The Boston Globe on AFDI Ads: Truth is “unnecessary incitement”

The left goosesteps in lockstep.

Media and academia: The intellectual thugs at Harvard have gone on record calling for the restriction of free speech, and so has Boston’s largest newspaper.

The Boston Globe supports the MBTA’s viewpoint censorship of our pro-Israel ads. “MBTA’s advertising dispute: Speech without name-calling.” Even their headline mocks their position. Hmmm,  do you think our founding fathers meant that when they carefully and brilliantly penned our first amendment? “freedom of speeech without name calling.” How utterly ridiculous.

Apparently, editing speech is a “sensitive task,” according to the Globe. Sensitivity to savages, what a bloody oxymoron. That said, the Globe declares, “there is no evidence the T violated its policy in rejecting the ad from a nonprofit group called the American Freedom Defense Initiative.” How the Globe can say this without irony is remarkable. The MBTA is running a vicious blood libel against Israel at the same time as rejecting our pro-Israel ad campaign. Their rejection of our ad is predicated on not hurting the feelings of jihadists, sensitivity to beheaders, as it were.

I will not abridge my free speech so as not to offend savages.

The Globe states more emphaticially that calling anyone a “savage” is an unnecessary incitement. Were the slaughters of the Fogel family savage? Was the homicide bomber on the bus of Jewish women and children savage? Were the Muslim terrorists on 9/11, 3/11, 11/26, etc. savage? Is truth an “unnecessary incitement”?

And who is being “unnecessarily incited”? The jihadists? They don’t need an excuse. They slaughter based on their religious teachings. Then who is being “unnecessarily incited”? Civilized men? They are civilized; an ad won’t incite them to kill.

“MBTA’s advertising dispute: Speech without name-calling” The Boston Globe Editorial

THE ANTI-ISLAMIST group that’s suing the MBTA for rejecting its ad raises an important point: Guidelines for political advertising on the T must be enforced consistently. It’s a sensitive task for T managers, and their pledge to judge all submissions equally is admirable. There is no evidence the T violated its policy in rejecting the ad from a nonprofit group called the American Freedom Defense Initiative.

The T says it bars any ad that is “demeaning or disparaging” — a sensible standard, if applied fairly. The ad in question declares, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.” It adds, “Support Israel. Defeat jihad.” Lawyers for the AFDI said in a press release that the ad “is supportive of Israel in the debate over the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.” But the text, derived from a quote by writer Ayn Rand, is clearly demeaning: Calling anyone a “savage” is an unnecessary incitement, whether directed at Palestinians, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Republicans, or Democrats. The AFDI can easily make a forceful case for Israel without calling anyone “savages.” Indeed, the T has invited the group to modify the ad.

The basis for the lawsuit is the T’s decision, earlier this year, to accept a pro-Palestinian ad that showed a series of maps allegedly documenting “Palestinian loss of land” to Israel. That claim may be hotly disputed, but it isn’t “demeaning or disparaging.” The AFDI’s lawyers say that by stating that the United Nations classifies 4.7 million Palestinians as refugees, the ad is “claiming that Israel is in effect engaging in war crimes.” But that’s nowhere in the text.

The AFDI should work with the MBTA on an ad that expresses the group’s strong pro-Israel views but can’t be so obviously categorized as demeaning.

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