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)
So you admit that no one has praised the writer. Ok, now on to the accusations of drug usage, please grow up.
Whatever you want to believe.
JMO, kinda of like whatever the people in al-queda want to believe.
Not on Saturdays.
With that, I now put you back on ignore mode.
Whatever, I don't go into Oprah like indignat mode when presented with the facts.
Those words are good descriptions of my opinion, which I identified as such, of the posts. They were inane, shrill and obtuse.
Please don't confuse those with personal attacks.
You really need to seek help. I'm serious.
That's right. He wants to be president of this country, well when he goes in public he's going to get an earful.
There are plenty of countries where that is not allowed. Maybe W would be happier being king of one of them.
Actually that would be an improvement.
This makes two idiotic responses to freeee from you and I still have yet to figure out where you're coming from in context to his postings. Can you please elaborate how his hate of free speech is obvious somewhere here.
Isn't that the problem?
Uhhh, and do you know anything about the legal concept of "strict scrutiny". Obviously not.
This is getting ridiculous. The more you post on a subject you know painfully little about, the more you expose yourself.
I'll give you this -- you did bring up the anti-abortion case from Colorado that was decided by the Supreme Court.
That decision, however, was among the Supreme Court's worst re: free speech in quite some time. I'm assuming you didn't agree with it(?).
LOL! I would bet you dollars to doughnuts, that a lot of people on FR would be on my side of the bet.
I'm sure they're just like Burk, which says that content specific is allowable if done correctly.
What bet?
This from the guy that got upset when I said that people that don't understand the First Ammendment need a remedial reading lesson. Your descriptions of your opinion are much more personal attacks than that, for one thing they're aimed at me and for another they're insulting and rude, mine wasn't aimed at you and was a simple statement of truth.
But again you go on and on and on and on with the silly red herrings. Do you have any proof that Frank was arrested for the sole reason of protesting? Yet.
No one owes anyone corporate sponsorship, or purchase of their record, or a job. People are free to speak their mind, and others will chose to not support them accordingly.
The issue at hand is if an armed agent of the state is not violating free speech and free assembly by forcefully removing protesters from a public place, based solely on their political speech while leaving supporters in place.
I know you're smart enought to know this and I'm starting to think you're being purposely obtuse.
An improvement that you with your whining of posting and subsequent rplies on this thread, you seem to not want to follow.
Yes, strict scrutiny is why Burk won. I never said that nobody has ever taken it too far, I said the incidents the original author is whining about aren't too far.
Actually I don't have a problem with the Colorado decision. Again: freedom of speech does not include time, place or audience. Never has, never will.
And on one owes anyone the ability to stand in a specific place at a specific time and the opportunity to wave a sign at the person of their chosing.
The issue at hand is that freedom of speech has never included time, place and audience. And that the Secret Service is not Congress.
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