The Chinese government confirmed Wednesday what journalists arriving at the lavishly outfitted media center here had suspected: Contrary to previous assurances by Olympic and government officials, the Internet would be censored during the upcoming games. [...]No surprises here. Lord knows the IOC doesn't haven't the balls to stand up to them, but one could have hoped the United States would at least mention the active censorship and lack of freedom in China. I've never been in favor a full boycott of the 2008 Games, however I have always been of the opinion that we should only send low level representatives to the Beijing. Having the President of the United States, or the leader of any nation in the free world, at the games sends a message to China that their conduct is acceptable. Mr. President, stay home.
On Wednesday - two weeks after its most recent proclamation of an uncensored Internet during the Summer Games - the International Olympic Committee quietly agreed to some of the limitations, according to Kevan Gosper, chairman of the IOC press commission, Reuters reported.
Some prominent legal scholars say the United States should reconsider its position on hate speech.
"It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken," Jeremy Waldron, a legal philosopher, wrote in The New York Review of Books last month, "when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack."
Waldron was reviewing "Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment" by Anthony Lewis, the former New York Times columnist. Lewis has been critical of attempts to use the law to limit hate speech.
But even Lewis, a liberal, wrote in his book that he was inclined to relax some of the most stringent First Amendment protections "in an age when words have inspired acts of mass murder and terrorism." In particular, he called for a re-examination of the Supreme Court's insistence that there is only one justification for making incitement a criminal offense: the likelihood of imminent violence.
For those books already in the state’s public and university libraries, Allen suggests that people “dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them.”
“[P]lays glamorizing homosexuality, books advocating gay and lesbian activities, public financial support for activities organized by homosexuals have created an undue influence on the children in our schools,” Allen said in a statement. “Whether inborn or acquired, [homosexuality] is still, like all sexual contact apart from marriage, immoral.”
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