14 year old Conservative

Article from Herald Tribune


I was reading some articles on MSN and came across this one about a 14 year old who has already published 2 books on conservatism and recently gave a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). This is a video of that speech Video

His name is Jonathan Krohn and he is an 8th grader living in Atlanta. Afer giving his speech, news organizations and radio talk show hosts wanted to interview him and he quickly turned into a celebrity amongst the political world. Jonathan claims that his inspiration to write the book came from hearing people misuse the terms "Conservative". So he spent his entire summer writing an 86 page book on his ideas and definitions of what it means to be a Conservative. Many people were sending his family hate mail, saying that they were brainwashing their son. Jonathan's dad claims that his sons passion for politics is strictly his and they avoid influencing him in any way.

I just think that it is interesting how Jonathan used his ablility of Free Speech to write a book on political issues he is passionate about. The next amazing thing is that he is only 14 years old, and published two books on the topic! It seems that he is trying to inform the public that there are new ways to think about conservatism and it is awesome that he is able to get those ideas out into mainstream media. I also wonder why some people always have to criticize anything that has to do with politics and our government. When Jonathan spoke at the conference, within a few days his family was already recieving hate mail criticizing them as parents. Then again, those composers of the hate mail have their right to free speech to speak out against Jonathan's ideas and to criticize his thinking, but is it still fair to give these people "Free Speech", when they are directly attacking a 14 year old and his family?

These are the two books that Jonathan has written:

Crazy

Ok, so this story probably has nothing to do with the readings, but I was completely shocked when I heard it, so I felt that I needed to share with all of you.

So the other night I went to dinner with one of my really good friends to catch up because we have not seen each other in a while. So we are eating dinner and talking, and I asked her if she was seeing anyone right now. She replied with well I went on this crazy date last month that made me want to just lay low for a while. So of course I wanted to know more. So she explains that she went on a date with this guy that she has known for a while, he picked her up things were going well and then the date started going downhill. They didn't really have anything in common and the conversation was getting dry, so they finish dinner and head home. As she gets in the car the guy asks "So how would you introduce me?" My friend is caught off guard, especially since it is their first date. She hesitates then replies "Well, I guess for now I would just introduce you as one of my friends." He comes back with "oh, because I would introduce you as my fiance." My friend starts laughing because she thinks that he is just joking around, and he says "No, really I was looking at rings the other day and I found one that I think would look great on you!". Ok, so by this time my friend is really freaking out and says that she just wants to go home. So needless to say she never went on a second date with him!
I was shocked that this guy was dead serious about wanting to marry her after a first date.

What about you guys? Any crazy first date experiences?

Introduction/ What is Free Speech?

My name is Carly and I am a senior this year hoping to graduate in the fall! I am an HCOM major with a concentration in journalism/media studies. I enjoy sports and am a HUGE SF Giants fan. I like going to the beach, going to hockey games and baseball games. So far from what we have read and discussed in class, I feel that free speech is any speech regardless of the form that it takes. There are parameters on when and where speech can be used, especially if it is offensive, but all speech is free. You can not deny someone the right to say what they want, even if you do not agree with what is being said. I am interested in finding out what all the exceptions to this rule of “Free Speech” are. I would like to know how you decide, or who gets to decide when speech is considered free and when it is not. I am also curious how free speech would be defined if what you are saying can hurt of cause harm to other individuals. I also want to know where the fine line is drawn with music, because you can cuss, talk about drugs, murder, and prostitution in songs, and rappers even use the term “nigga”. The whole idea of “Free Speech” is so vague, so who holds the authority to tell you what you can and can not say?