A lesson in "Freedom of Speech"

Last week, Rush Limbaugh (here) a right wing talk show host, expressed his wishes for Obama to fail as a president. He said that his success would mean that liberalism would win and as a staunch conservative he does not want that to happen.

While meeting with senators on Friday, Obama jocked about it, warning the republicans from listening to Limbaugh if they want to get anything done. The media did not like that Obama mention the radio host thinking that is exactly what Limbaugh wanted !!!

Now, I don't know if you realize what it means for someone to want for his president to fail and thus for the country to fail, which is unpatriotic? In other countries this guy would have been accused of treason and jailed if he does not just disappear :).

What is amazing is that obviously Obama was irritated by this guy since he mentioned it in his meeting, and that the reaction of the analysts was that he should not have done that!!

Amazing, right? In fact it is not, it is the culture of freedom of speech. In arab countries, such incidents won't happen soon because we will never dare talk like Limbaugh, even though in this case he is pushing it. But this is not the first time. Here is an excerpt from an interview he did recently that was released today (here):

"We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president."

:)) This is just food for thoughts. I think it is too late of our generation to witness such freedom in our country, but if we raise our children to be self-confident, allowing them to talk about anything, question anything and discuss any matter, not shutting them down anytime they open their mouth, we'd probably give them a chance we'll never have...... but I still hope they don't talk like Limbaugh though :)

Une voix de plus contre la censure en Tunisie.

Durant ma courte vie blogospherique, Ammar a sévi deux fois en censurant mon blog, laissant croire au passage que je suis un activiste, un opposant, un citoyen aux idees dangereuses pour le reste de mes concitoyens. Ce qui est loin d'être vrai. Ma faute est que j'écris ce que je pense et que je m'exprime librement, que j'aime mon pays et que je pense qu'on a droit a un vrai leadership qui exprime la volonté du peuple. A un gouvernement qui travaille pour le peuple et non pas le contraire, a un gouvernement qui exécute la volonté du peuple et non pas un peuple qui exécute la volonté du gouvernement ou d'une personne. Un droit qui constitutionnellement et sur le papier doit être garanti et que le chef de l'état est le gardien suprême de cette constitution.
La censure n'a jamais été la solution, on en est la preuve vivante!!!




PS: J'ai aujourd'hui la chance de participer a l'élection présidentielle aux USA et d'être une voix qui finalement va compter, mais cela m'attriste que je n'ai jamais pu l'être dans mon pays natal.

July 1st, I blog for freedom of expression.

N'oubliez pas , le 1er Juillet, on blogue pour la liberte d'expression et contre la censure dans toutes ses formes.