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, was he disorderly?
Thanks 'spectator' for the 'ping' re your post.
. . .a bump for "When King George travels, liberties suffer. . ."
And a bump for post #264 ;^)
It isn't unconstitutional. This isn't a matter of "think" this is a matter of jurisprudence, it has been well established that seperating sides is not unconstitutional as long as both sides get an opportunity to speak. It's not a matter of agreeing to disagree, you are wrong, think what you want it doesn't change the facts and the facts are that no one's First Ammendment rights were violated in any way.
Your assignment, if you care to engage in an honest debate, is to find examples of peaceful, non-violent people holding signs that are critical of specific policies or other aspects of the Bush administration (and not violent, threatening, Bush-hating messages that would reasonably lead the Secret Service to have to assume that the person may pose a threat). When you can do that, let me know.
I'm not sure why everyone is so down on you. It maybe that security is such a big issue, but telling people what sort of content they can or cannot have on their signs has nothing to do with security. It also may be that the Clintons were just as bad, but that is not a standard by which I judge the candidates that I support.
There is a regime, made up by the powerful elite, who not unlike other tyrannies, rule as an oligarchy by exercise of their wealth and power.
The common American senses the futility of their position and that is why most choose not to participate in the farce that is the U.S. two-party system, through not voting at all.
If the only political options that a so-called "free" people have come from two-parties corrupted and controlled by a rich upper class and their puppet political incumbants, you can expect the middle and lower classes of that "regime" to feel hopeless and out-of-touch with the political process and to be seen as a threat to the those who control the system.
The Founding Fathers established the USA for the common good of the common man under common law.
That no longer exists in America today and at best the "common man" can only hope for a benign tyranny that allows him to live in a semblance of peace and liberty.
Be prepared to show your license to law enforcement if you intend to exercise your God-given rights.
You won't get this from CommonDreams boy, but basically the jerk who got arrested defied the local cops, and got taken to the pokey for his trouble. The fact that he was "protesting" Bush was entirely peripheral.
The CommonDreams author took the incident and created a nice big batch of Protestor Stone Soup, wherein the reader could practically feel the fangs of the police dogs the Bush campaign had specially imported from 1960s Birmingham.
What a crock! Krugman would be proud.
Resistance is not futile. That's why there's a Free Republic.
Another bump for King George.
'for' King George? Or. . .what?
I support President Bush all the way. I hope that
clears this up.
Because an assassin might be hanging out with that crowd?
Grow up.
I see. And assassins cannot possibly lurk among supporters.
Even if we didn't have the hard learned lessons of history to teach us better (John Hinkley), even the slowest dimwit could easily predict such painfully obvious methods of gaining proximity as posing as a supporter.
It didn't start with Bush and these SOB's know it!
Someone on this thread suggested it started with Carter.
I don't care who started it. Every single president that has continued this banana republic policy has made a conscious decision to misuse their security to deny free speech and assembly. All of them are equally guilty. All of them bring dishonor to the office by behaving like a perfumed king who will not tolerate the rabble when the red carpet is rolled out.
They forget their place and the fact that they are merely the most important of public servants.
Pure speculation. I have given you one example (Hinckley) otherwise. Have you anything solid to rest your assumptions on?
The Secret Service will better protect the President if they aren't distracted by nutcases.
Either onlookers are considered a viable threat, or they are not. Once the decision has been made to allow onlookers to stay, all peaceful citizens must be allowed equal access regardless of their political views. Free speech and assembly, indeed our founding charter and our most core values demand it.
To deny an American his unalienable rights based solely on his political opinions is un-American and tyrannical. Our country was founded on civic duty and dissent. Want to call this a free country? Then walk the walk.
I stand by my statements. I have better things to do than to try and make a case to you.
Grow up.
I don't know when it began, but I believe this is out of the hands of the President.
We have one President assinated, one wounded and another who came pretty close to being shot, just within the past forty years. I don't want to ever see that happen again.
The Secret Service is the boss, when it comes to protecting the President. They have too tough a job to be second guessed by anyone.
You have no case. I suspect the facts of the case are of little importance to you. What matters is that "your guy" is running for re-election and no criticism, no matter how well founded, shall remain unchallenged.
And King George can continue policies identical to his hated predecessor without so much of a peep from his supporters, because The Cult of Personality means he never has to say he's sorry.
Grow up.
Stand up. This groveling at the feet of the king is disgraceful. He works for us. Adults know that. Those who treat the president as some sort of father figure do not.
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