I didn’t get the **Bricker ** reference at all. Still don’t.
I had a vision of Mr. and Mrs. Bricker engaging in legal badinage as a sort of foreplay. Bricker is wearing the legal robes, but nothing on underneath.
Maybe I’m projecting. 
Hope you’re doing OK, Lib. I am still praying for you.
Regards,
Shodan
It’s just atoms, and atoms aren’t real. But your kindness is. Thanks. 
What other measure could I espouse? Of course the merits count. Then again, my category of “political statement” encompasses perhaps an order of magnitude more incidences than yours. (Spank my ass & call me Gloria Steinem.) Wearing an American flag is a political statement. Chanting “USA” repeatedly is a political statement. Refusing to talk about politics, is in itself an implicit political statement.
You’re the ones reading an act of dissension, disloyalty, & subversion to the Party in this, with your talk of “clear implication.”
Discrimination (& a little observation of recent events) tells me that there is a planet full of anti-Bush sentiment out there. To say in simple English, “I did not vote for Bush,” is a bit like saying, “I did not vote for Khomeini,” in 1982, & could reasonably be interpreted as self-defense after being spat upon as assumed supporters of warmongering & secret kidnappings. That’s a slight difference from some goofball making obnoxious misspellings (which indicate a high likelihood of having also made slanders) about the party in power.
Yep, merits, discrimination. Note that I don’t think a whole lot needs to be done about Bricker’s hypothetical Ro[del]ss[/del]n P[del]erot[/del]aul voter who says, “We escaped Klinton’s Amerika!” either. Unlike some “lefties,” I don’t believe the state needs to shut all political speech down. I don’t take that from the crypto-fascists, & I certainly won’t take it from Uncle Joe.
Noted: Princhester, loyal Stalinist. 
But seriously, this is ridiculous. Free speech is an expected social principle of our culture, not just a narrow limitation on Congress.
GET OUT OF MY MIND!!!
Be careful of offending the Bridge Federation.
They may hit you with a Grand Slam of Photon Torpedoes.
Heh, you need to sort your head out before posting. First you are suggesting that what they said was a “simple statement of fact” and didn’t contain a political message, and now you’re telling me that everything is a political statement. If everything is a political statement, then holding up a sign proudly announcing one’s voting pattern is a political statement turned up to eleven, surely? Well OK maybe nine.
What you seem to be suggesting (and it’s one of the more dumbass suggestions I’ve ever heard pronounced on these boards, frankly) is that when a sportsman makes a political comment (or pointedly refuses to make a political comment, whatever) the sporting body should make a judgment call about the political merits of that statement and then hold that up against their rules to judge whether it infringes.
Indeed, step one before that would be that the sporting body would have to draw up rules attempting to define what is and what is not overly strong political comment. Fuck knows how they’d do that on any sensible and uncontroversial basis.
Given that the strength of any political comment is a massively subjective thing, the sporting body would be forced to adopt a political position and become embroiled in disputes that are quite simply none of its business (neither in the sense of business they should be in, or want to be in).
The only thing that a sporting body can sensibly do is tolerate no political statements, or allow all political statements. Anything else is adopting a position that a sporting body has no business doing.
So do you think the women thought that voting for Bush would be a good idea and the signs they held up were a lie, or what?
The rest of your post is strawman drivel.
If (as stated upthread) the organization is relying on something as nebulous as “conduct unbecoming a member”… well, I wouldn’t want to be the lawyer defending them if they end up getting sued over this.
I don’t understand, Steve. Sued for what? If the US Chess Federation (which I assume is analogous) were to censure players who held up “Screw Sarkozy” signs during a tournament with players invited from France, are you saying the USCF would be liable for something?
Prospective *NY Times * headline…
“France Surrenders to US Chess Federation, World Leaders Confused”
You could say they were “pwned”. I wouldn’t, of course, but you might.
:smack: (The other use for the smacky smiley.)
Perhaps, if the players are prevented from earning a livelihood playing bridge.
Even if the USBF were these players’ employer, which I’m pretty sure it is not, they could still fire them for this. There’s nothing to prevent a private employer from firing you over a free speech issue. Indeed, even a government employer might well be able to fire these players if the speech was disruptive enough. So I fail to see what the basis for a lawsuit would be against this private association.
They wouldn’t have to be their employer if the suspension effectively prevented them from making any kind of living in their chosen profession. I said “perhaps” because I haven’t done any kind of close examination of what kind of tort it might be, and how good such a case might be, but I think it’s not implausible at all that there is might be a pretty serious claim to be made if the suspension was unjustified and it caused economic harm to the players, that there.
I guess I just don’t share the intuition. Even something as critical as a teaching license usually doesn’t create a due process right, and if it does, the government can still cancel it because of political speech made by the teacher.
Due process right? Government? Political speech? I’m talking about some kind of a tort claim here. Where are you getting these constitutional issues?
Are you saying the bridge federation is a government actor? If so, well, damn, bring on the constitutional arguments. It’ll be a field day. If this were the case, I think the government would be in a mess of trouble trying to equate membership in the bridge federation with licensing of physicians and other professionals whose practice affects the public welfare.
Yeah, sorry, I missed that you were talking about a tort claim. I’ve never heard of such a tort. What general category of tort are we talking here?
Perhaps something along the lines of tortious interference with business relationships or restraint of trade. Perhaps there might even be some kind of antitrust/competition claim worth looking into.
Well if I know anything about bridge- it’s probably some sort of cherry torte.
Why is the bridge federation obligated to provide these people a living? Why can’t they form their own federation, like Kasparov did?