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)
As you very well know, the point I was making is that I actually DO THINGS to back up what I say.
This poster in gneral only shows up to pot-stir and I frankly don't have a lot of respect for him.
All talk. No substance.
If Clinton v Gore are my only two choices, I'd vote for Gore because I consider him a cypher and less capable of doing damage.
I don't think that''s going to happen and neither do you!
ROTFLMAO,,, thanks! I needed a laugh.
I am sticking to the article, the article doesn't present enough facts to know if the person should have been arrested.
Yes you do have a right to hold up rude signs. What you don't have is the right to hold them up at the time and place of your chosing forcing the audience of your choice to read them.
You reserve the right to hold up all the rude signs your little hands can hold, and I reserve the right to tell you to get the hell out of my way, and I see no problem with George Bush or even Bill Clinton telling you to get the hell out of their way. Freedom of speech does NOT include time, place, and audience, it never has and it never will and anybody that thinks it does needs to take a remedial reading lesson.
You don't know that.
You should stick to the concepts and leave your personal feeling about the poster out of it. I often have the same problem so I understand it's difficult.
I do know that once or twice in history, troops were actually called out to clear protesters or strikers, but I cannot remember who the Presidents were at the time... If I can find it, I will ping you, just for the fun of it.
Protagoras wrote:
You don't know that.
You should stick to the concepts and leave your personal feeling about the poster out of it. I often have the same problem so I understand it's difficult.
I think there are multiple points which could be discussed regarding this issue :). My post was only meant to address one of them, the partisan issue, as opposed to the free speech type issue.
It appears you need a remedial First Amendment lesson.
Your above assertion is entirely wrong. In fact, it's in direct contrast to decades of well-established constitutional law.
Examples, please.
And if you want to see people get personal very quickly for disagreeing, witness the responses to me on this thread.
Precisely, so you can only go by the article, not "facts" you imagine.
I am sticking to the article,
Umm, your comment belies that.
Freedom of speech does NOT include time, place, and audience, it never has and it never will and anybody that thinks it does needs to take a remedial reading lesson.
Please refrain from veiled personal attacks.
You reserve the right to hold up all the rude signs your little hands can hold, and I reserve the right to tell you to get the hell out of my way, and I see no problem with George Bush or even Bill Clinton telling you to get the hell out of their way.
They can tell me whatever they want, until they do something about it, they are within their rights.
Yes you do have a right to hold up rude signs. What you don't have is the right to hold them up at the time and place of your chosing forcing the audience of your choice to read them.
Nonsense. A public place where people are allowed to greet politicians it is allowed in a free society to express whatever they want, adoration or derision. No one is being forced to read any sign.
Your suggestion would allow idolaters to show up when politicians are present and restrict protesters to places and times of day when they are not present. That is a bizarre concept of free expression of political speech in America.
I was thinking about this guy:
King George Pataki, (RINO-NY)
Nope. I am NOT going to dig through every post you've made since you joined.
If people are curious enough, they can look and decide for themselves.
As regards personal, I consider that you brought much of it on yourself and shot many of the first vollys.
Calm down for a moment and read the article.
None of those groups showed up. Some American citizens tried to protest in public. They were arrested or removed (this has been going on for years now) for daring express contempt in front of the pres, while supporters were left in place. The discerning criteria was not security risk. Rather, dissenters were treated differently than supporters based solely upon their political views.
I think this is appropriate here to make my point:
"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else." - President Teddy Roosevelt, Kansas City Star, May 7, 1918
I would be interested in knowing when that happened. Not rioters, mind you, or people who were committing crimes or denying others of their rights, but protesters.
Courts have made decisions that accomodate protesters and supporters and most of them make sense, but not all.
I think we are missing one important point here... Obviously you have never had a sitting president visit your community. Security for Clinton (or his wife)would have been have been just as tight. Maybe you are just upset because Clinton did not think your section of the country was important enough to visit, and Bush did.
I've been fortunate enough to see four presidents - Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush. Security is always tight, but we put up with it because the safety of OUR President is so important.
Well, you DID strike a chord with the Teddy quote. It's a good one and I thank you for it!
Look. I don't think we are going to agree on this. I am still thinking that it was more of a security issue than a political preferences issue. You do not, and that is your right.
I do nt think Mr. Bush is calling all of the shots as to who he sees. He's a war-time president and things HAVE changed.
I submit that we agree to disagree.
No my above asserting is 100% ACCURATE, in fact it's entirely in line with CENTURIES (we've been around over 200 years you know) of well established Constituional law.
A little selective memory going on here, methinks.
This happened before 9-11.
I submit that we agree to disagree.
Agreed. Truce?
Maybe you can explain to me why supporters are not seen as a security risk, while dissenters are.
I would remind you that John Hinkley was posing as a supporter when he shot Reagan.
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