If I don’t want the media at my children’s funeral to take pictures and broadcast them, the media first ammendment right doesn’t override mine. You’ve lost sight what the first ammendment means for the media Wayne.

You are insinuating a purpose based test. Can you point to some document that states a purpose as you stated for the decades old policy?

No.

This is a pattern of liberals. To actually state a non-liberal’s intent or motive or feelings as if you liberals actually know what we think or feel. You constantly refer to Bush’s motives, feelings and intent. Do you guys realize you do that? It comes so natural…

This has been a matter of policy for decades Wayne. This isn’t a new policy developed by Bush or by the federal government as you insinuated for a purpose. The fact that the policy in effect stops ghoulish people from doing their ghoulish things is not “censorship”. Read the constitution.

ST: Exactly! The “right” to do something doesn’t make it right to do.

I should also add a side point to anyone who doesn’t think the gov’t “censors” what we see and hear, all they have to do is look to the FCC to realize that they indeed *do* just that and I don’t hear of too many people out there calling for the abolotion of the FCC.

You: “People who defend purpose based tests for restrictions on speech.”

Me: Well then I guess you’re calling just about everyone in America a “wingnut” then, Wayne, because I guarantee that an overwhelming majority of people in this country didn’t want to, nor did they have to, see autopsy photos of Laci and Connor Peterson (for example) to get a good idea of what happened to them. The media will “censor” itself over things like that, and for whatever reason I haven’t seen people who believe as you do complain too much about that. That’s what I call a double standard. Do you include yourself in the “wingnut” category or would you support any newspaper who started to post photos of dead bodies from murders, car accidents, etc?

Bottom line is it seems that some of the people who are expressing similar opinions such as yours support the showing of dead bodies only when it would seem to hurt a president they don’t like. Does that about cover it?

People who defend purpose based tests for restrictions on speech.

“I am sorry Wayne, but what about a person’s right to privacy?? Dead or alive it is still there.”

It exists, but it doesn’t override the first amendment. If need be, privacy can be safeguarded by not showing identifying features of bodies. Taste and respect? Those are domains of the first amendment or government regulation. Those are for the market to regulate, not the government.

If you look back at the wild rumors that have been put out in previous hurricanes, one meme sticks out. After each major hurricane the conspiracy nuts have claimed that there were tons of dead bodies being hidden in mobile morgues and that the press were keeping people from seeing them because it would cause an outrage against the government. Now that we have a hurricane/disaster where there actually are stacks of bodies, the opportunity to slam the administration cannot be missed. It’s what many have longed for, and others are too opportunistic to pass up.

I’m convinced the reason the administration has stepped up and is doing this is that they know that the press cannot and will not use discretion in this. They haven’t figured out that just because you can do a thing that doesn’t mean you should do a thing, in that way they, and many of their liberal fellow travelers, are like children. They need adult supervision, even though they don’t want or like it.

Yesterday, I saw a Democratic Congressman fulminate emphatically on CSPAN and then practically collapse into a puddle of tears on the Capitol floor because of the water and food that were prevented from getting to the people in the Superdome and convention center. That was because the first reports said that it was FEMA that wouldn’t let the Red Cross through. Now that it turns out it was LA troopers under Democratic Governor Blanco who stopped them. Now, I’m guessing that this will no longer be a problem.

Which brings me to the question of why wouldn’t Gov. Blanco allow the President Bush take over at the start? There was a category 5 hurricane that looked as though it was going to hit NO dead on. Maybe she was afraid that someone with expertise would check the levee and discover that shoddy work had been done on it. It, supposedly, had been repaired this summer right where it gave way. What if the “repairs” were more about money going to friends and relatives of the Democratics such as the Landreau’s, who run LA, than that effective work was done?

So, now, it is possible that the NO voters who put her into office have died not only because of graft but because graft had to stay covered up.

Even if every last body could be stacked up at the doors of Blanco, Landreau and Nagin, they should not be photographed for media consumption.

Just who are you calling a “wingnut”?

The wingnuts who think otherwise are just going to have to deal with the fallout, like we all dealing with the disaster.