Utterly Meaningless » Blog Archive » CROSSING THE BOYCOTT LINE
  • CROSSING THE BOYCOTT LINE

    Filed at 8:27 am under by dcobranchi

    Scott Somerville needs a loooong vacation. Or, maybe, he’s just been reading the RightWingTalkingPoints too much.

    A free press is the most important right guaranteed by the Constitution; all others hang by that thin thread. Bush et al. love to work in secret. But our government is not designed to work that way. The press is SUPPOSED to work to expose whatever nefarious/immoral/illegal/questionable schemes the Administration cooks up.

    Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.– Thomas Jefferson

    Yeah, Scott, I’m annoying. But I’m right, too.

    UPDATE: A lawyer who knows his stuff.

    16 Responses to “CROSSING THE BOYCOTT LINE”


    Comment by
    Unique
    June 28th, 2006
    at 8:56 am

    I don’t know what he needs but if he trusts the government to do the right thing for the people all the time, he’s not as smart as he looks.


    Comment by
    Nance Confer
    June 28th, 2006
    at 10:32 am

    The great thing about this country, along with a free press, is Scott’s right to be completely wrong.

    And to be free to publish his feelings on his blog.

    And to urge others to boycott products if they agree with him. Seems to me some other blogger did that recently. 🙂

    What a country! 🙂

    Nance


    Comment by
    Daryl Cobranchi
    June 28th, 2006
    at 10:34 am

    Of course. And I’m using my freedom of speech/the press (I’m not sure if a blog qualifies as “the press”) to point out his overall wimpiness on this issue. “Within fallout range of the Washington monument,” indeed. Have we learned NOTHING since Condi’s smoking gun/mushroom cloud speech?


    Comment by
    Nance Confer
    June 28th, 2006
    at 10:37 am

    Well, 60% of us have. Or is it 70% now?

    Nance


    Comment by
    Daryl Cobranchi
    June 28th, 2006
    at 10:40 am

    Nance, I think I understand your comment #2, now. You were referring to the post title, right? That title isn’t referring to Scott’s call for a boycott of NYT advertisers. Instead, I meant that I was crossing my OWN boycott line by linking to HSB.

    Poor phraseology on my part. Mea maxima culpa.


    Comment by
    Audrey
    June 28th, 2006
    at 10:42 am

    Perhaps, but in the Bizarro universe that is the US right now, even that 70% can’t manage to get off their butts and impeach the b*stard. What is with that?


    Comment by
    Nance Confer
    June 28th, 2006
    at 12:48 pm

    Oh, I didn’t notice that he was posting on HSB. I was just noticing how easy it is to take our freedom to express ourselves for granted — and then try to deny that right to others, like the NYT. Too clever by half if I have to explain, though. 🙂

    And about the 60-70% of us who have done nothing to end this stupid administration — I dunno.

    There’s an election coming. . . so I hear. I wonder which two suits we will be told we can choose between. . .

    Nance


    Comment by
    Daryl Cobranchi
    June 28th, 2006
    at 1:01 pm

    The next presidential election is 11/04/08. I’ve been wearing a bracelet with that date inscribed for over 2 years. Yeah, I REALLY don’t like the Administration.


    Comment by
    Mary
    June 28th, 2006
    at 1:20 pm

    In that Scott spends a lot of time trying to discredit his/HSLDA’s critics, he apparently understands that you cannot discredit the truth, ergo, he would rather no one hear it in the first place.

    I’m just as glad the NYT publishes ‘stuff’ today as I was back in Nixon’s day. If you don’t want to read about your misdeeds in the NYT, don’t do them.


    Comment by
    Nance Confer
    June 28th, 2006
    at 4:06 pm

    I don’t care about bashing Scott and his support of HSLDA. But on a much more important level, it really is amazing that program after program, lie after lie, distortion after distortion is defended by the admin with such a consistent level of outrage. “How dare you talk about this? We are trying to get away with something here!” It’s high time more of this garbage was exposed for what it is.

    Nance


    Comment by
    sahhsm
    June 28th, 2006
    at 4:51 pm

    Here, here! In agreement with the careful approach the NYT used before releasing the story. But I diverge:

    Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.– Thomas Jefferson

    This is a brilliant quote in light of how so many homeschool groups, curriculum and charter schools are trying to hijack Christianity and our forefathers as THE only view to partake when exploring history. I mean really, could you imagine the hilarity we would have if France latched onto a similar view such as looking back to one of the Louis’ and building a new view of history and religion based on those times? Meh.

    So much of what Thom. Jefferson was, and said is so contrary to movements such as Thomas Jefferson Education and the premise of the book “American Gospel”. While there are some truths to the formation of our country and religion, those truths are being misconstrued for political purposes – especially in group think and creating something/anything for America to be unified on. America needs to back up a few steps and try again to find common grounds rather than false/drummed up mantras built from a quote here and a verse there that invariable cause more division than harmony.


    Comment by
    Rikki
    June 28th, 2006
    at 8:11 pm

    omg, now all the terrorists will quit wiring money directly from their banks to other banks and leaving an electronic trail! We are doomed! *runs in circles*

    I find it repulsive how secretive this government has been found to be. Not like I was naive enought to think they haven’t always been secretive, just I’m loathe to think that if we’ve found out *this* many things about the current administration, exactly how much more are they doing that they are getting away with?

    Kudos to the Times.


    Comment by
    Scott W. Somerville
    June 29th, 2006
    at 9:40 am

    Daryl, thanks for crossing the HSB boycott line. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to have an honest discussion with you about this issue, but didn’t feel it was fair to beat up on you on my blog, knowing you couldn’t or wouldn’t be able to take the other side.

    How about debating this issue man-on-man over at Chris’s blog? It worked pretty well for the HoNDA discussion.


    Comment by
    Daryl Cobranchi
    June 29th, 2006
    at 10:03 am

    How about debating this issue man-on-man

    Sounds a little homoerotic. 🙂

    Chris’ blog got toasted and won’t be up until later today. Why not here? I can set you up as an authorized user or you could send me your stuff via email and I can post it.

    Game?


    Comment by
    Rick in MI
    June 29th, 2006
    at 4:03 pm

    wow, hard for me to believe that those that are against publishing a perfectly legal and effective (as reported in the NYT article itself) program used to combat terrorism are being demonized as being anti-first ammendment. yep, that’s a head scratcher, fer sure.


    Comment by
    Daryl Cobranchi
    June 29th, 2006
    at 5:56 pm

    Demonized? Not quite.