He is putting his country in serious danger of being attacked with his rhetoric. I don't think that's smart at all.
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This is why you let crazy idiots talk. Because there is no doubt now in the minds of the majority that he is a crazy idiot. The end.
yep! from josh -- Now, was that so hard? As you know, Iranian President Ahmadinejad spoke yesterday before a raucous crowd at Columbia University. The president of the university excoriated him. He backtracked a bit from his statements about Israel, perhaps as some commentators have noted because they've caused him trouble within Iran. In other cases he put together a fairly incoherent mix of religious interpretation and political rambling. And in still more he simply sounded ridiculous, as when he assured the audience that there were no gays in Iran -- a claim that prompted a round of guffaws from the audience. I think it's hard to come to any conclusion but that Ahmadinejad was diminished by yesterday's events, not elevated. And America seemed bigger for not having cowered before him, as so many wanted to. --Josh Marshall
He was invited to speak at Columbia. I didn't see the families of the victims asking him to visit the grave site.
If you don't like bitter foods, is that a choice or a genetic predisposition, or an environmental factor? I think it doesn't matter if being gay is a choice or not. Fact is, there are gays in Iran.
It's hard to understand how anyone can see a man who denies the Holocaust and that it requires more "research" when the excessive orgy of evidence out there including holocaust survivors and a whole library of records in germany detailing each name and how each person was killed hand written no less - it's hard to under how anyone can see a man who say 9/11 was a conspiracy, who preches hate against america, and says Israel should just disappear as being very smart. A master of psychological warfare? Hardly. Playing us for a fiddle, yeah, in that he's developing nukes and liberals think he's not. That's the hilarious thing...because why would he deny having the fuel produced for him by other countries if all he was interested in was using the stuff for nuclear energy. he's not. he wants the a-bomb, and everyone knows it.
I think the oh-no-gay-people issue could derail an otherwise interesting topic, but I'll post it again: Make of this what you will, but over 550 animal species have now demonstrated gay preference in the wild (no, not just an occasional mount or something... sustained behavior over time for a small percentage of the population). If it is a choice, it is the prevalent choice of mammals to have gay constituents. There are mammals in Iran other than humans, also. So there are definitely gay humans and animals in Iran. That was a Borat-worthy statement from Mr. Iran President Guy.
You spoke of freedom of speech before. Being allowed to speak because you were invited to do so is not freedom of speech. Freedom of speech means nothing if its only granted to the invited. In the case of him visiting Ground Zero, this seems to me to be an issue of freedom of expression. The site is a public venue, not a private cemetery. You, and others, don't want him there because of the message it sends -- politically to the world abroad and personally to the families of 9/11 victims. If that's your position, fine, but don't say that we're allowing him to speak at Columbia University because we really value freedom of speech. That's nonsense.
First of all, he's not a citizen of the U.S. - he has no rights. Yet, our gov't allowed him to speak at Columbia - they did not interfere. Ground Zero is both a public venue and a private cemetery. The land is not public, it's owned by someone. And the sidewalks are owned by us, the taxpayers, and the gov't represents our interests. He he wants to visit ground zero, he can start by condemning the hijackers and Al Qaeda for doing this. He can say that the terrorists behind this are not Martyrs, and that there needs to be change in Muslim-Western relations. If he used his freedom of speech to express that, I'd totally welcome him to visit ground zero.
Nah. Let him show up. Let him make an even bigger fool of himself in front of the world. Hell, freakin' France is ready to take that guy out. You have to be a real jackass for France to muster up the anger to want you gone!!
This whole "rights" thing amuses me. I'm still trying to understand why a man who is a hostile foreigner somehow has "freedom of expression" rights to visit a site in the US. If you asked me, that's utter BS. He doesn't have any rights, only privileges that are afforded him by the United States of America. And furthermore, visiting a place has nothing to do with "freedom of expression". That's nothing but a BS attempt to supply justification for the argument that he should be allowed to visit ground zero. And if you asked me, I don't have too much of a problem watching a lunatic open his mouth and spew nonsense. I do have a problem with said lunatic supporting terrorists, calling 9/11 an inside job and then visiting the site to piss all over the graves of thousands of fallen Americans. That is just one privilege too many. We champion the cause of basic human rights. Free speech is one of those rights, but going anywhere you want for whatever reason isn't.
i would agree , in that too often people confuse "rights" with privileges. The freedom of speech excuse for doing something is too often thrown around incorrectly.
I understand that he isn't legally entitled to freedom of speech, or other rights given to US citizens. But should freedom of speech merely be a privilege we give to tax-payers, or do we care about it in principle? Yes, we can restrict him from visiting the sites -- we are within our legal bounds to do so. It is our country, after all. But, is it the principled thing to do? If we really value freedom of expression, in principle, than I would argue that it is not.
he has a platform to express himself already. He's allowed access to our media, he's allowed to speak at our universities. He has freedom of speech, we've granted that despite him being the leader of a nation we could potentially go to war with and have no diplomatic relations with. Why on earth must we allow him to hurt millions of Americans by allowing him to visit a place where has already insulted. His presence there is just not right. And it would create a ten times stronger reaction than him visiting columbia university. Why give this man that? What if he really is there to make a mockery of us and uses it back home to show on Iranian TV how he came to ground zero to give a blessing to allah for the martyrs lives??? He's our enemy - he shouldn't be allowed to visit the memorial of our dead, who deaths he even suggests was at our gov't hands! That's desecration in and of itself. No way. He can say whatever he wants, but that doesn't mean we need to let him go to ground zero.
You say that free speech is a "basic human right." That implies it's a right that should be extended to all people, not only citizens or tax payers. Then, you say that him visiting the 9/11 site is tantamount to pissing all over the graves of the victims, in other words you find it unbearably offensive. That crosses a line for you. After a point, free speech is just not worth it. Is that a correct reading of your post, or am I twisting the meaning of your words?
Don't confuse the issue. It is not a physical desecration. It's the idea of him being at the site that you find intolerable. You are constraining the bounds of free speech for this man, in this case. But if we don't grant full free speech to our political/ideological enemies, doesn't that taint it? "Yes, you may express yourself, just don't cross the line." I think that's a dangerous way of thinking.
