Flanary Might Hold
the State Accountable for Excessive Charges and Bail
"I have been practicing law for 10 years, I've represented murderers, terrorists, rapists. Anything you can think of," Flanary told NPR on July 3. "I have never seen a bond at $500,000."
New Braunfels police Lt. John Wells tried to sound sympathetic, calling the situation "unfortunate," but then went on to proclaim Carter Guilty of the terrorist threat. "We take those very seriously," he said, although the interviewer didn't ask why he hadn't taken it seriously enough to investigate it carefully.
Instead NPR's Elise Hu concluded with a comment that serves as a paradigm of the soft-headed unctuousness of most mainstream media coverage, tagging the story like this: "A painful reminder of how online comments can have real-life consequences."
At Least the National
Review Showed a Bit of Moral Muscle
Getting it right was Englishman Charles C. W. Cooke writing for the National Review Online. He opened by noting that Justin Carter was "ruthlessly stripped of his freedom for making an offensive joke."
He closed with: "Carter must be set free and this insidious precedent smashed to pieces. Our liberty depends on it."
In between, he noted that "it is not the place of authority to judge what is and what is not acceptable [speech], and it is certainly not the place of the state to designate casual discussion as "terrorism."
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
