the mainstream media their take on the event. In a peculiar
move coming from those who would seem to have a good bit to lose if the
freedom of speech were entirely subverted, mainstream media reporting
on the event uniformly portrayed the pro-free speech protesters as a
gang of racist, bigoted thugs, shouting down the valiant paladins of
tolerance.
Nicole Young’s report in the generally hopeless Nashville paper, The Tennessean,
was a case in point: “The interruptions,” it claimed, “were so intense
at times that attendee Elaine Smith, 55, of Bedford County, said she was
afraid of other audience members. ‘I came here because I wanted to
learn something … but I couldn’t hear because the audience was so
disrespectful,’ she said. ‘I cried when I got here. It makes me really
sad especially because these people say they’re Christians. The God I
worship doesn’t teach hate.’”
The claim that someone in the crowd was “afraid” of the other
audience members, as if these patriots who came out to defend the
freedom of speech were some gang of menacing thugs, bent on silencing
their foes by force, was utterly preposterous – this was not, after all,
a meeting of United Against Fascism or some other genuinely thuggish
Leftist group. But this, of course, is how the mainstream media always
portray those who oppose jihad and Islamic supremacism, and the facts be
damned.
Pamela Geller’s questions
are apposite: “The enemedia supporting the suppression and restriction
of free speech in America presents an interesting paradox. Are they so
clueless or self-important that they think they will be spared? Didn’t
the Obama administration spying on the AP and other news organizations
teach them anything?” Good questions for Nicole Young to ponder.
The Tennessean report, like Bill Killian, Kenneth Moore, and Zak
Mohyuddin at the “Public Disclosure in a Diverse Society” event,
completely ignores the genuine concern that people have about jihad and
Islamic supremacist activity, and the fact that Muslim groups (aided and
abetted by Barack Obama) use claims of “hate” and “bigotry” to shut
down honest discussion of how jihadists use the texts and teachings of
Islam to justify violence and supremacism.
Killian and Moore expatiated at length about how “inflammatory”
speech could violate civil rights laws, and how Arab and Muslim children
were being taunted in school, and how Tennesseans should be more
welcoming. But no one, of course, was there to defend the taunting of
Muslim or Arab schoolchildren. No one was there because he hated
foreigners. No one was there to defend sending people violent threats.
The protesters turned out in such unexpectedly high numbers because they
knew that truthful and accurate exploration of Islam’s violent
teachings has been deemed “inflammatory” by both Muslim groups and the
Obama regime — and that leaves us unable to examine the motives and
goals of jihad terrorists, or to defend ourselves adequately against
them. That’s why everyone was so upset with Killian, Moore, and
Mohyuddin, but the media were either oblivious to that fact or intent on
ignoring it.
One wonders who decided to hold an event like this in small-town
Tennessee, rather than some higher-profile area, in the first place. Did
the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney’s office think that their
new suggestion that civil rights laws could be used to silence criticism
of Islam would escape notice if it were held in a place that is usually
outside the relentless gaze of the mainstream media? Did they hope to
float a trial balloon and see if their anti-free speech initiative would
be met with indifference and complacency in Manchester, Tennessee,
which might be an indication that it wouldn’t encounter serious
resistance in Nashville or Dallas or New York or Washington, either?
Whatever the real reason may be, their efforts failed. The patriots
who came to the Manchester event demonstrated to the Obama
Administration that their efforts to subvert the First Amendment will
not go unchallenged. That evening showed that the children and heirs of
those who were responsible for the Boston Tea Party and other
manifestations of resistance to tyranny have not all become willfully
ignorant and complacent. And resist tyranny we will, once again.
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11 Comments
10 years ago
Muslims are the ones bringing the hate. Muslims are the ones bringing the bombs. If that isn’t clearly apparent to the general population of even a small town in America by now then they are about 10 years behind and need to get their heads out of peep show TV.
But let’s celebrate our successes in getting a show of support. And don’t forget if a small town doesn’t show support then shake the dust of that town off your feet as you leave. It might be they really do need to have new slave masters. Let them sell their 8 year old daughters to the Muslim men if they think it will earn them a medal in the contest for who is the most tolerant.
10 years ago
It’s true. If the reporter really thinks he or she will remain free to report on anything under a muslim rule, he or she needs to learn something. If muslims gain supremacy there will be nothing except sharia approved news, sharia approved TV, sharia approved radio, music, art, schools, no dancing, no dining out on what ever you want, everything will have to be halal. It won’t be a polite or non violent society. It will be 13th century rules and violations will be punished by stoning, branding, burning, having hands and feet cut off. This is not a loving god that they worship, it is an angry spiteful god that hates everyone. Doubt me? Read the koran.
10 years ago
This is stealth jihad: muslim leaders and their pathetic apologists attempting to turn a free society into an islamic hellhole by deceiving and misleading their intended victims. We should not tolerate the violently intolerant. We are governed by the Constitution, not a document authored 1400 years ago by a genocidal socipath and pedophile.
10 years ago
thats what happens when you elect a muslim to the office of president of the U.S. thats what you get when the majority of americans are so stupid they vote on looks, and skin color. what we represent to the people of the world is a country full of morons that can’t look beyond the tv and video games to see how history repeats itself over and over.
10 years ago
I would say this to every insulting thing from them… its not you we don’t like, its islam. You are free to convert any time. Until then, islam is not welcome.
10 years ago
If it’s all about skin color, how come the brown-skinned Burma Buddhists are becoming Islamophobic about increasing numbers of the similarly colored Muslims? Maybe the Buddhist monks are just another gang of baccy-chawing, whiskey-drinking, banjo-strumming, redneck hicks.
10 years ago
What god is Nicole Young worshipping?
The koran calls the Son of God an abomination and denies the Father and the Son:
009.030 – 037.151 – 037.152 – 019.088 – 019.089
You can not sit at the table of Christ Nicole Young – and – sit at the table that calls Him an abomination.
She should be crying about that.
10 years ago
“The God I know does not teach hate.” Oh, dear Elaine Smith and so many blind-God does teach hate-He teaches hatred of evil, and to expose it, and tear down its strongholds in the mind of those captive by it. By tolerating and doing nothing their are muslim minds & hearts enslaved to Islam-now as a Christian its your call to blunder the enemies camp and bring them to Christ-that is love. Tolerance of evil is NOT love…it is calling evil good. Islam is evil, anti-christ, and YOU by being LAZY Have not shutoff your TV and bothered to read Islam’s own texts which are plain to see-If many would get off their butt and read learn what this death satanic cult is about Islam Its spread by deception would signficantly be hindered.
10 years ago
Things like this, muslims are above the law..is exactly why so many of us hate islam. http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/dallas-cair-director-muslims-are-above-the-law-of-the-land/
10 years ago
Many people-especially the -ignorant want to punish -you for speaking the -truth-for being-correct-for being-you-never apologise for being correct-or for being years ahead of your time-if your right-and you know it-speak your mind-even if you are a minority of one -the truth is still the truth-Mahatma Ghandi.
10 years ago
If the event was held in a big city, like NY, there would be a lot more sheeple (percentage-wise too) that agree with the federal scum.
