What The Bloody--

So I drive back home, open reddit, and what do I see?

US Supreme Court ruling comes down - Corporations are people with free speech and have the protected right to bribe politicians

The story currently has 5,200 upvotes, and 2,744 comments.

MSNBC says:

In a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down laws that banned corporations from using their own money to support or oppose candidates for public office.

Nice, let's go have some cake.

Folks, this is another example of a place where the concept of "Free Speech" is not applicable.

"Free Speech"

No, it does not mean you can say whatever you want, whenever you want, to whoever you want. Nor does it mean that everyone has to allow you to do any of that.

Free speech means that your (democratic, republic, or whatever) government should not restrict your right to criticize them, organisations, people, practices, or society in general.

Things not covered in Free Speech (open for debate):

• Slander
• What rules you impose in your house
• What companies impose on employees
• What comments you allow on your blog
• etc.

So, the next time someone posts something about Free Speech on their blog, but has moderation and/or deletes posts; think twice before calling them a hypocrite.

No, I'm not going to link to the place where I saw this happen; I don't have an axe to grind.

EDIT: I just noticed I had comments which I hadn't moderated yet (moderation for posts older than X days); sorry about that folks. I seem to not get mail for that thing. Relevant Lesson: Don't attribute to malice which can be attributed to stupidity.