Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Letters: PC, global-warming lies, and water

In today's letterbox -- oddly enough, all from locals -- Jeff Tate stands up courageously for the right of rich broadcasters to insult innocent women, Ronald Kotfila stands up courageously against worldwide scientific consensus, and Jim Hamm asks whether, given that we're short of water, we ought not to stop dumping so much of it in the garden. Dumb question, Jim.

5 comments:

leftturnclyde said...

I totally agree with the last Paragraph of Jeff Tates Letter
"the First Amendment protects all speech, not just what we agree with. Better we tolerate people like Don Imus and Howard Stern, regardless of whether we listen to them, than to stifle free expression."
Jim Hamms Letter gets a "YA THINK?" from me

as for the nearly psychotic letter from Ronald P. Kotfila... Suddenly I understand why the couruer goes to the out of town letters so much

look at the wonderous things that come up when you do a wiki search on
S. Fred Singer Heres a Link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Singer

heres a link to the Science and Environmental policy project Page
that he runs

http://www.sepp.org/

and while your at it have a look at Dennis T. Avery's Center for Global Food Issue's web Page.
heres a link

http://www.cgfi.org/

OH MY GOD! these are the guys Ronald P. Kotfila is begging us to read ?(snort chortle).I started to Run down each Induhvidual case of Bad science but I figured you would have the same kind o giggles I had and this post is aready way tooooo long.
But Ronald P. Kotfila does make one valid point (which is unfortunately aimed at only those of us who are worshipping Al Gore)
I quote from his hilarious letter
" I suggest you should stop driving cars and stop using electricity and gas in your home. Lets get the truth out."
If you had been payin attention ,Ronald P. Kotfila, thats what Al's Been Sayin all Along

Anonymous said...

jeff tate does not say how, exactly,
don imus' free expression was stifled. did someone come to his door in the middle of the night and drag him off to abu ghraib? cut his tongue out?

he was publicly pilloried and fired for saying things on the air that nearly everyone agrees he should not have said. but no one is suggesting that he be arrested or tried for having said them.

just because someone has the right to say something doesn't mean it should be broadcast. and it certainly doesn't mean that he has a right to an audience or to get paid for talking.

Steven Ayres said...

=> it certainly doesn't mean that he has a right to an audience or to get paid for talking.

Exactly. We have the right to speak, but we must also accept the consequences. The action taken against Imus was not by the government.

leftturnclyde said...

So what you're sayin is its only censorship if a government takes action against you for saying whats on your mind Hmmmmm.
Ill keep that in mind

Steven Ayres said...

Right -- your employer has a right to protect his business from your mouth, and I think that's especially true in the communications industry and media.

I get how that may seem a a dubious proposition when the speaker has relatively less power than the employer. That's why we have whistle-blower laws and the like. But the right to speech does not include a no-consequences clause.