Could you follow it this time?
I thought I covered that. Regardless, I know nothing about these things as previously admitted. But I would think that if was SOP, the Olberman camp wouldn’t have paraded it around as such a big deal out of fear of being slammed for it.
Your last two sentences do not follow from the rest of your paragraph.
Yes, I agree with you that if you’re carrying a sign supporting John Dogood to a John Dogood rally, and you’re asked to leave it behind, you’ll most likely comply, because you’re interested in cooperating with the candidate, and I agree that if you’re opposed to John’s campaign, you’re less likely to be sanguine about leaving your anti-John sign behind.
But what of it? The regulation that says, “No signs at this rally,” will obviously be more palatable to the organizer’s supporters than to his detractors. But it may still be a valid regulation.
You say it was an “open meeting” on “public land” in an effort to suggest that no restrictions on signs could be valid, and then segue into a claim that it’s all about the message. In fact, if a group rents a space and controls access, then content-neutral regulations about signs can be enforced. Here, as has been repeatedly mentioned above, the regulations were applied to all signs. It wasn’t “all about the message” even though the people with “anti-” signs may have been more upset than the people with “pro-” signs.
Yes, and thank you for clarifying. I disagreed with your claim, and posted the reasons above, but I was certainly able to follow your claim this time. I appreciate the clarification.
With respect, Bricker, I don’t think that it was ever established that for this event, both pro- and anti- signs were prohibited. Others have told about similar policies at other events from candidates from both parties, but nothing I have seen has identified the actual policy at this event. Further, even if there were a formal policy, there is no evidence it was enforced evenly against all signs regardless of message.
I’d love to see actual information about the policy and enforcement at this event.
Well, given that the OP is Pitting the Republican Party, and not the other way around, I think the onus is on him (?) to establish that.
Fair enough. But given that similar policies have been shown to exist at other events, and given that the proponent of a proposition always has the burden to make his case in any event, it’s up to those who claim a discriminatory purpose to show that this event was different.
As to the 30 to 1 ratio, maybe it means that the police simply arrest more Democratic protesters and turn their heads for Republican ones.
The Republican National Convention was held in NYC, (to bath in the all the 9/11 glory) But it has a very large democratic base and a large population. Also due to the nature of the city, it is easy to protest here. You can walk right up to whatever you want to protest. People protest here a lot. The Republicans did a very bad job leading up to the convention. Remember the story about how one Repubican politician was looking into having a cruise ship in the Hudson river so the republicans didn’t have to sleep in NYC. (I think he was thinking of NYC of the 1970s) This idea was later abandoned. So NYC was pissed off before they ever arrived.
Also remember how the NYPD planted undercover officers in with the protesters, then a uniformed officer would unfairly arrest the undercover cop, and then anyone who protested that, was arrested for interfering with a police officer.
So that may have pushed the numbers a bit higher.