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Protect Trump's free speech even as he threatens yours

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

During a weekend of violence at some of Donald Trump's rallies, I received a flurry of angry emails, all playing the same game of "How would you feel?"

How would you feel, I was asked in one note, if a group of Ku Klux Klansmen broke up a Bernie Sanders rally?

That's a round-about way of referring to the violence that erupted at Trump rallies, particularly in Chicago, where the Republican frontrunner's rally was called off after crowds of protesters grew exceptionally large.

Early announcements that police had called off the event were withdrawn after police denied it. Some protest organizers insisted they were intent on making noise, not shutting down the event, although they joined the cheering after the event was shut down.

I could argue against false equivalencies here. You may disagree, but I don't see the potpourri of blacks, whites, Hispanics, Arab-Americans and others who gathered to peacefully protest as the moral equivalent of organized Klansmen.

Still I won't deny that some young pseudo-anarchists and other hotheads would delight at shutting down Trump's events and those of anyone else with whom they disagree.

 

So, make no mistake: Muzzling your opposition makes you no better than Trump, a guy who likes free speech as long as it's his own.

Sure, he cries out for free speech when his own is threatened. He promised at a late-February event in Fort Worth to "open up" libel laws if he is elected, so that when journalists write "purposely negative horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money."

Since libel laws already hold journalists accountable when they publish false and defamatory information, whether it is out of negligence or intent, one wonders with dismay what Trump has in mind. Free speech for him, perhaps, but not for me?

Adding apparent injury to insult, Trump disputed charges filed by Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields against his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, with police in Jupiter, Fla. In the incident, witnessed by another reporter, Lewandowski allegedly grabbed her roughly by the arm.

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(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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