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I'm fine with free speech. For the past 6 and a half years, I've been protesting against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. When someone asked, I would say, "There aren't any WMDs, there aren't any links to al Qaeda. There's no reason for our people to be there, and there's no reason to earn the animosity of Middle Eastern Muslims yet again." I educated myself on the subject as well as I could and came to an informed decision before setting out to speak to people about it. I knew that facts, not emotional bullshit and hyperbole, are the best way to convince people. Was I mad? Sure. I'm still mad we're there. I'll probably go on fighting to get the US out of Afghanistan until we're withdrawing, too. But what we're seeing from these town halls is a different animal completely. People are showing up with deeply racist and ignorant signs, and are consistently uninformed. Death panels? Abortion? Communism? I never ever would have lied about the war, trying to scare people, in order to end it. That's not free speech, that's corruption, injustice, and dishonesty. Don't protect unjust people from just judgment.
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