Conscience of a Conservative: Free Speech on the Animal Farm. Everyone has it but some have it more than others.

Two years ago the U.S. Supreme Court heard the arguments about the limits of Free Speech when the father of a U.S. soldier killed in battle sued the Westboro Baptist Church for picketing his son's funeral with signs that read THANK GOD FOR DEAD SOLDIERS. Albert Snyder undertook the lawsuit after the church picketed the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq. Snyder says that Phelps and his followers ruined his one chance to bury his son in peace, and he wanted to stop the Westboro Baptist from doing it to any other families. Eight of the nine Justices didn't agree with him. The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Westboro Baptist Church saying that no matter how reprehensible the message was these people had a right to carry the signs. After all, Free Speech is more important than anything else which is why it is the First Right in the Bill of Rights of our U.S. Constitution.

But now that the target of an anti-Jihad message is NOT a Christian, it seems the whole argument is being made again. Pamela Geller, who runs the web site Atlas Shrugs, has been an ardent supporter of Israel and a severe critic of Islamic violence against Jews and Christians and members of all other religions around the world who are being persecuted by Muslims. She has produced an advertisement sign with a simple message that no one could possible disagree with. The sign has a simple, direct message: "IN ANY WAR BETWEEN THE CIVILIZED MAN AND THE SAVAGE, SUPPORT THE CIVILIZED MAN" "SUPPORT ISRAEL - DEFEAT JIHAD". But a lot of left-wing loonies, most of whom are probably mindless Obamabots, who seem to be against anyone who supports the side of the civilized man, are claiming the message is hate speech. Not that the message calls for hate against anyone, it just says "Defeat Jihad" which in Islam means Muslims claim the right to kill and torture anyone who is not a Muslim, which happens to be a rather uncivilized concept.

So this argument has now found its way back into a U.S. Federal Court in Washington, D.C. and here is the first hand account of what took place, written by Pamela Geller, herself. If I am reading these comments correctly, it seems like the lawyers opposing Pamela Geller have taken their legal strategy right out of George Orwell's book The Animal Farm. And who can forget that famous scene where the sign went up on the barn that said: "ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL" but when the pigs took over the farm they added the text: "BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS."

Pamela Geller in front of her Support Israel ad.

Free speech under siege in U.S. District Court in the nation's capital

It was quite an eventful day in Washington today. Pamela Geller has a full report:
Today was a dark day in American history, but you'd never know because the media is complicit in this sharia enforcement. I had a front-row seat to witness the rape of the First Amendment in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Rosemary Collyer, presiding. Robert Spencer and I went down to Washington as defenders of America's most fundamental and unalienable right. And in return, we had the sad misfortune of watching a U.S. District Court Judge discard, denigrate, downplay and dismiss our most basic law of the land: the freedom of speech.

The Judge went out of her way to validate and substantiate the ridiculous premise of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), that the AFDI pro-freedom ad would endanger passengers on the D.C. subways and thus must not be posted, or at least delayed until some (fanciful) time when the jihad threat would subside. It was painful to watch Judge Collyer almost physically wrestling with the First Amendment, trying to tackle it and pin it to the floor. But the First Amendment was much too wily for the wrongheaded, utterly subjective, and clueless judge.

Philip Staub, the lawyer for WMATA, invoked the international Muslim riots that have been blamed (falsely) on the Muhammad video, and said the WMATA had received an email threatening them if they posted our ad. He was, in other words, counseling submission to violent Muslim intimidation, and the curtailing of the freedom of speech to appease savages. He made the laughable argument that if the ad ran after November 1, the threat would have subsided by then, and would be well -- as if the jihad terror threat would completely die down by then. Judge Collyer then asked him if the ads could be posted sooner if they were moved away from the train platforms, so that passengers would be less likely to get caught up in fights or terrorist attacks over them. He seemed open to that idea.

The whole issue about moving the ads represented the judge’s attempt to find a way to accommodate the WMATA’s fearmongering argument that the ad would endanger passengers. And is that now the American response to threats of violence from a fascist ideology – to accede and submit to that very same fascist ideology? The judge was an embarrassment to every proud American who understands what is at stake. I can’t speak for our lawyer, Robert Muise, but his frustration was palpable.

Staub also argued that the ad constituted fighting words, but here even Judge Collyer couldn’t go along with what he was saying, although she struggled mightily to do so. She gently pointed out to Staub, whom she treated with kid gloves and like a special-needs child the whole afternoon, leading him by the hand to the disbelief of the open court (in sharp contradistinction to her frequent interruptions and contradictions of Robert Muise – stop making sense!), that for the ad to constitute fighting words, there had to be an imminent threat of violence. But the ads have run without incident in San Francisco and New York – they were vandalized in New York in an attempt to shut down free speech, but there was no violence aside from Muslim Brotherhood poster girl Mona Eltahawy’s pink spray can) – and so it was impossible for Staub or Collyer to sustain the idea that they constituted an imminent threat to the safety of the passengers. But Collyer certainly tried, coaching and coaxing Staub, and at one point saying to him, “The imminence issue is hard for me to get to. Just trying to tell you where I am going.” She never gave Muise any such hints.
Collyer further coached Staub by saying that she assumed – assumed! – that he was arguing (since he was so inept at actually doing so, the point wasn’t clear) that the government’s “compelling interest” in refusing or delaying these ads was concern for the safety of the passengers. She then said, with obvious reluctance, that against that concern there had to be balanced “the very broadly read First Amendment,” and asked him how he thought this could be done.

Staub answered that the safety of the passengers could be balanced against the First Amendment by delaying the ads. He said that he thought things would cool down in Africa, Asia and the Middle East by November 1, and that the ads could run then. Remember, guys, we’re talking about four little ads here, and the WMATA is talking about unrest on two continents. That’s how paralyzed with fear of savages the U.S. Government has become.

Then our lawyer, Robert Muise, called for an immediate injunction overruling WMATA’s delay and ordering that the ads run immediately. He cited ample legal precedent to show that it was an established point of law that the delay of a citizen’s freedom of speech constituted irreparable harm.

But then Judge Collyer broke in with her most disquieting, most un-American argument of all. She said that while Muise was arguing that the ad was core political speech, and thus the most protected category of speech of all, Collyer said, “I see hate speech. When you defend this ad as core political speech, I have a problem with that." Muise pointed out that U.S. District Court Judge Paul Engelmayer in New York had ruled that the very same ad was core political speech, Collyer said peremptorily that she disagreed with Judge Engelmayer, and rudely cut Muise off when he tried to explain that the ad was not hate speech and that the main part of it -- "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man" -- was adapted from the work of Ayn Rand. Collyer snapped defensively that she knew who Ayn Rand was and still thought the ad was hate speech, constituting a hateful message.

The ad is not hate speech, it's love speech. It's love of life speech. The ad speaks to the defense of freedom and individual rights for all. There's nothing hateful about it. 9/11 was hate. 3/11 in Madrid was hate. 7/7 in London was hate. The Fort Hood jihadi was hate. The Christmas balls bomber was hate. The Fort Dix Six was hate. Pushing back against such hate is not hate. This poor woman hasn't a clue as to the jihadic doctrine that relentlessly seeks to violently impose Islamic law and pursues jihad against non-Muslims. Judge Collyer is on her own personal jihad to defend and sanction the very dull knife that will be employed to cut her own head off.

Read the rest here: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/10/free-speech-under-siege-in-us-district-court.html

Viewing the tragic events in the world today it is easy to say that Islam is anything but civilized and certainly not 'a religion of peace", not when they openly proclaim that anyone who insults their religion should be beheaded. Not when they burn down Christian churches with the people still inside. Let them be the proof of this in their own words and deeds. That sign that announces the number of deadly Islamic attacks is outdated. The total today is 19,702. Yet our own government supports the National Endowment For The Arts that proudly displays such anti-Christian profanity as the Piss Christ statue with a Crucifix submersed in a vat of urine. And no Christian has ever attacked anyone for doing it or called for an act of violence in protest.

My name is Nelson Abdullah and I am Oldironsides.

UPDATED AT 5:25 PM
Pamela Geller's web site, Atlas Shrugs, says the District Court has issued an order to Washington Metro to display display AFDI ads. First Amendment victory.

WE WIN IN DC! Judge issues order - anti-jihad ads to run ASAP
The Judge must have read the case law and saw how utterly wrong she was. She just handed us complete victory. Props to Judge Collyer for vetting all sides, perhaps playing devil's advocate and ruling correctly despite many a false premise. Everybody dance now! Download Pdf(11)

WMATA said that they will comply with the order (no appeal, apparently).

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

) AMERICAN FREEDOM DEFENSE ) INITIATIVE, et al., ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) v. ) ) WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN ) AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY, et al., ) ) Defendants. ) )

Civil Action No. 12-1564 (RMC)

ORDER

ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction [Dkt. 2] is GRANTED under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution; and it is
FURTHER ORDERED that Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority display Plaintiffs’ advertisement no later than 5 p.m. on October 8, 2012.
The Court issues its Order promptly and will issue an opinion hereafter. SO ORDERED.