# It is now illegal to wear an anti-Bush shirt in west Virginia **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 14, 2004, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103 "2004-07-14T17:13:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/61 "2004-07-15T01:55:59Z")
First they came for the assholes in the anti-Bush shirts, and I didn’t say anything because I was an asshole in an anti-Kerry shirt. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/62 "2004-07-15T01:57:34Z")
> [@buttonjockey308](#): > > 1. Frankly, I think the OP’s title is a touch inflammatory, if the police are to be believed. Placing someone in restraints is necessary when you, well, restrain them. Arresting someone, OTOH, requires them to be removed to the custody of the police for booking, and mirandized. These folks were ticketed and released in the field, NOT arrested in the traditional sense of the word. I don’t know about that. From the original article it certainly sounds like they were booked. It also sounds like Mrs. Rank received some extra punishment. > [@](#): > > Nicole Rank arrived in Charleston soon after the Memorial Day floods. She was working as deputy environmental liaison officer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, making sure cities and counties obeyed federal environmental laws as they repaired roads and bridges. > > After police arrested the Ranks, fingerprinted them and took their mug shots, FEMA told Nicole Rank she was no longer needed in West Virginia. > > “I have not been fired per se,” she said. “But I was released from this job. And when they release you from a job, you no longer get paid.” ---
**Author:** ![St.Urho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e7dd6/32.png) [@St.Urho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/St.Urho)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/63 "2004-07-15T03:38:18Z")
They’ve done similar things at rallies since then, too. Like this one in my hometown: > [@](#): > > At 3:30 a.m. Tuesday, a group of Northern Michigan University students excited to see President George W. Bush sat outside the dome. > > The students, some of whom were dressed in protest T-shirts, laughed and joked with U.S. Treasury Secret Service agents and thought they’d be among those getting closest to see the president. > > What the students became aware of by 10:30 a.m. was they were not going to see at the rally. > > Some tickets were taken and torn and entry was denied to those wearing any clothing, buttons or other items opposing Bush. From here: [url=http://www.miningjournal.net. Sorry, I’m not sure how to link to specific articles on this site, it’s in the one titled Protesters get their day in the sun on rainy Thursday ---
**Author:** ![St.Urho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e7dd6/32.png) [@St.Urho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/St.Urho)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/64 "2004-07-15T03:39:41Z")
D’oh! That link should be [The Mining Journal](http://www.miningjournal.net) ---
**Author:** ![stochastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e19b73/32.png) [@stochastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stochastic)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/65 "2004-07-15T04:54:40Z")
Funny coincidence here: as I was reading this thread, my father in WV called to tell me that he’s part of the welcoming committee for another Bush visit to the state on Friday. One of his duties has been to help out with the distribution of tickets to the event. Disturbingly, he said he has to collect personal identification from the ticket recipients and give it to the campaign people (and from there, presumably to the Secret Service) because the Bush people want to keep out “the riff-raff and radicals”. Nevermind that Friday’s event is supposed to be a public rally being held in a public building. The party officials are saying that the intended purpose of the tickets is to regulate the number of people into the building due to limited seating (which makes perfect sense), but it clear they’re also being used to select out dissenting viewpoints. One would think that those with dissenting viewpoints would be just the kind of audience they need to address if they’re interested in winning the election… I pressed him and got him to admit that last week’s arrests were a bit worry-some from a civil-rights point of view, but he parroted the party line in saying that anything goes in the name of security. A convienient excuse that’s wearing a bit thin, methinks. As my father will have a behind-the-scenes view of Fridays’s event, he should have some good stories. I’ll post here if he tells me anything interesting. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/66 "2004-07-15T05:14:25Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > …whether anyone else read “LE” in the above post as short for “Lawful Evil,” and had to think hard to figure out what else it might mean… I was thinking maybe “Lesbian Existentialist”… ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/67 "2004-07-15T05:18:35Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Right out of the playbook of > > **Josef Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler!** Ok, so you’re funny as hell, but you didn’t really address my questions. Saying something happens all the time or in lots of places doesn’t make it right. _What if_ we’re headed down a slippery slope? Isn’t a voice of dissent a good thing? I mean, male-only voting was perfectly acceptable until someone said _wait wait, fuck this shit…_ Would you go back now and call that person a wingnut? What about the German Jew in 1935 from my other post? What would you say to him? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/68 "2004-07-15T11:28:15Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > People are scared of this man Jackmannii. Read very carefully: **Americans. are terrified. of their President.** > > This is not a good thing and shouldn’t be taken lightly in any way. If a national poll were to ask respondents: do you agree or disagree with the statement: “I am terrified of President Bush,” what percentage of responses do you believe would be “Agree?” ---
**Author:** ![leander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bcef8e/32.png) [@leander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leander)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/69 "2004-07-15T11:41:18Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > If a national poll were to ask respondents: do you agree or disagree with the statement: “I am terrified of President Bush,” what percentage of responses do you believe would be “Agree?” Change that to “I am terrified of the direction President Bush is taking this country” and I imagine the numbers would be pretty high. Probably along the same equal lines of division we currently have, i.e. half the country scared, half the country grateful to God… Strange times, indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/70 "2004-07-15T12:28:33Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > Saying something happens all the time or in lots of places doesn’t make it right. It also doesn’t make it **Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles!** Shrieking in a tone of near-hysteria about Nazism ensures that one will not be taken seriously. > [@](#): > > _What if_ we’re headed down a slippery slope? Isn’t a voice of dissent a good thing? A voice of dissent is fine. Contributing money to the ACLU and letting them know you support their efforts in this regard would be more effective than babbling about Hermann Goering hiding under your bed. > [@](#): > > What about the German Jew in 1935 from my other post? What would you say to him? If I could find such an individual _today_, I’d express my regrets that they must see their sufferings trivialized by people who know little about the true meaning of Nazi oppression. _Male-only voting???_ ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/71 "2004-07-15T12:46:47Z")
> [@leander](#): > > Change that to “I am terrified of the direction President Bush is taking this country” and I imagine the numbers would be pretty high. Probably along the same equal lines of division we currently have, i.e. half the country scared, half the country grateful to God… > > Strange times, indeed. I don’t agree. Although the polls are pretty even right now, I don’t accept that everyone who favors Mr. Kerry over Mr. Bush is “terrified” of the direction the country is being taken under the Bush administration. Undoubtedly, there are people who feel that way, but how can you possily contend there are no, or few, people who favor Mr. Kerry but are simply unapproving of Mr. Bush, or simply like Kerry’s politics more, without being “terrified”? To accept your guess is to agree that almost everyone polled as voting for Kerry would agree that they are terrified of the Bush approach, and I see absolutely no evidence for such a sweeping statement, and it fails the commonsense test that the range of people favoring Kerry represent a RANGE, a curve, with a middle and outliers. The “terrified” position is pretty clearly an outlier. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/72 "2004-07-15T12:52:22Z")
> [@leander](#): > > Change that to “I am terrified of the direction President Bush is taking this country” and I imagine the numbers would be pretty high. It’s not what you’re terrified at, it’s that you’re terrified at all. Or even scared. It’s the hyperbole that **Bricker** and **Jackmannii** are talking about. It’s one thing to be worried, concerned, disturbed, angry, but _terrified_? You’re going to use up all the good words at that rate, and there’ll be nothing left but “I crap my pants” for when the Storm Troopers knock down your door. ---
**Author:** ![leander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bcef8e/32.png) [@leander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leander)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/73 "2004-07-15T13:05:10Z")
Perhaps “half” is a wee bit of an exaggeration… 😉 Let me put it a different way – have you ever known the country to be this divided about its leadership and this passionate about that division? I would certainly agree that if you polled folks about whether they’re “terrified of the President”, most would respond “no”. (Or more likely, “No, that’s not exactly the word I would use…”) But if you were to poll whether they felt “terrified at the direction he’s taking the country”, I think the results might startle you. (Outside of the US as well.) But that’s just my humble opinion. ---
**Author:** ![leander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bcef8e/32.png) [@leander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leander)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/74 "2004-07-15T13:08:14Z")
> [@bnorton](#): > > It’s not what you’re terrified at, it’s that you’re terrified at all. Or even scared. It’s the hyperbole that **Bricker** and **Jackmannii** are talking about. It’s one thing to be worried, concerned, disturbed, angry, but _terrified_? You’re going to use up all the good words at that rate, and there’ll be nothing left but “I crap my pants” for when the Storm Troopers knock down your door. [BHL] Well, some people really care about the future, man… [/BHL] ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/75 "2004-07-15T14:10:20Z")
> [@leander](#): > > Perhaps “half” is a wee bit of an exaggeration… 😉 > > Let me put it a different way – have you ever known the country to be this divided about its leadership and this passionate about that division? > > I would certainly agree that if you polled folks about whether they’re “terrified of the President”, most would respond “no”. (Or more likely, “No, that’s not exactly the word I would use…”) But if you were to poll whether they felt “terrified at the direction he’s taking the country”, I think the results might startle you. (Outside of the US as well.) > > But that’s just my humble opinion. I don’t think the results would startle me, and I’m convinced that less than 10% of US respondents would answer ‘Yes’ to “terrified at the direction”. Most of the voters that favor Kerry do so out of conviction that his approach is better for the country, not a terror of the Bush administration, and that’s simple logic and observation. While I agree that a majority of people ON THIS BOARD might well respond ‘Yes’ to the “terrified” question, that’s merely an indicator of how different this board’s population is from the country as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/76 "2004-07-15T14:20:09Z")
That’s because we’re _smarter_ than the country as a whole. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/77 "2004-07-15T14:46:13Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I don’t think the results would startle me, and I’m convinced that less than 10% of US respondents would answer ‘Yes’ to “terrified at the direction”. Most of the voters that favor Kerry do so out of conviction that his approach is better for the country, not a terror of the Bush administration, and that’s simple logic and observation. While I agree that a majority of people ON THIS BOARD might well respond ‘Yes’ to the “terrified” question, that’s merely an indicator of how different this board’s population is from the country as a whole. What you mean to say is that this country consists of stupid fucking morons who could give one shit about their rights being eroded under their noses as long as a new episode of “who wants to marry my midget cousin?” is on. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/78 "2004-07-15T14:48:57Z")
Oh, now, **Diogenes** , its time to 'fess up. **Bricker’s** got us dead to rights, its a fair cop, but society is to blame. We did it. Me, **Dio, Stoidella** , a few others. We hatched this giant conspiracy to corrupt and subvert the SDMB. Some time ago, we even got The Cecil, now we are just wiping up a few pockets of resistance. Oh, of course, we leave a few Tighty Righties, just to keep up appearances, but only those whose argumentative skills are so weak that we needn’t concern ourselves. Nothing to it, really, just use the same plan we used to subvert all the major campuses into hotbeds of leftytude. Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! And there’s nothing they can do about it! ---
**Author:** ![Abbie\_Carmichael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@Abbie\_Carmichael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abbie_Carmichael)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/79 "2004-07-15T18:17:15Z")
[Ahem.](http://www.herald-dispatch.com/2004/July/15/update.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2004, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103/80 "2004-07-15T18:56:07Z")
> [@Abbie Carmichael](#): > > [Ahem.](http://www.herald-dispatch.com/2004/July/15/update.htm) > [@](#): > > “The city of Charleston does not engage in violating people’s rights. We want everybody to come here,” said Jones, a Republican. > > Still, he said he would not apologize to the Ranks. > > “They were there to get arrested. They succeeded.” Wow. “We do not engage in violating people’s rights. Oh what’s that you say? People have the right to disagree with us? Oh, well those people are just _asking_ to get arrested.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-is-now-illegal-to-wear-an-anti-bush-shirt-in-west-virginia/255103.md?page=5)