Ok, so the city dropped the charges. It’s not like they had any choice. They knew the trespassing charge was bogus and the defendants showed up to the hearing with the ACLU in tow.
This doesn’t really change any of the substance of my OP rant, which wasn’t so much against the local cops but against the Bushista “free speech zone” practices and the general policy of insulating W from any sort of dissenting speech or protest.
The mayor (who sounds like a massive prick, btw) even said that the arrest was carried out at the behest of the Secret Service.
Bottom line, the city knew the bust was bullshit and that they were flirting with possible civil rights violations, so they dropped the charges. The specific charge wasn’t really the point, though. The SS still accomplished its directed goal of rousting out dissenters from public view. That’s the real issue.
That’s one possibility. There’s no question in my mind that in addition to being left of the country’s center, this board population is considerably sharper than the country’s average. But it’s unclear to me that one is the result of the other.
No, that’s not what I mean to say. I, myself, am not a fan of the “midget cousin” genre of television entertainment, and yet am sanguine about the civil rights situation in this country under the current administration. Surely I can’t be the only one.
And if you’re suggesting that because the country consists of people less intelligent than you, their voices should count for less at the ballot box… well, before explore that road, perhaps I should ask if you are suggesting any such thing?
I think there’s another reason.
I think Cecil’s origins have a lot to do with the left-leaning boards. As a denizen of alternative papers, which are not known as hotbeds of conservative activism, Cecil’s pre-electronic fans tended to be more left than the country at large. Since the debut of the original AOL site, the fans that initially flocked here naturally represented that stripe. As time goes on, of course, the effect of those humble beginnings has dissipated, but the board’s culture has tended to reinforce the leaning: this is a welcoming place if you lean left; not so much so if you don’t – an observation I’ve made before. I don’t mean it’s UNwelcoming for conservatives, but there’s a distinct chorus of “me, too’s” for the posts that criticize the right, and a lack of the same choir for posts on the other side.
(Not universally so: things that fall into the realm of quackery, like crystals and homeopathy, often beloved of folks that lean left, are also almost universally derided here).
Anyway, whatever the reason, I’m pretty sure it’s not the machinations of the vocal left. It’s merely to their benefit.
I remember the GOP convention here in Philly. The standard, and honest response when most people heard the term was ‘I thought the whole country was a free speech zone?’
IIRC Everybody, was required to remain in the zone. Groups wishing to use it had to file a permit. If this was granted, the group was assigned a time. AntiBush and similar groups weren’t given the necessary application forms, or given them too late to file, or just assigned a time when no delegates would be at the convention center.
The police aslo raided a warehouse used by IIRC Spiral Q Puppet Theatre, a local organization supporting all things gay and liberal through the use of really big puppets. The police claimed they were acting on a Licensing and Inspection building code violation. Spiral members claimed that the cops made no inspection of the building, nor any attempt to force compliance with building codes. The cops just walked in and took puppets.
*"Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU’s West Virginia chapter, said the organization has been monitoring a pattern of similar cases in other states. The ACLU in September filed a federal lawsuit against the Secret Service, seeking an injunction against the Bush administration for segregating protesters at his public appearances.
The Secret Service agreed to stop the practice, ACLU attorney Witold Walczak told The Charleston Gazette.
Schneider said, “This case demonstrates we will be out there watching and monitoring to make sure free speech rights are not violated regardless of political affiliation.”*
So, the steady tramp of
Go right ahead. It sounds a lot sillier than it was. The folks at Spiral Q were working under the assumption that colorful costumes and giant puppets would get them more air time- both in terms of more seconds and in terms of the footage being more widely shown. Apparently some of the Republicans agreed that this tactic would probably work, and they seized the puppets.
A few local pundits argued that anybody who spent their time building puppets was not an effective protestor to begin with. Most folks, myself included, disagreed.
Taking that sentence out of context also conjures images of
“Pinnochio! You can’ta take a my Pinnochio!”
“Ahh, shaddup! Il Duce says we take a da puppet. We take a da puppet. Capice?”
Is this supposed to somehow negate the point made by the OP?
As Dio has already said, the city really had little choice but to drop the trumped-up charges against a couple who held a ticket to the event in question and did nothing but wear a t-shirt that some people didn’t like.
And even if the charges would stick, they don’t even need to be followed through. After all, the suppression of dissent has already served its purpose in preventing any expression of a differing opinion at a political gathering on public grounds. Bush and the giddy sheep who support him got to pat themselves on the collective back, tell themselves about how they really do support free speech, all while their bleating unanimity was being guaranteed by thugs in uniform.
I could care less about the point made in the OP, actually. I just happened to be reading my local newspaper online, saw the headline and thought “ooh, I wonder if anyone else in that thread has seen this yet.”
Your “ahem” (along with a posting history that lists somewhat to the starboard) led me to believe, like mehendo you were posting a snarky rebuttal link. Not that there’s anything wrong with that and I thank you for the update, but I think you may have unintentionally given an impression that you intended your cite to be a counter response, rather than just merely informative.
Well, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. My logic would tell me that since most voters don’t seem to know where Kerry stands, and don’t really “have a sense” of who Kerry is – coupled with the fact that people voting for Kerry seem to want Bush out more than Kerry in (remember when “Democratic nominee yet to be determined” was beating Bush) – along with a host of other observations, then the numbers would be much higher than your ten per cent.
Bricker. Since you seem to be following this thread, and you’re a lawyer, do you have any info/response to these sentences that I’ve lifted from the news report from today, linked to by Abie Carmichael. Link
Without knowing what the result of the ACLU’s lawsuit was, it would appear that the SS is still violating their(supposed) agreement to “stop the practice.”
Do you have a legal opinion on whether what the Secret Sevice seems to be doing is legal?
And I don’t mean just in the WVA incident. This shit has been going on across the country for a year or more now.
This is fucked up, but comparisons to the Holocaust are premature.
One lesson that has been learned from the Holocaust is to be very aware of the smaller encroachments upon freedoms. IMO, not allowing people to protest peacefully has moved up the ladder and is no longer “small.” Prisoner abuse and torture and even the consideration of non-public trials and executions is totally unacceptable. The first executions under such a system would have been just as bad as the first truckload of Jews that were gassed.
No one with sensitivity and intelligence bothers to quote Godwin’s Law when discussing the current administration now and I find that interesting. It is given more serious thought. The case can still legitimately be made that “comparisons to the Holocaust are premature.” But comparisons to some of the usurpation of freedoms then and now are not.
Maybe we should all agree to compare him to Uncle Joe Stalin. The first island in the Gulag Archipelago is already set up, anyone opposing him is against the fatherland, the whole bit. I bet Bush would bite on Lysenkoism - his treatment of science isn’t that far from Stalin’s.
It also has the advantage of probably making the Bushies really, really mad.
It would be helpful to know what, specifically, the Secret Service agreed to before opining on the extent, if any, of violation of the agreement. Undoubtedly the ACLU believes the Service has breached the agreement, but they are not exactly a neutral party in the dispute.
There has to be a balance between legitimate security concerns - and by “security” I mean containing both physical danger threats as well as disruptions - and permitting the expression of contrasting views. Any speaker at an event is entitled to official police protection to ensure that he is permitted to deliver his message without disruption.
For example, let us say that a group of Klansmen sought to infiltrate a rally for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, wearing homemade shirts with King’s picture slashed through with a red X. Police would be well within their rights to move these protesters out of the area reserved for the MLK rally. By the same token, the KKK rally, a week later, would enjoy the same protection from an invasion of bow-tied Nation of Isalm strongmen. While the government is not endorsing one view over another, it is giving effect to each group’s practical ability to organize, gather, speak, and listen without disruption.
If we can show that the government is actually endorsing one side over the other – say, by removing the Nation of Islam protesters immediately but merely issuing verbal warnings to the KKK protesters to behave, then we begin crossing the line into illegal actions.
The First Amendment doesn’t guarantee someone the right to camp out on the White House lawn or to share a podium with the President. On the other hand, “security” or “disruption” have to be real concerns; the government cannot invoke those magic words to ensure that all dissenting viewpoints are free to express themselves only in Point Barrow, Alaska, from 11:00 PM to 1: 00 AM.
As long as the Service can show legitimate, non-pretextual concerns about security and disruptiveness, I’d say they are on relatively firm ground.
As to the specific case, with all due respect to the Ranks, I’d say that deliberately hiding their protest shirts, which include an exhortation to “hate” the President, gives rise in a reasonable officer’s mind to the conclusion that the two were planning more than just peaceably sitting and listening. On the facts presented, I’m with the Service on this one.
Oh, what a load of fucking horseshit, Bricker. Effectively you’re saying that the SS is allowed to interpret any kind of peaceful dissent as a security threat. Do you think that couple would have been allowed in there if they had not concealed thir t-shirts? The concealment is not the issue and you know it. Havre you read about these “free speech zones?” I think your partisanship is showing.
I find it a sad commentary on what passes for both sensitivity and intelligence.
Why aren’t comparisons made between U.S. policy now and during WWII (i.e. internment of “security risks”)? Or between the activities of the current Administration and those of Attorney General Palmer in 1919-21 (look up the “Palmer raids”)? The immediate recourse to shouting
Nazi!
suggests that one does not possess the historical context with which to comprehend current events.
