Is there really any free speech in the US?

Question

One little old lady isn’t going to grovel before the Jewish power structure. Helen Thomas, a reporter who has been firing gutsy questions at presidents of the United States for longer than most of us have been alive, recently got in trouble for suggesting the Jews should leave Palestine.

The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reports: “Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has acknowledged she touched a nerve with remarks about Israel that led to her retirement. But she says the comments were ‘exactly what I thought,’ even though she realized soon afterward that it was the end of her job. ‘I hit the third rail. You cannot criticize Israel in this country and survive,’ Thomas told Ohio station WMRN-AM in a sometimes emotional 35-minute interview that aired Tuesday. It was recorded a week earlier by WMRN reporter Scott Spears at Thomas’ Washington, D.C., condominium.”

I thought we had Free Speech in America. Why then do so many people lose their jobs for telling the truth about the Jews or the minorities? You can’t fire someone because they are Black, but you can sure as heck fire someone for an offhand remark that their employer doesn’t approve of. Maybe free speech should be protected –that seems like a much more important “civil right” for a free people.
Ha’aretz goes on: “Thomas, 90, stepped down from her job as a columnist for Hearst News Service in June after a rabbi and independent filmmaker videotaped her outside the White House calling on Israelis to get out of Palestine. She gave up her front row seat in the White House press room, where she had aimed often pointed questions at 10 presidents, going back to Eisenhower. She has kept a low profile since then. ‘It was very hard for the first two weeks. After that, I came out of my coma,’ said Thomas, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Lebanon. Rabbi David Nesenoff, who runs the website rabbilive.com, said he approached Thomas after he’d been at the White House for Jewish Heritage Day on May 27. He asked whether she had any comments on Israel. ‘Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine,’ she replied. ‘Remember, these people are occupied and it’s their land. It’s not Germany, it’s not Poland,’ she continued. Asked where they should go, she answered, ‘They should go home.’ ‘Where’s home?’ Nesenoff asked. ‘Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else,’ Thomas replied. ‘I told him exactly what I thought,’ she told Spears…”

A 60-year career went right down the tubes for speaking out loud two or three sentences containing a forbidden truth. Maybe Helen Thomas thought after all those years in the very seat of power that she was immune from the Unwritten Rules. She found out different. The Jews had to make an example of her, specifically to show that no one, no one, within the System may utter a single critical word about Israel and expect to “survive” in the professional sense. Ironically, it is incidents like these which prove the very point some of these celebrities are trying to make about the power of the Jews.

Americans don’t like being told what to do or what to say. Whether it’s a growing list of politically correct taboos or simple Jewish tyranny. There’s a growing rebellion here in America, and the Tea party is only the start of it. Just wait until we get to the Jewish problem.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/helen-thomas-you-cannot-criticize-israel-in-the-u-s-and-survive-1.318705

http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/helen-thomas-you-cannot-criticize-israel-in-the-u-s-and-survive-1.318705

Answer 1

freedom of speech protects citizens from the govt...not from their employers



although Helen Thomas was 100% correct...its politically incorrect to criticize anything Israel does - illegal or not

Answer 2

"You can’t fire someone because they are Black, but you can sure as heck fire someone for an offhand remark that their employer doesn’t approve of."

-You can fire people for being incompetent regardless of race. In other countries, you can't even do that.



Did she say the Jews should leave Israel or Palestine? I think they should leave Palestine---if they really want a two state solution, stop violating it.

Answer 3

An example of free speech is talk radio. The Obama administration tried to shut it down, it would have been shut down in Kenya. Lombardy and Beck and Fox News would not exist in Obama's home country( as Michelle describes it), that is our Freedom of Speech. The employers are something else......~

Answer 4

Freedom of speech is not speech without consequence. You can't call your boss an ahole and expect to get by with it. Sanchez was fired for calling Stewart a bigot. Rather was fired for speaking lies. We have no Jewish problem. They are not conducting violent protests like the Black Panthers and La Raza. The Jews don't riot during natural disasters or when they are upset over some current event. Leave them alone. They are not hurting anyone.

Answer 5

This is hardly recent.



And the First Amendment protects you from the government infringing on your freedom of expression. Thomas was fired by her private employer, which they had every right to do. Freedom of speech does not equal speech without consequences.

Answer 6

Her free speech rights were not violated. She was not jailed, nor was she attacked physically, nor did anyone attempt to kill her (whether or not they were successful).



Remember that the business that she worked for also has freedom of speech. They did not attempt to harm her in any way, they simply wanted the freedom to not have her remarks count against them. It was not their speech, and she was forcing it on them.



Whether you agree with Helen Thomas or not, the business has the right to maintain their own freedom of speech. She chose to represent them, and as such she immediately agreed to present their views over her own, until such time as she agrees to no longer represent them (quit her job). Notice that I did not say that she agreed to hold the same views, only that she agreed not to misrepresent their views while she was their representative.



When someone tries to jail her, attack her, or kill her, then you will have a point. Until that time, her freedom of speech was not violated, and attempts to force the business to keep her as a representative even when she misrepresents their views would be a violation of freedom of speech.

Answer 7

Hey Brian,



Don't try to tie your racist, anti semitic views to the Tea Party in America. We reject and renounce people like you. Go sell it somewhere else.