Whose permission did they need? Why? By the tenor of some in this thread I’m led to believe that a group can exercise their free speech rights willy-nilly, whenever they want, wherever they want.
I’m still trying to figure out what universe you live in where people looking at a monument should be afforded greater access to public spaces than people gathering to ask the government for a change in laws.
Magellan, as I explained upthread, a traditional public forum (which is a small subset of public spaces) can have reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on speech. What it cannot do is be closed to speech entirely, even if that rule is applied neutrally.
The question is whether a shutdown of the park during a lapse in appropriations is a reasonable time-based regulation. I can see arguments for and against, and notably the arguments against are similar to the ones conservatives are making about the Lincoln Memorial.
It is true that large groups generally need permits. But the issuing of the permit or not is still just a question of whether it is a reasonable regulation of the time for speech.
Not seeing how it did from the article. Unless “letting it happen” constitutes “facilitating” ?
Yes. And if Macy’s didn’t close at 8pm, I could shop there at night. What’s your point ?
But it seems that, per first amendment (and, I’ll underline again, *because *they had their hands twisted into allowing the vets in the first time around) they simply couldn’t deny the rally from taking place.
And if the rally itself can’t be prohibited, they’re kinda forced to provide it with hygienic necessities - assuming for a minute that gvt officials brought in the toilets, and not the rally’s organizers. The article doesn’t make it clear either way - because it’s that or people shitting on the lawn.
Would you rather the government had let people shit on the lawn ? 
I expect there are different rules for public property, which I understand the National Mall is.
Tell me, why do you think memorial monuments exist? what is their primary purpose?
And why do public spaces exist? What is their primary purpose?
Of course the answer to the former is to allow people to pay respects and reflect on the sacrifice of others. The answer to the latter is that they create area people can walk through, sit, ponder, meet, gather, etc. Using it as a forum for a group to address the government with grievances is a very legitimate but secondary use. So, with no services offered, both primary uses could still be enjoyed.
And they vets did not get greater access. I have no idea where you’re getting that from. Like I said, closing the services makes sense. Closing an open air area like that doesn’t. Especially since it cost more money to keep people away than to have them mill about. A large group is different, which is proven by the fact that they had to get some kind of authorization and the gathering had to be facilitated by the government.
You’re saying that a protest/rally/whatever got special treatment. You don’t seem to be saying that veterans got special treatment.
Plus, you’re saying that it is a secondary purpose for pulic spaces to be used for political speech, and that the primary purpose is milling around. Why do you gloss over the simple fact that milling around isn’t a specifically protected activity under the Bill of Rights, and political speech is?
Plus, the government doesn’t provide port-a-potties. The event organizers have to rent them from a private company.
Looks like the Lincoln memorial was undergoing mural restoration during 1995-1996. It doesn’t appear that the photo submitted is depicting the Lincoln memorial closed due to a government shutdown.
Sure they could have. For the reasons I mentioned. If the group was the NRA, do you think they would have been treated the same. HA!
But it can be disallowed. If a group applies for a permit(?) and the permit is denied, then they can’t so what they were seeking, correct? Otherwise, what’s the function of the permit and the application process?
I don’t see how this answers my question: “Also, aren’t there a different set of rules for large groups?”—on public property, like the National Mall.
It does. We’ve had this discussion before on this very board. Look for posts by WreckingCrew in particular, who works at NPS and broke it down for us.
It doesn’t, least not in terms of manpower. Again, we’ve talked about this before. IIRC the numbers were something like ~30 park rangers to block the entrance, versus multiple hundreds to keep an eye on the crowd when the memorial is open.
… but the vets did have to get some kind of authorization too. Even now, they don’t just allow “veterans” in period, but only specific organized tours (Honor Flight I think was the name ?).
And I’m still not seeing in what way the government *facilitated *the rally, exactly.
Of course the story was written by Jayson Blair so it could be a complete fabrication 
Until you can point to an NRA rally getting turned down, you only have your preconceived bias here.
I’m not saying there was no possible legal recourse for the government to disallow the rally - there obviously is. I’m talking about PR and image.
If they had refused the permit, and offered “there’s a shutdown” as the justification, the people in the rally would be shouting bloody murder the same way you are right now. Only with better grounds to, since they could cite actual precedent going the other way.
My point is twofold. One, it was dumb, petulant and mean spirited to attempt to keep the visiting vets away form the memorial. people have said that this was done before, but we have no evidence of that. The two pictures offered by those attempting to defend Obama by creating the perception that restricting access in SOP do not show that. One shows (as per Yorick’s investigative work) that the area was closed for a mural restoration. The other shows the information booth closed, but does not show the area being closed.
Prior to any of this happening, I would have thought that the logical thing to do in the even of a shutdown would be to leave the public spaces public, but not have services offered, like the information booth. And it appears that is what was done historically.
The second point is the rally. It makes perfect sends that the national mall remain open for everyone’s use. As it always is. As a normal procedure, groups that want to hold a rally need some kind of permission. I assume there are two reasons for this. One is that if there is going to be a huge crowd, that there needs to be increased law enforcement, facilities, and clean up. The other is that you don’t wind up with two opposing rallies at the same time. I don’t know the criteria by which a group seeking permission is denied that permission, but it seems logical that there would be some criteria. Otherwise, why have a permit process.
So, it was idiotic, petulant and mean spirited to deny the vets. And it was, I believe, very partisan to allow the rally. If the government is closed, it’s closed. Hell, the administration is keeping people from walking in National Parks, just to dial up the pain. But a rally for his side, with Nancy Pelosi front and center, is given special permission. And if that isn’t bad enough, some of those in attendance at the rally were illegal aliens.
So, the vets, who just want to visit a memorial, get the back of Obama’s hand and he relents only after his arm is twisted into a pretzel. Bu the amnesty crowd gets special permission because what we need to do is reward people who are here illegally and attract more illegals in the process. Again, what do you think wold have happened if the NRA was the group wanting to hold the rally?
Just because someone is afflicted with the Conservative Persecution Complex does not mean that they have valid points. Just the opposite, actually: hypothesizing about whether the NRA would be prohibited from protesting on the Mall is even more silly than claiming that there’s a war on Christmas.
So yes, you think taking a tour group of veterans to a memorial is more important than the free exercise of First Amendment rights to petition government for the redress of grievances. I don’t understand why you’re arguing with my characterization of your posts.
Guess we’re done. Unless you’d like to continue this in the Pit. Your choice.
Let’s say you are right in that it costs less to keep the area closed. To the tune of 30 or rangers versus hundreds if it is merely opened. Then it seems to follow that when the mall is 1) open and 2) is known to be having an even larger crowd than normal, that the number of rangers needed would be in excess of the normal hundreds. That is logical, right? Well, if so, then how can anyone claim that the rally didn’t cost the government more than not having the rally.
Not sure anyone claimed that.
ETA : but then, by that same rationale it also costs more to let the veterans in than not, neh ?
At least one representative has said that it costs more to close the open-air memorials then to keep them open. I wonder if it cost more to take down the websites of government agencies than to leave them up and not update them. Did they pay someone to go in and turn off the panda-cam as opposed to leaving it on?
Sure, whatever.
But I strongly believe that if the NRA. the Tea Party, or anyone else wanted to organize a similar issue-oriented protest on the Mall, they would also receive approval. I don’t think there’s a single microscopic shred of evidence to suggest otherwise.
I grew up in the town next door, so I remember the whole craziness pretty well (my homeroom teacher decided to make it a teachable moment about freedom of speech and how to react to extremism). I don’t remember offhand how the injunction got entered to begin with; I was 10 years old at the time. I might be able to poke around later.