American Thinker puts up some of the best posts in the right-o-sphere on the regular.
I don’t know how this one from Peter B. Martin got through to the front page
Where has liberty of expression gone? Was it slain at Stanford? Was it harried away at Harvard? Crucified in church? Condemned by Conservative pressure groups? Struck down in the street? Tolerance appears to be a forgotten virtue; are we back in the era when the world was flat?
It is deplorable to read ever more frequently, about people being upbraided for speaking their minds. During this last election campaign anyone who dared speak their mind risked being hauled over the coals; it is like the inquisition all over again. And it is not just conservatives who risk harassment
A good example is what happened to this top-grade gunsmith. Dan Cooper, founder of Cooper Arms of Montana, long-time member of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and staunch Republican was sacked for supporting Obama after thousands of irate emails and phone calls engulfed the office threatening to never buy the company’s guns again. Things have gone too far when citizens are criticized (read censured) for their political beliefs; one could expect that in Zimbabwe or under Muslim rule but not in the United States.
Dan Cooper publicly supported the major party candidate whose personal beliefs and past actions were an affront to the civil rights afforded to his customers via the 2nd Amendment.
He was, in a very real sense, working to put his company, as well as other firearms manufacturers, out of business with his political support of said candidate.
He was not sacked. He was asked to resign or otherwise be sacked. He was costing the company money and thereby endangering the livelihood of the other employees of Cooper Arms.
I would like to know exactly what other remedy does Mr. Martin believe the company had other than to ask for a resignation?
If a CEO of a software company publicly supported a candidate whose policy platform stated that he planned to bring about the return of forced racial segregation, would not that company be correct to ask that CEO to leave?
Or does Mr. Martin believe that the “irate emails and phone calls” “threatening to never buy the company’s software again” would be unjustified in that case as well?
That’s his right to support whoever he wants, no matter how foolish.
It’s the public’s right to refuse to do business with him, as that WOULD cause us harm.
Kind of like a free market thing!
Merle
Liberals don’t understand how free speech works. They never have and never well. Freakin’ morons one and all.
They all wigged out when the same thing happened to the Dixie Chicks. The irony of them coming to Cooper’s defense is quite humorous though.
up until the third paragraph I thought he was talking about Sarah Palin…
Liberals understand how “Free Speech” works only in the context of their own past lore of the Berkeley “Free Speech Movement” – everything else is hate-speech to them. Sarah Palin indeed.
Freedom to act means freedom to accept consequences.
It does not mean freedom from consequences.