Posted on 09/30/2008 10:02:58 PM PDT by DakotaRed
Only if you may be a conservative, it appears.
As we all know, an effigy of Barack Obama was found hanging from a tree at George Fox University recently.
Effigies in Political Expression have been used since America was founded. Our Founders wrapped an effigy of King George in a Union Jack and burned it in the late 1700’s. Effigies of President Bush have been hung, paraded across country and even burned, not only in America, but also around the world.
An effigy of an American soldier was set on fire in Portland during an anti-war protest in March 2007 as well as an American Flag was set on fire as a protester defecated on it. This was written off as “rudeness” by the media.
While effigies can be offensive, it seems no one really cared until this one appeared of B HO. Automatically, it is labeled “racist” because Obamessiah is half African and officials from George Fox University immediately issued an apology to the B HO campaign.
No one has ever issued an apology to President Bush for all the denigration and effigies of him. That I recall no one has ever apologized for such an expression of Free Political Speech before, not even for burning the soldier in effigy in the Portland protest, even though protesters accompanied the effigy with the vile chant, “Build a bonfire, Build a bonfire, Put the soldiers on the top. Put the fascists in the middle, and, we'll burn the f**king lot.”
University officials called in the Newberg Police in “investigate” the effigy and it was reported to the Secret Service. The FBI has been called in too. Newberg Police Sgt. Tim Weaver admitted it wasn’t clear that any crime was committed early on.
Lt. Jeff Kosmicki of the Newberg Police said no state law was broken.
Brad Berry, Yamhill County district attorney said, “This behavior is reprehensible, but not all offensive behavior is criminal.” He also said the effigy seemed not to pose a direct threat and may fall within protected free speech rights.
Secret Service agent Ron Wampole said, “We are continuing to investigate but I don’t think it’s going to go any further. There certainly wasn’t any crime committed, I don’t believe.”
FBI spokesperson Beth Anne Steeled said the FBI is “looking into possible civil rights violations.”
Four students have confessed to hanging the effigy and are under “long-term suspension” and must perform “community service” as their penance, according to University officials. Yet, all say no crime was committed.
The leap is made that because of “America’s racist history,” when Blacks were lynched, as well as some whites, this effigy equates to those lynchings’ because B HO is half-African. Race is once again injected to stifle opposition to B HO.
The effigy contained a note labeling B HO as an “Act 6 reject.” Act 6 is a scholarship to benefit minorities and lower income students. Hence, the further leap of it was directed at the minority students studying at George Fox.
I see the outrage as manufactured, manipulating and another effort at stifling free expression, when directed against a liberal. There has never been this sort of outcry and investigations initiated if the effigy was President Bush, President Reagan or any other Republican.
In fact, according to University officials, “few people saw the effigy or were aware of it,” and the custodian that discovered it early in the morning took it down. Yet, massive attention has now been focused on it as authorities were notified and of course, Obama supporters spread it across the Internet.
They have turned a minor act of Political Expression in opposition to the Obamessiah into a racist act, as Democrats have been doing since they threw Hillary under the bus and chose B HO.
Will similar outrage be shown when the next effigy of Bush, McCain, Sarah Palin or any Republican be discovered?
Don’t bank on it. After all, they have “Free Political Expression.”
Apparently, Republicans do not.
We have freedom of speech and the right to free expression, as long as it doesn’t piss off liberals...
Liberals have never believed in free speech.
Actually, my guess is the Obamessiah folks did this themselves so they can cry racism or whatever....I even heard a story about someone effacing their own Obama sign with racial slurs. It’s typical when one supports a candidate like B. Hussein who plays the race card at every turn. Many of his supporters likely think the same way he does.
Their problem is that they hung the noose, evoking images of lynchings in the old south. They should have embraced diversity and given the effigy a Soweto necklace, like the blacks in South Africa were fond of employing against the opposition in the period after apartheid. It would have been multi-cultural, and all.
When we say “free speech”, we don’t mean for you!
-liberal mantra
You won’t be able to call Barack Obama a BAD president. That’s like saying every black man has been a bad president.
You won’t be able to call the Left’s thuggish discrimination against conservatives in the workforce a blacklist. That’s like saying all black people make enemies lists.
There were lynchings in the old west for cattle rustlers. There were lynchings in the big city in the 20th century for mob executions of prisoners as well as scab workers who crossed picket lines.
We aren’t supposed to remember those. From now on, the Socialists have said that only black people were ever hung by an angry mob.
The media ignored the national trend in 2004 of Democrats painting swastikas on Bush-Cheney signs, the homes and sidewalks of Bush supporters, throwing bricks through GOP campaign offices, slashing the tires of GOP get out the vote vehicles, taking out Craigslist ads to kick some Republican’s ass, assaulting the kids of adults who voted for Bush, etc. etc.
Each incident was treated as an isolated event with no national significance.
Of course you're right; however, you have to concede that most statistics show that from the mid-late 1800's through the end of the civil rights movements there were about 2-3x as many blacks lynched as whites...especially significant given they are only 10-15% of the population. Having said that, the number of blacks lynched in the hundred years from 1870-1970 was only about 50% of the black-on-black homicides committed in 2005.
True. How dare they not get behind the chosen one!!! Those darn racists need to fall in line! Hehe
The Race Card is the last card of a scoundrel.
Exactly - the obama campaign set this up so they could be seen as being treated unfairly -
also to keep their supporters riled up just in case unbridled anger is needed in a week or so -
i bet we see more of this kind of thing in the next few days.
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