Forgive me for coming in late, but that implies you just want her out, not that she has broken a law.
Wasn’t it great when the capital police wrestled Cheney to the ground and then cuffed him and roughly escorted him out of the Senate chamber. I heard they interrogated him for hours before finally letting him go. 
Hold on now, we’re talking here about the specific event in the Capitol. Please explain to me the conspiracy among Capitol Police officers to keep the wives of Republican lawmakers from wearing pro-military t-shirts to the state of the union.
As far as the other events in keeping anti-Bush people out of Bush’s political rallys, I think it’s dispicable. I’m personally pissed off the Republicans are trying to rewrite the Patriot Act to make it easier for the Secret Service to arrest people who protest Presidential events in the public square. I think it’s perfectly okay to show up at a political rally and demonstrate for or against whomever is putting it on, especially when the events take place in the public square. I don’t think anyone can rationally argue that speech should be protected in the galleries of Congress to the same degree that speech is protected in the public square.
Well, at least you acknowledged that point. Others, like BobLibDem after his post # 68 or Cerri after post # 71 can’t even manage that.
People here like to whine about those who put “party above country”, but what are partisans like that doing in their own posts?
Shit, that’s a piece of cake. I decide. An informed opinion is one that agrees with mine.
I dunno; have you acknowledged yet that neither of them should have been expelled from the gallery?
The Capitol Police have said that both are deserving of an apology for what happened.
So where is BobLibDem et al, to retract their statements that Cindy was targeted for her politics, and that a tee-shirt supporting Bush would be allowed?
That’s simply incorrrect.
Well, i can’t speak for either of those Dopers, but just because that part of my question was answered doesn’t mean that there aren’t partisan issues to be debated here.
First, on the more non-partisan front, i would like to point out that i thought that neither of the people concerned should have been expelled, especially since their expulsions, as far as i could tell, were not because they were wearing t-shirts, but because their t-shirts had political messages on them.
Now, if you could show me a rule that forbids the wearing of t-shirts altogether, or that insists on a particular dress code for this event (e.g., jacket and tie; dress or pantsuit), then i would have no problem with all t-shirt wearers being asked to leave. But simply ejecting people for the message on their clothing is, in my opinion, unacceptable.
Also, the link provided by Anne Neville, above, notes that the authorities have apologized to both parties, which suggests that no rule was broken at all.
And here’s where i get more partisan:
First, some of the cites already provided above suggest that Beverly Young was only asked to leave so that no-one could complain about unfair treatment being meted out to Cindy Sheehan. Of course, there’s no way i can prove this assertion, but i’ll bet that if Sheehan hadn’t been ejected first for wearing an anti-Bush shirt, then Young wouldn’t have been hassled for her pro-Bush shirt.
Second, and more important, it is under the Republicans, and under this Administration in particular, that we have seen an upswing in protestor marginalization and preventive detentions of people who disagree with the President and his policies. People have provided examples above, and these are not the ony examples of this type of action over the past few years. As others have noted, this pattern of detain and release serves as a measure for controlling dissent and marginalizing free expression.
The Bush White House has made every effort to prevent people with opposing viewpoints from getting anywhere near the President, from “free speech zones” to preventive detentions to hand-picked “Town Hall meetings.” There is a pattern of behavior that, in my opinion, makes this a partisan issue, one for which the current Republican administration bears most of the blame.
Or, perhaps, it suggests that the police chose not to charge them with anything after doing what they aimed to do, which was to get them out of the rostrum and keep them from (potentially, for Biggirl) disrupting the SouT Address.
So you want to toss people out for what you think they might potentially do? What is this, Minority Report? ANYBODY might potentially disrupt the Address. People wearing t-shirts have no more potential to be disruptive than anyone else.
It sounds like you’re admitting the cops had no legal excuse for their behavior but that you just don’t care.
Sorry, this explanation, even if true, is unacceptable.
Firstly, if you would actually read Anne Neville’s linked article, you would see that the guy in charge had the following to say about it:
If the t-shirts themselves were, as this statement suggests, not in violation of the rules, then the police who ejected the two women were wrong, plain and simple.
Furthermore, since when is it acceptable to arrest someone just because of something you think they may do at some time in the future? There is no evidence whatsoever that either of these women planned to do anything other than watch the speech while wearing attire that reflected their views about the current administration and its policies. Your willingness to countenance this strongarmed idiocy does you no credit.
Look, if you want to see a bunch of nearly identical events in different places as being entirely unrelated, that’s your choice. But at some point, it’s a pretty dumb choice. If all the atoms in your hostess’ underwear simultaneously jump two feet to the right, chances are it wasn’t just a large amount of finite improbability, but rather someone working the strings.
Here we have six incidents just having to do specifically with T-shirts. That doesn’t count numerous other instances where people have been detained due to the bumper stickers on their cars, or protesters have been told by the cops to move to a certain location, then arrested once they were herded together there (and later let go, of course), people waving anti-Bush signs being herded off to ‘free-speech zones’ while pro-Bush sign-wavers are allowed to remain in the same place, and so forth.
This has been happening all around the country over the past 3+ years - usually, it seems, associated with either a Bush appearance, or a protest against a Bush policy. Did law enforcement agencies all over the place make the same independent decision to toss out the same sorts of laws in the same ways completely independently? I suppose it’s possible, but it damned sure ain’t the way to bet.
And I don’t see anyone here making that argument - so that’s what we call a ‘strawman’.
If Congress wants to pass rules concerning appropriate decorum for the floor or the spectators’ gallery of either chamber, they’re welcome to do so. But those rules should be enforced equitably, with no bias as to support or opposition to any particular point of view. And rules that don’t actually exist, needless to say, shouldn’t be enforced, period. Yet that is what we’re seeing, over and over again.
One word … Gestaspo!!!
you seem to ignore the fact that although both t-shirt wearers were evicted, only one was arrested. can you guess which one???
Here I am ! If you think for one minute that the congressman’s wife would have been removed for her pro-Bush t shirt if Sheehan had not first been removed, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I’d like to sell you. She was removed for one reason only- to give the appearance of even-handedness. Still, it was not even-handed. She was not arrested like Sheehan was. Sheehan was targeted from the time she arrived on the Capitol grounds and the police were looking for any excuse, no matter how flimsy, to get her out of the building.
In my book, either you’re for free speech or you’re not. If you want the right to speak, you must extend that right even to those you despise, like the KKK, the Nazis, or (for some of you) Cindy Sheehan.
I just fail to understand how Mrs. Young’s being kicked out of the gallery can be considered part of this conspiracy. It doesn’t make sense to me. The 2004 events cited certainly are a pattern of behavior, which I condemn. But if the same motivations were behind booting people from the SOTU as were behind booting people from election year rallies, then please explain to me why Mrs. Young got involved. That makes about as much sense to me as kicking out someone from one of Bush’s rallies for holding a sign that says, “We Love the President.”
No, I think the record is clear that when anti-Bush people have been arrested as Bush political rallies, that happened at the behest of etiher the White House or the Secret Service. There’s no evidence at all that the White House engineered Sheehan and Young being kicked out. In fact, quite to the contrary, the Chief of the Capitol Police has admitted that he goofed in instructing his officers what constitutes a demonstration.
Oh my God… I mention a point that everybody agrees upon (that the galleries of Congress are not a public square), and you call it a strawman. You’ve really got your panties all up in a bunch if you have to criticize common-sense statements. And I don’t think you really understand a strawman – if I say that people might disagree about what causes rain, but nobody can doubt the sky is blue, that is not a strawman argument.
Oh, I see. You just want to take exactly what I’ve been saying, put it in different words, and use it to argue against me. Well, guess what: I agree with this part one million percent. That is literally all I have been saying. I honor your writing skills to put my case so well, but your reading comprehension might need some improvement.
I already did, thanks.
Read the papers much?
Look, some lower-level flunky taking the hit for someone with a lot more clout happens all the time in Washington, D.C. (Probably in most other places too, but it’s quite common here in the Nation’s Capital.)
So what the Chief of the Capitol Police said isn’t the sort of thing an observant person takes at face value. If you do, I’ve got a guy who runs this easy game I’d like to introduce you to. It involves three cards.
It’s also inconceivable that the Chief of the Capitol Police wasn’t aware of the sorts of reasons that have been used to kick people out of Bush events. This was his field of expertise, protecting politicians from the public. He is Chief of the Capitol Police, not some small-town hack of a police chief.
I’m not criticizing commonsense statements; I’m pointing out that you’ve been implying that your opponents in this debate disagree with the commonsense statements in question.
Boy howdy, are you an idiot. Let me give you a definition:
A strawman is when you impute to your opponent a position that is much easier for you to knock down than the position he has actually taken. That false position is the strawman.
The imputation can be explicit (“After 9-11, many Democrats believed all terrorists needed was some therapy”) or implicit (“My party doesn’t believe terrorists are just people in need of some therapy,” implying without specifically saying so that the other party does).
No, dummy. I was explicitly stating my position, driving home the point that your strawman was a strawman.
I’m honestly not trying to be snarky about this point. I just don’t get it. And I can’t find where you have explained it. I’m really not trying to be combative on this matter: I just really don’t follow how Mrs. Young being thrown out fits in with Bush protesters being tossed from Bush’s political rallies, and I’m failing to find where you addressed this point.
Are you saying Gainer is the flunky of the White House? I’ve got to say, Gainer is someone with real law enforcement bona fides. He does not work for the President or the Executive Branch, and before his current position, he was Deputy Chief of the Metropolitan Police for a number of years, and had a hand in the cleaning up of this city. Aside from this event we’re talking about, do you have some other reason to doubt his integrity? Having read about him in the news for oh, probably five or eight years now, but not being an expert on him or anything, he’s generally struck me as a pretty good cop.
What you infer is really not what I am implying. I give you my word: in no way was I attempting to unfairly undermine other’s views or arguments, or ridicule the views of others: I was simply trying to establish some common ground from which a decent debate could proceed. That’s it. Nothing more. However, looking back on how I phrased the statement, it would have been better written to say, “I think we all agree that the galleries of Congress are not a public square.” Happy?
(Taking deep breath) Look, I agree with you. Congress should have rules about decorum, and those rules should be enforced without prejudice. If there are no rules, it’s bullshit to make them up on the fly to suit short-sighted ends. We may disagree as to whether kicking Sheehan and Young out of the galleries was part of a conspiracy to stilfe criticism of Bush or whether it was a misguided attempt to maintain decorum, but I think we agree on the basic point above. Am I wrong?
What he’s saying is that Young’s removal from the gallery was done solely to provide political cover for the suppression of the anti-Bush message. So that people who called out the Capitol Police for removing Sheehan could be pointed to Young and be told that the policy was being enforced even-handedly. The problems being that the policy in question didn’t actually exist and even if it did setaining one person for several hours while not detaining the other is not even-handed.
Back in post #198.
That level of knowledge and expertise is exactly why I’ve got to believe he’s had to have been aware of some of those other cases. They’ve been in the news, they’re relevant to his particular area of law enforcement, and he didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.
So what do you do when you hear in the news about people in your line of work responding to situations similar to those you might face? I don’t know about you, but I think about what I’d do, how I’d handle that, and whether the other guy did it in a way that was obviously right, obviously wrong, or somewhere in between.
Back in the 1960s, the police who used their nightsticks on nonviolent protestors in any number of cities didn’t do it at the behest of the Johnson and Nixon Administrations, but it still wasn’t a coincidence. They’d decided whose side they were on. I wouldn’t put it past the Bush Administration to make it clear to this guy that his job was to make sure that nothing messed up Bush’s evening, but whether or not, I expect he’d decided whose side he was on, and it wasn’t a coincidence.
Okay, okay, I believe you!
It’s just that the supposed debate over whether the same rules applied in the House chamber as apply out on the street had been a recurring motif in this thread. I apologize for slamming you over it and calling you names without looking closely enough at what you were saying. You have every right to expect that I’ll respond to what you actually said, rather than my conflating it with what others have said elsewhere in the thread.
No, you’re right. Again, my apologies.