Free Speech And Yoo plus my two cents worth.

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Law: "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism," those on the left were fond of saying when President Bush was in office. Today, with a Democratic president in power, we're finding out what a cynical pose that is.


That can be seen in the sad case of John Yoo, a brilliant law professor from the University of California at Berkeley known for his staunch support of the Constitution.

Yoo, working for the Justice Department from 2001 to 2003, allegedly wrote what the left absurdly calls the "torture memos," which justified the kind of tough, coercive interrogations the military used to break up a number of terrorist plots after 9/11.

Yoo runs the gantlet at Berkeley.
Yet today, for rendering his honest legal opinion to President Bush, Yoo finds himself vilified and attacked by the left — with loud calls for Berkeley's Boalt Hall Law School to fire him.

The campaign of harassment and intimidation against Yoo is sickening. Yoo and his family have been verbally assaulted, spat upon and threatened.

On Monday, returning to school, he was met with shouts of "war criminal" by "war protesters" — those who yelled similar things at President Bush but who now under a Democrat utter nary a peep of protest.
Yoo's case shows how those on the extreme left deal with free speech that isn't their own. As blogger Andrew Breitbart noted, it comes straight out of radical organizer Saul Alinsky's playbook: "Rule 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."
Change the target from right to left, and you'd have a phalanx of ACLU lawyers coming to his defense. Left-leaning think tanks, always keen to support "civil rights," would take up the cudgel.

Not this time. Berkeley law school dean Christopher Edley Jr. rejected calls to fire Yoo, but his reason was pathetic. The university, he said, didn't have the resources to investigate Yoo's work fully.

Memo to Edley: Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution explicitly gives the president the right to "require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices . . ."

It seems clear that Yoo is covered. Maybe the federal judge who recently ruled Yoo could be sued for his legal opinions by convicted terrorist Jose Padilla should also actually read the Constitution.

Sadly, Yoo isn't the only recent target of hatred and intolerance of any opposition to the left's far-reaching agenda.

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey incurred its wrath by suggesting a massive government takeover of health care was a bad idea. Now, for Mackey's apostasy from liberal orthodoxy, the left is organizing a nationwide boycott of his grocery chain.

This is how the left works these days. It's a sad state of affairs when those who make the greatest claims of constitutional rights for their own behavior are the least willing to grant them

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I have some words to say on this matter. I am deeply troubled by how much truth I really do see in what this author is saying. I wish it weren't true, but it is. It is ironic to me how hypocritical the far left has become when it comes to certain issues, this is one those issues. They championed the protesters when it was they who were out of power, no matter how unruly and nasty the protests were. Trust me when I say some of them seemed pretty nasty and more like the angry mob that the frustrated citizens voicing their concern of late over "healthcare reform" ever have. Why is it OK for people to burn effigies of Bush, to scream and yell and chant, to spit on people and get truly violent physically with them? But when concerned citizens most of whom are guilty of nothing more than some yelling and in some cases no more than a few pointed direct questions- respectfully but forcefully asked- try to make their voices heard, they are threatened and bullied and at best ignored. So community organizing is only OK when it's the lefts opinion that is being heard, but not anyone else's?
I am not saying there are those on the right that haven't stepped over the line at times or that the right is perfect- they are far from it. What I am saying is that free speech really does seem to be a one way street these days and that is just scary to me. It goes beyond party lines. It goes to one of the core values that made this country great- the right to say what we think and be well and truly heard, not threatened and vilified.
You don't have to have liked Bush or even have agreed with him to understand what I am saying and to see the truth in my words. Free speech is in jeopardy and it is up to those of us who still know how to respectfully disagree with each other and not get nasty about it to change this turn of events. I am guilty myself sometimes of getting a little to vehement with my opinions and I am working on that, but I wont apologize for disagreeing with the far left on most issues and will defend to the death the right to do so, hopefully without fear of being punished for it in the end.

We all on the left and the right and in the middle (lol) need to take a stand and say no more. Let's talk about it, but let it be a two way street and let it be civilized. What say you? I'm game.