[link|http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/28015.htm|And what if I don't?]

Excerpt:

The shut-up message was more explicit later outside of the midtown
headquarters of Fox News and The Post.

There, the crowd of protesters - many of the same people who have cried
foul every time they've been denied a permit or asked not to lie down in
the middle of an intersection - chanted this free-speech mantra at a
news organization:

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

I moved through the crowd asking protesters to reconcile their demand to
be heard with their demand that people who disagree with them shut up.

The response of Geof Teague, 27, in town from San Francisco, was a bit
startling: "It's not free speech if you're telling lies. . . . When
you're a news agency, you're supposed to tell the truth."

No one would argue with Teague on the latter part, but dissidents from
totalitarian regimes might recognize the logic of trying to shut down
those who don't see the "truth" quite the same way you do.

One particularly obnoxious young woman answered my question by saying it
would be "soooooo terrible if we didn't have Fox News telling us what to
think."

When I challenged anyone in the group to answer seriously, an older man,
Frank, who seemed a bit embarrassed by his cohorts, said that the
shut-up chant was meant to mimic how Fox News host Bill O'Reilly treats
his guests.

If that was their intent, only some in the crowd seemed to get it. And,
even accepting that excuse for the shut-up chant, one would be hard
pressed to explain how "Fox News off the air!" (another of the chants)
is an acceptable message to anyone with even a modicum of respect for
opposing viewpoints.

And then there was the call-and-response: "Whose airwaves? Our airwaves!"
(I didn't have the heart to explain to them that Fox News is a cable
network.)

The right in America is often (falsely) said to want to stifle dissent.
But anyone who has been around the protests this week knows that an
element of the left - not entirely relegated to the fringes - is
intensely intolerant.

I say:

[link|http://slate.msn.com/features/PCW/|Tolerance is not for everybody]

"We strongly support free speech, where appropriate. We oppose all that
is incorrect. And we'll determine what that means."

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