On Friday I posted about Islam hate site “Bare Naked Islam” being taken offline by their hosting company WordPress. CAIR had put out a press release, complete with links, showing that the site has a history of promoting violence towards Islam. Well WordPress has allowed the site to go back up, but told them they must be moved off the service by January 6.
Let me set the record straight here before going into a couple of the comments I have noticed. WordPress.com is a FREE service (though they also offer commercial services) provided by a PRIVATE U.S. company. We constantly hear the right talk about how bad big government is always trying to get in the way of business, so this first comment really has me scratching their head:
I have seen a lot of wingnuts saying this shouldn’t be legal and is violating freedom of speech. For it to be legal and the government to have the authority to prevent it, would mean more regulation and government intervention into law. That’s why this second comment has me scratching my head even more:
Catch that? How dare WordPress violate “their freedom of speech”, but you better violate the freedom of speech of others in your new commenting policy.
This is a constant tone we hear from the right in this country. They tell you they believe in constitutional rights, but they only believe in them when they support their own views. In other words, sure we got freedom of speech, but only if you say things I want to hear!
A lot of that is evident on right wing blogs. I can’t tell you the number of emails I have received over the years between here and Crooks and Liars from commenters that have been banned for violating our policies and them claiming that we are taking away their freedom of speech. I’ve even had legal threats over it. Yet there’s so many blogs on the right that don’t even allow you to comment unless you are invited into their super secret club.
When you own and run a website then you have rules you do have to follow. You have to follow the law of the land and the terms of your hosting company. If you think that freedom of speech is as broad and legally enforced as you believe, then ask yourself what you would think if that was applied to everything.
Don’t want someone talking about how foolish Christianity is inside your church? Sorry – freedom of speech.
Don’t want people to promote same sex marriage in your church? Sorry – freedom of speech.
True we are talking about a website that is against another very fundamental right guaranteed in our Constitution – the freedom of religion.
Like I said on Friday, if these people don’t like the rules that the FREE service they are using imposes, then move! It doesn’t cost that much at all to get your own hosting and is the very root of a free market society. WordPress.com has to protect their business from any possible legal issues and I don’t blame them one bit for the steps they took in doing that.
Perhaps the right can grow up and realize that they cries of foul are going against the very fundamental beliefs they try to claim having. If not, then maybe they can take responsibility (another thing they love to throw out there) and assume all the liability for their posting themselves and that would start by hosting their own hate sites on their own. It’s not that hard and not that expensive!