Posted on 05/14/2004 8:20:31 AM PDT by freeeee
The King made a royal visit to Wisconsin last week, and as is common when monarchs travel, individual liberties were suspended.
King George Bush's bus trip across western Wisconsin closed schools and roads, prevented residents from moving freely in their own communities, and prevented citizens from exercising their free speech rights.
All in all, it was a typical George W. Bush visit.
But there's a slight twist.
People in western Wisconsin, who hold to the refreshingly naive notion that they live in a republic as opposed to an imperial realm, are objecting.
"There's a pattern of harassment of free speech here that really concerns me," says Guy Wolf, the student services coordinator at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. "If they're going to call it a presidential visit, then it should be a presidential visit - where we can hear from him and he can hear from us. But that's not what happened here, not at all."
Wolf and other La Crosse area residents who wanted to let the president know their feelings about critical issues came face to face with the reality that, when King George travels, he is not actually interested in a two-way conversation.
Along the route of the Bush bus trip from Dubuque to La Crosse, the Bush team created a "no-free-speech" zone that excluded any expressions of the dissent that is the lifeblood of democracy. In Platteville, peace activist Frank Van Den Bosch was arrested for holding up a sign that was critical of the president. The sign's "dangerous" message, "FUGW," was incomprehensible to children and, no doubt, to many adults. Yet, it was still determined sufficiently unsettling to the royal procession that Van Den Bosch was slapped with a disorderly conduct ticket.
Up the road in La Crosse, the clampdown on civil liberties was even more sweeping. Wolf and hundreds of other Wisconsinites and Minnesotans who sought to express dissents were videotaped by authorities, told they could not make noise, ordered not to display certain signs and forced to stand out of eyesight of Bush and his entourage. Again and again, they were told that if they expressed themselves in ways that were entirely protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, they would be "subject to arrest."
"Everyone understood the need for basic security for the president, but none of us could understand why we had to give up our free speech rights," explained Wolf.
La Crosse Mayor John Medinger shares that concern. The Bush-Cheney campaign leased a portion of a local park where the royal rally was held. Yet, Wisconsinites who wanted to protest Bush's visit were told they could not use a sound system in a completely different section of the park.
"I want to find out why the whole park was used when only a portion was leased," Medinger told the La Crosse Tribune. "So when demonstrators were told they couldn't have (sound) systems, the question is why."
The Bush-Cheney campaign paid a $100 fee to use one part of the park, but disrupted much of the city. Medinger is now assessing the full cost of the royal visit and hopes to deliver a bill to the campaign, which State Elections Board attorney George Dunst says the Bush campaign should pay. Other communities, including Prairie du Chien, are looking at following Medinger's lead.
But the challenge should not just be a financial one. The Bush visit attacked First Amendment rights up and down the Mississippi. A lot of people are owed apologies.
In a monarchy, of course, the King never apologizes. But in a democracy, the president is supposed to be accountable to the people.
By pressing demands that the charges against Frank Van Den Bosch be dropped and that the White House and the Bush-Cheney campaign apologize for participating in an anti-democratic endeavor, residents of western Wisconsin can, and should, take up the cause of this country's founders. It is time once more to challenge a King named George.
Caption: President Bush waves to crowds from his campaign bus as he passes through Prairie du Chien last Friday. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Even Al Bore caused traffic tie ups in our town and he wasn't even in office anymore. Just having the tied up traffic. At least "King George" mingles with the commoners (and not just for photo-ops) instead of acting like some elite jack--- like some other presidents and their colleagues.
Canada's nice, but it gets cold.
France?
This is just the wrong damn time to be complaining that someone kicked you off the sidewalk.
Treat peaceful protesters and supporters the same.
And understand that dissent comes with the territory when you decide to be president of the United States, where we have unalienable rights to free speech and assembly.
In other words, honor the oath of office to uphold the Constitution instead of acting like a spoiled politico of a banana republic.
VERY cogent.
The issue is supporters were allowed to stay, dissenters were threatened with arrest.
And "free speech zones" have no place in this country, period.
Do yo have pics of you in your costume?
Nice picture of the Canadian bus.
I note that many of your detractors use the ol' "everybody does it" argument. Glad to see moral relativism is alive and well here--just like the White House.
Or how about I stay here and demand our government clean up its act.
If W wants to yap about freedom all the time he should walk the walk.
You think these DemoRats are uptight now???
Just wait until we deliver Wisconsin's electoral votes come November to our current President!
Then you'll really hear some screaming!
Yes: I am a Wisconsin resident; yes, I live in La Crosse. Yes, His motorcade went right past my house, and yes, if he wants to come back once a week until the November election, it's fine by me...in fact, he has my invitation.
Sure, but the point is that he is using evidence in a partisan fashion against President Bush that is more than equally available against the Clintons... The Secret Service do this stuff no matter who is President.
You're kidding, right?
The constitution says something about "Congress shall pass no law......" Did congress pass a law I am not aware of?The first amendment is a restriction on congress not presidential motorcades.
Excellent point. The president is ignoring the separation of powers, and holding by decree that protesters aren't allowed near his motorcade. Yet he has no power to make such legislation on his own.
And that is what makes him like a monarch.
And your source is a lefty hate America journalist.
JMO, you weren't in the line where common sense was being passed out.
Say each letter out loud and perhaps you'll recognize it as something you've heard on a highway or at a baseball game or something. I assume G W stands for George W.
How long did you have to search to find this crap?
Hypocrites, all.
I have a strong feeling they really don't care about most things they derided Clinton for. They're very opportunistic and will use free speech as a vehicle for criticism when it suits their purposes.
But their guy can do no wrong, even when he does the same exact things. Notice how angry they get when called on it. You can practically see the spittle on their computer monitors. "The Cult of Personality" explains a lot of it.
Typical crap from the Crapital Crimes! They are the pukes who editorialized that our shot-down pilots in Nam should have been tried for piracy!
dennisw wrote:
Get over yourself. You aren't the courageous genius you think you are.
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