Another thing- and I should have said this to begin with rather than chasing that fucking red herring about “shouting down speakers” (poor, poor Cheney my heart fucking breaks. :()
We’re not even talking about heckling or disruptions, we’re talking about keeping out anyone who disagrees even silently. Wearing a Kerry/Edwards shirt does not infringe on Cheney’s right or ability to speak, does it? Why the fick should someone like that be keppt out of any official appearanns on the tax payer dime by an elected official?
Your question contains a false supposition. The protestors are not using “brownshirt” tactics. Brownshirts are functionaries of a police state. They are governmental tactics, not populist ones.
Protesting and heckling is just plain old dissent. In order to be a brownshirt you have to have authority. You have to have power.
I don’t care who the hell is backing you or who you represent. That is just as dumb as saying it is impossible for a black man to be racist since he is a minority.
Besides, when the brownshirts did most of their shouting down and intimidation tacticts they were not in power. They were just another minority party, they had as much power and authority as the left-wing brownshirts of today. I am sure that then you would have supported their acts of dissent against the Weimar Republic.
What’s bullshit is your stupid attempts to Godwinize this thread.
“Brownshirts” have come to colloquially mean a group that uses violence or threats of violence as a tactic to squelch political dissent. Just because the original group were part of the government doesn’t mean the term can’t be applied to non-state actors.
Quit playing stupid definitional games and address the substantive points raised.
There is no fucking difference. The Veep doesn’t stop being the Veep whenever it’s convenient to him. Is he using tax payer dollars to pay for the appearance. Is paying for his own security? I’m sorry, I don’t buy this chickenshit parsing of what is “official” and what isn’t. If he’s not acting as Veep them let him pay for his own fucking venues, his own security and his own transportation.
How do I know you aren’t going to go on a killing spree? Aren’t we supposed to wait until someone actually does something wrong before we fuck with their rights. Are we using fucking “pre-crime” tactics already.
Bullshit. Cheney was a private citizen in 2000, and it would be unquestionably appropriate for him to make such exclusions at campaign stops at that time. There is no reason to treat him differently now. Dick Cheney did not check his speech and associative rights at the door when he assumed office.
No one’s being charged with a crime here. They’re just being excluded from an event, and they’re not being excluded by state action. Private entities, like the RNC, have every right to take whatever legally-available steps they feel are necessary to ensure their events go off smoothly.
And again, no one’s rights are being interfered with. There is no inherent right to attend a Dick Cheney campaign speech.
At what point will these guys do something so desparate, stupid, and chickenshit that even the most faithful Republicans will realize they’re backing the wrong horse?
Ignoring all this brownshirt, heckling, shouting, speech nonsense, this loyalty oath requirement is really quite heartening. If the republicans want to behave like a bunch of elitist country-clubbers holding back the ravaging hordes of unwashed american voters, let them. Let them put the lie to all that big tent bullshit they spewed during the last presidential election. The smaller they make their tent, the better I like it.
I think the government using uniformed officers to check dissent at the door and demand oaths of allegiance is at least intimidating.
I know better than to argue with a lawyer about the law. You may be right about a difference in capacity for campaign appearances and “official” ones.
I’m sorry I called you a brownshirt. I meant it only in the most hyperbolic and figurative sense. I know you’re not a fucking nazi. I apologize for Godwinization.
I also think the pledge signing and the “free speech zones” are fucking cowardly and that they have nothing to do with security.
Do you remember the chicken who used to haunt Bush Sr. rallies during the '92 election, calling him “Chicken George?” GHWB used to get a big kick out of the chicken and got into some verbal jousting with him. He laughed at the chicken and got the crowd to laugh with him. That was cool. That showed a sense of humor and a tolerance for dissent. He didn’t have security herd the chicken off to a free speech zone. That’s the way to deal with heckling. It’s only one more way that I think the current president is not the man his father was. I didn’t vote for Bush One but I respected him and sometimes even liked him.
Dewey, I intend no offense to you personally, but I am really surprised by your posts.
Did you ever wonder why he would only want to appear before those who have already decided to support him?
Is this any different from the Democrats? Did you see the fenced-off area in Boston? How many “Bush-Cheney” shirts do you think would be allowed in to a Kerry campaign stop?
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Dewey, this is the first time that I can ever remember where people with “opposing t-shirts” weren’t allowed to be on the scene!!! And this is my 16th Presidential campaign! This really is not an ordinary maneuver. If I ever found that a candidate for President had required anyone to sign such a pledge, I would not vote for her or him ever.
I did not approve of protestors being kept at a distance for the Democratic Convention and I think that the Democrats should have chosen a place with protesting actually encouraged. Peaceful protest has always been part of the American way.
Damn, Dewey. I don’t understand why you dont care.
Where? When? Do you really mean “often”? I have not seen hecklers bring speakers to a full and complete stop. Perhaps I could have forgotten one or two times, but I wouldn’t forget it if it happened often. Why not allow peaceful protest and just remove anyone who wants to continue to interrupt or stop the speech altogether?
I had rather have a President that can handle a heckler with a witty response or a quick rebuff.
I get the feeling that people are losing sight of what’s normal politics and what’s repression.
Cite for the proposition that government officials are checking these things? Event security and RNC personnel would be doing those things.
The police could, of course, remove pepole at the RNC’s request, and that’s fine – folks the RNC doesn’t want at their events are trespassing. But the RNC is the one actually deciding who stays and who goes.
Accepted.
The pledge thing isn’t a security issue so much as a preventing hecklers issue. It’s probably an ineffectual way to stop said hecklers, but the campaign is well within their rights to try to prevent such disruptions.
The free speech zones may well have gotten a bit absurd in recent times. But there really are issues of security and free ingress/egress to consider, as well as issues of disruption to the lives of a city’s residents. I commute into NYC every day, and I know I’m not looking forward to the RNC descending on us this month. And this is a bipartisan thing – the Dem’s speech area in Boston resembled one of the Soviet reeducation centers in Red Dawn.
I agree that was cool. It was also one guy, and he didn’t really get noticed by Bush until the press picked up on his story. Unfortunately, today we’ve got rafts of protestors cut from the WTO mold whose stated goal is to shut things down. As so often happens, a few asshats ruin things for everybody.
When John Kerry starts giving speeches before the Club for Growth, come talk to me. Until then, I think it safe to say that all politicians only want to appear before friendly crowds.
As I noted earlier, a heckler does not need to completely destroy a proceeding to succeed. A significant disruption coupled with footage of him or her being dragged off by security accomplishes the heckler’s goals. Why should a campaign play into the heckler’s hands? They’re under no obligation to give their opposition a platform.
No, it isn’t safe to say that. Politicians have at least as much an interest in neutralizing, if not converting, their opposition as they have in basking in adulation - that’s especially true in a campaign. It may well be that those pols whose policies and results cannot withstand scrutiny can only *afford * to appear before “friendly crowds”, examples being Bush’s Iraq war speeches to the Army War College and the USAF Academy commencement, though.
That too is not an unavoidable result. To the extent that the heckler’s “comments” are seen as reflecting a statement of an opposition viewpoint instead of a simple shoutdown attempt, the rudeness of his efforts can discredit that viewpoint. Further, a deft response to a heckler can easily work to a politician’s favor. Here’s how The Big Dog did it, for example:
All I can say is: in my area Cheney comes and speaks to tiny pre-chosen audiences where there are almost as many protestors as attendees. They rent the biggest auditoriums and then curtain them off to make them look full when they could have just rented smaller venues to fill. The Kerry-Edwards events, however, have big rallies. They have actually been on the buses on the bus tour most of the time, instead of running phantom buses with no actual VIPs on them to fake the idea. They don’t ask for loyalty oaths: they hand out free tickets to anyone that asks for them. They let the abortion people bring their giant pictures of bloody fetuses and wave them around all they want (outside the secured area: nobody gets to bring in signs or bags that the SS hasn’t pre-screened). The protestors shout as loud as they can so that other people who came to hear Kerry and Edwards speak can’t hear what they came to hear. K/E haven’t been going to safe areas or meeting only with supporters.
No approach is illegal. But yeah, one approach is definately pretty chickenshit.
Whether or not the speech is worthwhile or not (anyone shouting down a speech is a total loser, obviously) has nothing to do with its protection under the law. The fact that they’re trying to use their freedom of speech to prevent others’ use of theirs is what makes heckling Mr. Cheney is the reason it’s not a valid exercise of free speech.
Needless to say, I agree with you. As a raging lefty pinko queer, I think the Republicans have less than pure motives, and I agree with the above analyses of their (quite effective) techniques for stifling dissent in their ranks.
But this has nothing to do with free speech. As everyone who’s graduated middle school ought to have learned by now, our rights are not without limits. You have every right to say whatever you like about Dick Cheney - you may, for example, declare that he’s an ugly, soulless, shrivelled, goat-felching lump of mucus. Or that he acts like that because he hasn’t gotten laid in several decades. But your right to speak doesn’t extend to some right to use any forum you may wish to speak. Your free speech rights are not being violated when the local paper declines to publish your letter to the editor, nor are you being subject to fascist oppression if Wal-Mart won’t let you hang around their entrances handing out literature.
I’m so tired of the way people complain that any time they’re not allowed to force their views on others, it’s a free speech violation. Hey, Mockingbird, you wouldn’t be so quick to defend the rights of abortion clinic protesters to harass women at the entrances, would you? Does Fred Phelps get to enter into a gay funeral to start screaming about hellfire and damnation? Of course not. You wouldn’t like this version of free speech in the slightest. Society would turn into something ruled by the loudest, most obnoxious people around. Imagine if our whole country was like the audience on Jerry Springer.
Have you ever been to a political event? When Howard Dean came to town during primary season, I had the misfortune of sitting near some idiots who’d snuck in with pro-Bush signs. They were quiet and not within view of the cameras, and the place was so crowded they couldn’t have been hustled out. But given the irritation of the security people present, I’m quite certain they wouldn’t have gotten in wearing Bush-Cheney t-shirts. And why should they? I don’t want assholes like that disrupting Democratic events.
Sometimes I think some of you people take off your blue- or red-tinted glasses long enough to look at these things fairly. Yeah, the pledge was a jackass move on the Republicans’ part, but no one has the right to try to disrupt another group’s assembly.
Muad’Dib, I’ll refrain from speculating here that you may be suffering from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Suffice it to say, “Nazi” and “Fascist” and similar insults play to the fact that governments in Germany and Italy actively oppressed speech. Fascism is when an authority prevents dissent. The speech of those in power is inherently not “dissent” - they may disagree with the small group of ragtag protesters, but it’s only dissent if it’s breaking with the positions of the folks running the show.
So the lefties are not, whatever their faults, “brownshirts” - they’re not using government power to stifle opposition, since they couldn’t possibly do so. Maybe a more apt comparison would be with the Viet Cong.
Jesus, Dio, I expect better than this from you. He wasn’t acting in an official capacity. A campaign stop is most assuredly not financed by the government (except indirectly, through public campaign funds that are distributed among both candidates). If this was a campaign appearance (I forget by now what it actually was) than obviously they were paying for their own venues, security, and transportation. He still has the right to his private life as a public official - what’s next? Your right to speak freely in his living room when he’s enjoying a snifter of brandy in the company of two or three friends? Obviously there are times when he’s Veep and times when he’s Dick Cheney.
And yeah, I agree with point number two.
To reiterate the central issue, no one has any right to force others to host a forum for their speech. You can stand on the street corner and scream about the coming of Armageddon all you like, but you aren’t being ‘repressed’ if they don’t permit it at the city council meeting, much less at a private event like a campaign appearance. Rights only exist up until they start interfering with others’ rights, and then it gets much more complicated. You don’t get to make others listen to your speech, though, or make them provide a space for you to speak in.