Oops, I mean Secret Service.
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GOP’s twisting laws to suit their needs. A preview that McCain will continue the Bush trend.
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Hypocrisy.
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Help us all if McCain is elected.
I watched the provocatively edited video. It showed a woman with a large poster saying “McCain = Bush” being politely by the police asked either to get rid of the poster and be permitted to attend the event or to keep the poster, in which case she would be ticketed for trespassing and removed. She elected to keep the sign, and then she was given a ticket and escorted off the premises.
The one thing missing from the video was whether the event rules prohibited attendees from carrying posters and/or whether attendees carrying supportive posters were not similarly asked to get rid of their posters or being ejected.
If it was a message-neutral regulation, then there is no problem. If the rules were based on the content of the sign or selectively enforced, that’s a problem.
The video, however, doesn’t give this information.
What Billdo said. How were other sign-carriers at the event treated?
We should always assume the best of politicians.
That doesn’t seem to match your behavior in other threads with respect to John McCain. I would therefore start with an assumption that it’s meant sarcastically… but then I note that it does seem to match your position with respect to Barack Obama. So I would offer the reaction that you seem to follow your advice above haphazardly, at best.
It appears that the guy dressed as a pea pod(?!) shows up right behind her at the end of the video, so I’m assuming that he was asked to leave too. Honestly, I don’t understand people who think that “freedom of speech” means that they can do or say whatever they want wherever they want whenever they want. If someone else had a sigh that said “McCain=Jesus” and was ushered right in, then I’m wrong and this woman has a legitimate reason to be upset, but if the organizers of the event had a “no sign (or vegetable costume)” rule and enforced it evenly, then…so what? Bully for them.
Interesting how “McCain = Bush” is automatically considered an insult, even among Republicans.
Is there any indication that the Secret Service agent was really what he claimed? I didn’t see a badge. And I agree with Billdo - this video is edited, of course, and I wonder if there might be something about the behavior or intentions of this alleged librarian or Mr. Vegetable Man that got left out.
Perhaps we should send a few folks to an Obama rally with “Obama=Wright” signs and post the results of that on YouTube.
Regards,
Shodan
If not, we’ll have a another case of campaign people impersonating federal agents.
I don’t have much problem seeing why McCain would want to remove people carrying uncomplimentary signs from his political events, but I do think people should go to jail for impersonating lawmen.
If you’re talking about the fellow in the tan sport coat, he didn’t claim to be a secret service agent. In the out of sequence clip when he was interviewed (which seemed to take place while the officers were ticketing her), he responded to the question of who had told him to make her leave by saying that the the Secret Service did so. This strongly suggests that he isn’t a Secret Service agent, or claiming to be one.
My guess is that he is some sort of manager at the facility supervising admission or security, and thus authorized to tell an attendee that she was trespassing if she were violating facility or event (or secret service security) rules, and if she stayed, ask the police officers to remove and ticket her.
Actually, I was wondering if he might be an actor in the video, and not in the employ of the Secret Service at all. You know, “based on true events”, like the movie JFK, but trying to make a point.
People who dress like vegetables tend to lose credibility, IMO. But I’m funny that way.
Who knows? Maybe this is exactly what it purports to be, and the Secret Service were enforcing a rule against unsupportive posters at a McCain rally. Or maybe there is more, or less, to it than that.
I actually wasted some time Googling images of Obama campaign rallies, and I couldn’t find one with a poster displayed that was other than adulatory. Maybe that’s just coincidence.
The Republican National Convention starts in my town in a couple of weeks, and I read a good deal in the paper about various left-wing groups that want to protest/disrupt it. And I participated in a thread back in 2004 where the number of people convicted of illegal actions in disrupting the Republican convention outnumbered those disrupting the Democratic convention by something like thirty to one. Dopers didn’t seem to care nearly as much, though, funnily enough.
Regards,
Shodan
Sheesh! You’d think he’d asked some muslims to step out of camera’s way, or something.
You seem to be correct. The video title says it was McCain’s Secret Service detail that caused her to be removed, and then he comes on camera. So my bad - he is probably not Secret Service.
But that doesn’t clear much up - is it Secret Service policy that nobody can carry non-supportive signs to a campaign rally? (Or dress as a vegetable). Or did they (or the event organizers, or McCain, or the Secret Agents of the Illuminati, think she and the Jolly Green Giant might be disruptive?
We also only have the word of the video makers that the event was “open to the public” in the sense that it was a public accommodation to which they had to admit anyone.
But again, who knows? Maybe the whole thing was staged, and the police officer was an actor too. Or, as I think is likely, the whole thing happened. Sort of, just with some parts de-emphasized.
Regards,
Shodan
At the one Obama rally I’ve attended, there was a guy holding up a sign saying something like “Learn the facts about 9-11 at crazyconspiracytheory.com.” He was milling around as near to the stage as he could get. Several suits went up and talked to him; for awhile he was clearly arguing with them and holding his sign up as high as he could, but eventually they compelled him to leave.
I dunno. Campaign rallies in some ways seem more like entertainment events. If someone was playing bluegrass on the campus quad, and Mr. 9-11 showed up, could security boot him and his sign?
If it were a politician holding an official press conference, the rules might be different.
Daniel
At the Obama rally I attended, I witnessed numerous people leaving their signs behind at the metal detector. I also saw someone handing out normal, professionally printed signs that looked to be originally campaign issued about an hour or so before we were let in. An Obama volunteer approached him and said that handing them out was useless, since nobody would be let in with them. He added that there would be plenty of signs handed out by the Obama campaign once we were let in (and there were).
So if McCain rallies are anything like Obama rallies, then this is just standard operating procedure.
Everyone above has noted that the content of the sign is NOT an issue.
But it doesn’t have to be construed as an insult to assume it’s an unwelcome message. It’s hard to imagine a presidential candidate ever campaigning on the message, “I’m exactly like my predecessor!”
Obama does not equal Wright. McCain = Bush,
They were on public property. I hope the sue the police for false arrest.
In light of the posts above rebutting the OP’s points, I wonder if he intends to return to the thread to acknowledge his ignorance fought, or in the alternative to defend his points further?
Did you read the posts in this thread that discuss similar behavior at Obama events? Are you suggesting that “Obama does not equal Wright” but “McCain does equal Bush” should be the guideposts for police to use in enforcing sign restrictions?
I guess it depends on the definition of “disrupt.” Does it mean sneaking into the convention and shouting down speakers en mass? No, that’s not acceptable and I don’t care what side of the political spectrum you’re on.
But is “disrupt” just a substitution for the word “protest”? Or perhaps “holding a sign unfavorable to those in charge”? In which case I don’t see a problem with what the “disruptors” are doing.
One could make the argument that Republicans are thirty times more likely to squelch free speech in comparison to their Democratic counterparts. Maybe that’s all your statistic is stating.