I worked as a volunteer at a Bush rally in 2004 (I have since seen the light). There was a Secret Service detail there, of course, but admission and crowd control were handled by volunteers supervised by political staff. The Secret Service’s role was to protect the president.
I worked at one of the gates. No signs were allowed to be carried in. Signs were available from volunteers inside the gates. More signs were distributed to areas of the crowd where they would be in the background of shots of the speakers.
Tickets to the rally were distributed by the Ross County Republican Party. It was not intended as a public forum, it was a rally of Bush supporters. The venue, the Ross County Fairgrounds, was rented for the day by the Bush campaign, which had an absolute right to control who got in and how they could behave. My impression is that many campaign rallies are like that, giving the appearance of public meetings when they are in fact privately funded and controlled.
i went by arrest statistics, originally, which were even more disproportionate, and then some one pointed out later that this was not quite fair because most of those arrested were released without being charged. So, to be fair, I was just counting those who were convicted or pled guilty to an offense. That’s where the thirty-to-one ratio came from.
I believe there were two people who interrupted the keynote speaker at the Republican convention, and none at the Democratic.
So no, we were not talking about carrying signs, which is one thing, but actual violations of the law. Which measurement is a bit more objective than anything presented in the video.
I’m not so sure you can read much into that; were there more convictions because the Republican convention staff were more likely to press charges, or because there are more crazy Democratic protestor types?
Or, perhaps, simply because the Republicans were doing something which normally draws vocal protest - ie. a controversial war, whereas the Democrats aren’t in power and therefore are less worthy of protest?
I’m inclined to say the 30/1 figure is a result of some combination of all three.
I wasn’t talking about the amount of protest; I was discussing the enormous disparity in the likelihood of protest verging over into illegality. Democrats were over thirty times more likely to cross the line and break the law.
The convention staff doesn’t press charges - the city attorney does that. Do you believe that the New York City attorneys are thirty times more likely to press charges than those in Boston? IOW, crime is so low in NYC (as compared to Boston) that they have thirty times more resources to apply.
Sure, but presumably the convention staff has some degree of control over city authorities regarding who gets held and who gets sent home with a stern warning.
In any case, you didn’t address the fact that the Democrats hadn’t really done anything worth protesting, which as I noted, presumably leads to both less protest and less intense protest.
First let me say: I absolutely believe that Democrats (well, the Left) is in general more prone to illegally stifling the speech of those they disagree with in these kinds of settings. The Left is long-used to the “protest in the streets” tactic.
However.
I’m not sure it’s a fair comparison. It’s almost definitional that the party in power will control the venue and the party not in power is the one for whom shouting protests and carrying signs will be an available tactic. So any comparing of numbers Bush’s years in office seems like it would be unfairly weighted towards the Left – who, after all, would the protesters on the right visit to shout down?
I am not sure I follow you. In particular, I don’t know what you mean by “the party in power will control the venue”. The Republican convention was in NYC; the Democratic one in Boston (IIRC). Are you saying that the Republicans, by virtue of the fact that they controlled both the White House and Congress, were more in control of NYC than the Democrats were of Boston?
And I also don’t see why being in control of the federal government makes carrying signs or shouting protest any less available a tactic. (See also Chicago '68 for a counter-example.)
Well, Kerry, presumably, in 2004, and Obama this year.
At any rate, I am not speaking about protest in general, but violent protest. No one objects (or at least I don’t object) to lawful protests - both sides can shout and carry signs to the satisfaction of their own hearts and the edification of the onlookers. What I noticed was the very disproportionate difference in the number of protesters who went beyond that into illegality.
Both sides protest each others’ conventions, in other words, but one side seems much more likely to be assholes about it.
If they break the law? I kind of doubt it.
I’m open to citations otherwise, but AFAIK arrests are made by the police, and the decision to prosecute or release is made by the city attorneys, and there is no process in place where the convention officials pick who to prosecute and who to let go.
Bit of a “no true Scotsman” argument, idn’t it? You seem to be alleging that Republicans in 2004 were thirty times more deserving to be the subject of law breaking. I would say that neither side was. I support laws against violent protest, even for Republicans.
Yell and scream all you like. But both parties have the right to hold a convention, and neither side has the right to break the law to try to harm it. That’s brown shirt stuff, and I don’t go for it.
Actually, I said I thought the 30:1 figure was probably due to a combination of three factors, one of which was the likelihood that Democrats are more likely to be a particular type of crazy person.
I don’t understand how you got from “illegal protest” to “violent protest”, though - as I understood the debate we were originally talking about people who were arrested and/or convicted of illegal action while picketing.
I didn’t see anything about specifically violent protestors; I am, and was, working under the assumption that these were people who refused a police order to leave a certain area or to leave their signs or somesuch.
Out of curiosity, where exactly does the idea that “protesting at Republican convention” = “Democrat” and vice versa come from? These people might be independents; they might even by Republicans, for all you know.
FOA, since people kept refering to him as a guy dressing as a vegetable. If you look closely, he’s dressed as a pea pod with Bush’s and McCain’s faces on it. He’s saying obnoxiously saying “two peas in a pod”.
That said, he’s essentially making the same message as the Librarian. Which leads me to believe it’s probably more likely than not that he is part of the same protest and may have been part of the reason that attention was drawn to the poor Librarian. I also find her explanation at the end of the video extraordinarily disingenuous. She acts like her sign isn’t intended as offensive because, obviously, any Republican who voted for Bush (and obviously they all did) should see it as a compliment. She’s protesting, and yet acting like, not only is it not potentially disruptive, but it’s actually a compliment.
I also suspect, as others have pointed out, that it is an open to the public event, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to want to have people there who are protesting. If they’re renting the location, which we don’t know, then they have the right to admit or not anyone they please. I’m also thinking it’s even more likely that it’s not a public location, simply but rather open to the public, but virtue of the obvious event staff who was handling the matter.
Finally, it was the secret service NOT McCain who asked her to leave. We have no indication at all the McCain even had knowledge of the little old lady and Jack there. If the Peapod guy was with her, or appeared to be with her, and who knows who else may or may not have been part of the protest and wasn’t on camera, can you blame the Secret Service for thinking it might not be a good idea to let them into the event?
I don’t think this was staged, but I do think they’re not representing the situation fairly. And, quite frankly, it’s pointless anyway because I can’t imagine anyone will be convinced by this that isn’t already in hate of him.
True, also - not all the protesters about which we are speaking were convicted of violent offenses. They were all convicted of violations of the law, which is what I meant. But that is the line to draw - legal protest = fine, protest that goes over the line into illegality (including but not limited to violence) = not fine.
They might be, but AFAICT they aren’t. It looked more like the left made up most of the protesters at both venues - the left protesting at the Republican convention, and the farther left protesting at the Democratic one. Cite and cite.
Another explanation is that there’s simply more of the left protesting the Republican ones than of the left fringe protesting the Democrating ones. Certainly the latter is a much smaller group that the former, no?
I’m very familiar with left-leaning protesters shouting down speakers – most of these are college campus-type invited speakers being hassled by protesters, but not all. The “loud, physical protest” model that the Left is familiar with from street protests is used to effect when disrupting a speech.
I was posting a little reactionarily. In the clear light of day and upon re-viewing, I can see how this is less than honestly edited. So to a degree I admit ignorance fought.
