Excuse me?

Why was it that during the Bush administration any demonstration or protest--or even mob action--by the Left was heralded as a victory for freedom of speech, but now when independents and conservatives are protesting and demonstrating they're "mobs" and "extremists"? What happened to "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism"? Why is it wrong to question the actions of the administration when they have repeatedly made inexcusable attempts to leave no room for debate themselves?

More on this at Hot Air:

Needless to say, this is the left’s pitiful — and ironic, given the lip service paid above to “thoughtful discussion” — strategy to win the ObamaCare debate by framing the GOP as stone-cold nuts before its own message machine gets rolling during the recess this month. Already today, we’ve had Axelrod whining on MSNBC about “fearmongering” (more irony!), Boxer fretting about people in suits “storming” the town halls, and smilin’ Dick Durbin lamenting that “tea baggers” are trying to turn the meetings into “free for alls.” Isn’t that what the left did for years in public meetings about the war, asked Jake Tapper of Gibbs earlier today.

And more here, as well:

- People who want Congress to take more time debating healthcare are shutting down debate.
- Pres. Obama says the time for talk on healthcare is over, but his critics are trying to shut down debate.
- Harrassing and threatening the families of AIG employees is awesome; razzing Representatives and Senators is totally bogus!
- Asking Representatives and Senators to read bills before voting on them is killing democracy.
- Sen. Specter saying “we have to make judgments very fast” is awesome. Booing him for saying so is shutting off debate.
- Healthcare protesters are thugs shutting off debate; antiwar protesters are “rowdy.”

Heaven help us all if we are not allowed to speak out against issues that affect us all. What happened to representative government? I may not have liked what many of the left protesters had to say, but I would never have questioned their right to protest. I guess it was expecting too much that they would return the courtesy--I mean, right.

State Department, Twitter, and the Iran Protests

I had heard nothing about this until yesterday in an interview with the president of a new internet startup.

Twitter, as most know by now, has become a critical link to the outside world for the protest movement in Iran. When the State Department found out that Twitter had a maintenance outage scheduled for the middle of the day Tehran time, they asked the company to reschedule so as not to disrupt service in Iran. Twitter agreed, and the outage occurred during the day in America instead.

However, over all, the administration gets a mixed grade for protecting internet freedom of speech abroad:

The week before supporters of Mousavi were Tweeting and coming together in the streets, China announced it would require the installation of a Web-blocking program called “Green Dam Youth Escort” on all new computers in the country. While ostensibly meant to block pornography and violent images, many technology experts pointed to its ability to block sites that are politically distasteful to the communist government. Chinese lawyers, academics, and even many in Silicon Valley were up in arms and vocal with their criticism, but Washington stayed silent. The Chinese government ultimately relaxed the requirement, but battles still loom, especially in Iran.

Freedom of Speech Under Fire?

(hat-tip Instapundit) An Oklahoma City man gets pulled over for having sign on his vehicle reading "Abort Obama, not the unborn". The policeman confiscated the sign and informed the man he was now part of an investigation. Internal Investigations later returned the man's sign. But next the Secret Service show up at the man's house and ask to walk through the house to make sure the man wasn't part of any hate groups.

Somehow I don't think anyone would have looked twice if it had said "Abort Bush". The double-standard here is quite sad, and disturbing as well.