Via yesterday’s Union Leader Gingrich defends free speech curbs:
In an interview, Gingrich said it is possible to distinguish between terrorists and others when looking to fight threatening expression.“If you give me any signal in the age of terrorism that you’re a terrorist, I’d say the burden of proof was on you,” Gingrich said.
Ok, so not only does he want to do away with speech that he doesn’t like, he wants to toss out the bedrock foundation of our criminal justice system, which is predicated on the notion that suspects are innocent until proven guilty.
Lovely.
Here’s hoping that the man doesn’t run for the presidency in ‘08.
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December 18th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
Gingrich’s remarks were in the context of the six imams causing the ruckuss a couple of weeks ago.
They acted like terrorists and then were insulted when confronted by the flight crew. As Gingrich said, now the burden is on them to prove they are not a threat before being allowed to fly.
This is not an attempt to change the justice system. Suspects are held and questioned routinely for ceratin behaviors.
By the way, I’d vote for Gingrich, he’s very smart.
December 18th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Actually, no: go back and re-read the article. The quote that I plucked out was focused on the broader question os distinguishing between different cases of “expression” (i.e., speech).
And even when we pick up suspects, the burden of proof for guilt is still on the state, not the suspect.
And lot of people are smart–that doesn’t mean that they should be president.
December 19th, 2006 at 4:15 am
[...] December 19, 2006 A Presidential contender? Dan on 2006-12-19 @ 12:30 am Steven Taylor of Poliblogger has been blowing my mind with somequotes from Newt Gingrich. Here’s how bad it is — it makes Hillary look like a desirable alternative. First this: In an interview, Gingrich said it is possible to distinguish between terrorists and others when looking to fight threatening expression. [...]
December 19th, 2006 at 11:15 am
Newt Gingrich and the GOP’s culture of fear
It wasn’t so long ago that conservatives were all for free speech, particularly on university campuses, where they opposed p.c. speech codes. (At Tufts in the early- to mid-’90s, during the culture wars, I was with them on this, and, indeed, with my …