Should the New York Times be burned to the ground?

Question

...for treason and helping kill thousands of their fellow New Yorkers in a future attack on NYC for exposing the intelligence community's method of catching terrorists?

After another attack will they claim that it was another failing of the Bush administration to catch the guys who did it?

Is the New York Times so Liberal that it's retarded?

Will your attitude be the same if you are CRIPPLED in the next attack?

Answer 1

Lets burn all books and lock up all liberal judges and teachers...only allow good news about republicans to be read and viewed by Americans....seriously limit the function of opposing parties by enacting new laws....proclaim Christianity the state religion...make any public statements attacking the current majority party members a capital crime. Ban all public gathering of any kind....and make it a crime to defend yourself in court.

The press, by design of our Constitution, is there to protect us from despotic leaders We as citizens have no way to stand up to government without the press. Listen to Rush and O'reilly some more...don't bother to think for yourself.

The Bill of Rights

The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of worship, of speech, of the press, of assembly, and of petition to the government for redress of grievances. This amendment has been the center of controversy in recent years in the areas of free speech and religion. The Supreme Court has held that freedom of speech does not include the right to refuse to testify before a Congressional investigating committee and that most organized prayer in the public schools violates the First Amendment.

Wikipedia:

Main article: Freedom of speech in the United States
John Hancock was the first person to write newspapers in the British colonies in North America were published "by authority," that is, under license from and as the mouthpiece of the colonial governors. The first regularly published newspaper was the Boston News-Letter of John Campbell, published weekly beginning in 1704. The early colonial publishers were either postmasters or government printers, and therefore unlikely to challenge government policies.

The first independent newspaper in the colonies was the New-England Courant, published in Boston by James Franklin beginning in 1721. A few years later, Franklin's younger brother, Benjamin, purchased the Pennsylvania Gazette of Philadelphia, which became the leading newspaper of the colonial era.

During this period, newspapers were unlicensed, and able freely to publish dissenting views, but were subject to prosecution for libel or even sedition if their opinions threatened the government. The notion of "freedom of the press" that later was enshrined in the United States Constitution is generally traced to the seditious libel prosecution of John Peter Zenger by the colonial governor of New York in 1735. In this instance of jury nullification, Zenger was acquitted after his lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, argued to the jury (contrary to established English law) that there was no libel in publishing the truth. Yet even after this celebrated case, colonial governors and assemblies asserted the power to prosecute and even imprison printers for publishing unapproved views.


A U.S. Postage Stamp commemorating freedom of the press.During the American Revolution, a free press was identified by Revolutionary leaders as one of the elements of liberty that they sought to preserve. The Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) proclaimed that "the freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty and can never be restrained but by despotic governments." Similarly, the Constitution of Massachusetts (1780) declared, "The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom in a state: it ought not, therefore, to be restrained in this commonwealth." Following these examples, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution restricted Congress from abridging the freedom of the press and the closely associated freedom of speech.

John Locke’s ideas had inspired both the French and American revolutions. Thomas Jefferson wanted to unite the two streams of liberalism, the English and the French schools of thought. His goal was to create a government that would provide both security and opportunity for the individual. An active press was essential as a way of educating the population. In order to be able to work freely, the press must be free from control by the state. Jefferson was a person who himself suffered great calumnies of the press. Despite this, in his second inaugural address, he proclaimed that a government that could not stand up under criticism deserved to fall.

Jefferson said: "No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all avenues of the truth".

In 1931, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Near v. Minnesota used the 14th Amendment to apply the freedom of the press to the States. Other notable cases regarding free press are:

New York Times Co. v. United States: The Supreme Court upheld the publication of the Pentagon Papers.
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan: The Court decided that in order for written words to be libel, it must be, first of all, false. It must also be published with the deliberate intent to ruin someone's reputation.
In Branzburg v. Hayes (1972), the Court placed limits on the ability of the Press to refuse a subpoena from a Grand Jury by claiming Freedom of the Press. The issue decided in the case was whether a reporter could refuse to "appear and testify before state and Federal grand juries" by claiming such appearance and testimony "abridges the freedom of speech and press guaranteed by the First Amendment." The 5-4 decision was that such a protection was not provided by the First Amendment.

If the President had acted according to established procedure and abided by the law, the press would not have been in the position of exposing his wrong doing.

Answer 2

Where in the hell have you been? People have been going on and on about how the mosque is wrong and the burning is fair. "We are seeing the Florida preacher being condemned for exercising his freedom of expression but we are not seeing the Muslims condemned for doing something that I think is even more deliberately offensive." - ??? Really? The MOSQUE is more offensive? Is the mosque's imam planning on doing any rituals to burn down any bibles? And as for"offensive", it's arrogant narrowed minded airheads like you, that have never picked up the Quran once, that fail to recognize that there were MUSLIMS TOO that wanted to jump out of that crashing building on 9/11 because they felt that jumping that many stories high would be a far easier quicker death than to be burned alive. There were Muslims in there too. There were Muslims discriminated, beatened, and killed because of aftermath of 9/11. And putting all political crap aside, which do you honestly think is worse- burning a holy book(s) that a country full of extremists claim they follow that we're f-ing fighting a war with or creating this house of worship after this past almost decade of the WORLD AND IDIOT BLOGGERS LIKE YOU telling us what our religion is because a couple of other idiots just like you decided to use our religion as an excuse to kill? I dare you to pick up the Quran.

Answer 3

I have a better question: with people like Samuel P, Angels Raising Hell, and Ann Coulter asking these kind of questions, how does any decent human being stand up and say they are proud to be in the same political party as these nut jobs????

Answer 4

If by this you mean that they exposed the way our administration was using unconstitutional and illegal means to try and combat terrorism, well, no, I don't think holding our government responsible for following our laws is treason - it is necessary if we are to remain a free society.

Answer 5

well lets just tell them everything we are going to do to apprehend and prevent them from trying .Like since 9-11 we have been mixing pig blood into all our foods .
We have all the people from the food and drug administration working overtime to distribute pig blood to all food processing plants .
All our fast food restaurants have added it for 4 years now .
This is what we need to tell them .Its in the water supply to .
Yes It is in the water supply so that all clothing has dried pig blood in it . This way all we have to do is watch dry cleaners and packages of food from the middle east .Tell them that to come t america all Muslims have to drink a glass of water with pig blood diluted in it .

Answer 6

This country isn't a country at all without the first Amendment. That is worth fighting for and saving and shouldn't go away in the name of security and paranoia.

Answer 7

They print what sells papers in the best tradition of a profit-based political mind-set.

Answer 8

The New York Times is on borrowed time and has seen its best days. They will gradually "burn" themselves down in this electronic age. They are a dinosaur who is nearing extinction. What goes around comes around.

The media needs to be held accountable for leaks that compromise national security.

Answer 9

Yeah, this whole free press and free speech thing was getting tiresome. Let's rewrite the Constitution so that only God-fearing Americans can pack rifles to daycare, too........

Answer 10

I don't like them ... so I don't support them financially. Whoever feels the same should do the same and they will go out of business .. no need for violence..

Answer 11

Wow..Conservatives are finaly showing there true colors huh? I'm sorry that this country bothers you with terrible things like freedoms and civil liberties..but our fore fathers had these crazy ideas...don't worry about it though your man Bush has just about fixed that problem for you.