{"id":21931,"date":"2016-10-04T20:55:23","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T01:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=21931"},"modified":"2016-10-04T20:55:23","modified_gmt":"2016-10-05T01:55:23","slug":"executive-director-of-the-kansas-city-library-system-issues-dire-free-speech-warning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=21931","title":{"rendered":"Executive Director of the Kansas City Library System Issues Dire Free Speech Warning"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Executive Director of the Kansas City Library System Issues Dire Free Speech Warning<\/a><\/h3>\n
\"screen-shot-2016-10-04-at-11-06-01-am\"<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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The following story hasn\u2019t received the attention it deserves.<\/p>\n

Back in May, a man was arrested by a private security guard and an off-duty police officer after asking pointed questions to American diplomat and author Dennis Ross during a library discussion. When a library employee attempted to intervene, he was also arrested.<\/p>\n

ABC News<\/em><\/a>\u00a0reports:<\/p>\n

The executive director the Kansas City library system says he is \u201coutraged\u201d that prosecutors continue to pursue charges against a man who was arrested after asking pointed questions during a library discussion about the\u00a0Middle East\u00a0peace process and an employee who tried to intervene.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Although the arrests occurred in May following a speech by author and diplomat\u00a0Dennis Ross<\/a>, the library system only recently went public about its opposition to charges, the Kansas City Star reported.<\/em><\/p>\n

R. Crosby Kemper III, executive director of the city\u2019s library system, said \u201cwe\u2019re going to be living in a different kind of country\u201d if people can be arrested for asking questions at a library. \u201cIf this kind of behavior is unacceptable to the police, then I guess we\u2019re going to have to shut the library down.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Issues arose after Ross finished speaking and took a question from Jeremy Rothe-Kushel concerning whether Jewish Americans like Rothe-Kushel should be concerned about actions by the U.S. and\u00a0Israel\u00a0that amount to \u201cstate-sponsored terrorism.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen are we going to stand up and be ethical Jews and Americans?\u201d Rothe-Kushel asked.<\/em><\/p>\n

When Rothe-Kushel tried to ask another question, a private security guard grasped his arm, followed by an off-duty police officer, both employed by the Jewish Community Foundation. Rothe-Kushel then shouted, \u201cGet your hands off of me right now!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Kemper said the private security guards had no right to remove a patron for asking a question.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ross\u2019 speech was the inaugural Truman and Israel Lecture, established by the Truman Library Institute and the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Executive Director of the Kansas City Library System Issues Dire Free Speech Warning The following story hasn\u2019t received the attention it deserves. Back in May, a man was arrested by a private security guard and an off-duty police officer after asking pointed questions to American diplomat and author Dennis Ross during a library discussion. When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2703,14434,4285,6174],"class_list":["post-21931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-free-speech","tag-kansas-city","tag-liberty-blitzkrieg","tag-michael-krieger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21932,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21931\/revisions\/21932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}