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)
freeeee: "My side" is the side of free speech. Now why don't you explain to me why someone posing as a supporter couldn't do that. Please be specific.
Well, I guess one man's free speech is another man's death threat directed at the president.
As far someone posing as a supporter using an RPG against the president's bus...umm, something tells me you're not familiar with these devices. They're larger than your average rifle, and the user would seem a little suspicious to those around him, so it would be a little difficult to pull this off. The user would have to be a little further away, behind some concealment. And, before you ask me in all seriousness why I brought up RPG's, its something called humor or sarcasm. I was relating the Bush-haters with the anti-Iraqi insurgents who are trying to prevent normalcy in certain areas of that country. The two groups have much in common.
The gym I workout in, in Midtown Manhattan, is right at the nexus of a Presidential/VP entery exit zone, and it was ROUTINELY cordoned off, at 5:30 in the AM, for extended amounts of time, for x42, and his would be, but thankfully not successor, about every 4 weeks, in 2000.
Thank you... I was hoping a NYC FReeper would post a comment on this thread about the x42 era. My husband and I don't live in NYC, but in 2000 we spent a lot of time there, mostly on weekdays. I lost track how many times we ended up being caught in x42's and algore's Midtown traffic jams. Every 4 weeks... Yup, that sounds about right.
No, I can't disagree with you on that. :-)
ACLU Sues to Force Secret Service to Permit Anti-Bush Protestors to Get Closer to the President
Same thing happened under Clinton; witnessed it personally. Where was the outrage then?
It was right here on FR.
If you want to compare the moral legitimacy of an outlaw biker to that of the SS stifling dissent, I won't argue with you.
It does mean that government does not have any leigimate power to infringe on free speech or assembly based on the political content of one's speech. Using "Fire in a crowded theatre" comparisons to someone merely expressing dissatisfaction in front of a motorcade just proves the slippery sloppe theory to be true.
It's not like the president has a great track record on free speech issues to begin with. Witness CFR. Even he said it was unconstitutional. Then he signed it.
I'm not comparing their moral legitimacy, I'm explaining why only freaking morons stand someplace that somebody with a side arm and training has told them not to.
Fine. So being rational people acting in self preservation, they move. And then acting as free people with unalienable rights who do not mekely bow down before arbitrary authority, they tell other Americans that their public servants are acting like perfumed kings. And we get outraged and demand they clean up their act and stop acting like the Grand Exaulted One of a banana republic.
Hence this thread.
If the signs held no content not consistently upheld as free speech (threats, obscenity, etc..) they should not be held as a basis to force protesters to leave.
But that's not what's happening. Try standing by a presidential motorcade with any sign that expresses dissatisfaction with the president, his party or his policies. You will be told to move. And if you don't you will be arrested. Not for obscenity or making a threat, mind you. The charge will be "creating a disturbance" or "disorderly conduct".
And that is intolerable in a free country.
And being people that don't understand the First Ammendment they think some unalienable right was violated when it wasn't. Hence all the opposition to you and the original author in this thread. Again, there's no garauntee of:
time, place, audience
If you want to be upset because it's wrong great, more power to you. But if you're going to say someone's rights or the Constitution were violated you are 100% wrong. It's really just that simple. I'll agree that it shouldn't have happened but I will point out over and over that it is NOT a violation of the First Ammendment in ANY WAY that has EVER been accepted as a valid legal interpretation.
Notice how the little worm freeeee completely ignored your first-person narrative so he could go back to slurping his bowl of John Nichols' "Protestor Stone Soup"? freeeee doesn't want an honest debate, he wants his little Bush-bashing soapbox. ;-)
It is not the government's "time place and manner" that is the issue here. They have already decided that people will get to stand on the side of the road while the motorcade goes by.
The sticking point is that the government is making a decision about what political speech it likes or dislikes. Then it is acting on that decision with the full force of law. It is granting those whose speech it likes access to a certain "time place and manner" and denying the same exact thing to those it disagrees with.
The original "time place and manner" decision was made so that order could be kept. For instance you couldn't shut down traffic. But traffic is already shut down. What is happening is government is exploiting a rule passed for one reason to expand its power to do something it is explicitly phohibited in no uncertain terms from doing: interfering with the people's right to protest their government in a peaceful manner. While this mission creep is low and despicible, it is hardly surprising and very obvious to all but the most obtuse person.
"Little worm" was uncalled for.
I'm glad that he had the experience of seeing free speech honored. But the fact remains that this president, and many before him have a longstanding practice of forcing protesters away while allowing supporters to remain.
If you want some legitmate debate, attempt to answer the question central to the debate:
There are two people in the crowd watching the motorcade drive by. One is wearing a Bush t-shirt and appluading. The other is wearing one that says "NO WAR FOR OIL" t-shirt and saying "no more years". Neither individual has given any indication of malicious intent. They're simply standing there watching and speaking their mind.
As it stands, and not only in the case in the article, the dissenter will be threatened with arrest if he doesn't move to a "free speech zone", the supporter is left be.
Exactly what safety or security threat does the does the dissenter pose that the supporter does not? Please be specific.
But these people are still allowed to make their speech, just not in the time place and manner of their chosing. Seperating people for content is already accepted and has been in common practice since the first time a protest drew a counter-protest. As long as they still get to make their speech no rights have been vioated. If they turn themselves into a public nuissance then all the laws that allow people to get arrested for being a public nuissance apply, you don't get special dispensation from existing laws because you're holding a sign.
I didn't say it's good. I said it does not violate the First Ammendment, and that's obvious to any but the most pathetic axe grinder.
I can only surmise that the policy of running off protesters is not in effect 100% of the time. However there is ample evidence that it is in effect a portion of the time. My guess is when Rove wants a good photo-op, perhaps during campaigning. For these propaganda purposes it is likely not necessary nor feasible to remove protesters every time the pres moves.
If he only did it once it would be utterly intolerable.
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