Posted on 05/19/2004 8:48:55 AM PDT by Laissez-faire capitalist
On May 8, at the county's "Gay Day" event in Dayton, Tennessee, police arrested two christians as they were fastening the beams of one of their ten-ffot crosses, which they often use in parades arond the nation in order to draw people to Christ. Without incident, they were arrested and charged with "disorderly conduct" and "interfering with a special event." They were both freed after posting the required $500 bond. Dayton police chief Kenneth Walker admitted to reporters "They wanted to go down to protest and we told them they couldn't" "they were arrested;that's it."
(Excerpt) Read more at reclaimamerica.org ...
If supporters are given favorable proximity based on their outward appearances, an opportunity is created for someone who has ill intent and is willing to undertake the great difficulty (LOL) of posing as a supporter. Hinckley's attempt proved this.
I'm glad they were there and let's hope they keep up the good work.
Or bystanders or passers-by or anybody who happens to be nearby.I'm simply agreeing that risk is present
By "risk" you mean "possible death".
Don't try to dig yourself out of a hole.
Yes, them too.
By "risk" you mean "possible death". Don't try to dig yourself out of a hole.
I stand by my position.
Indeed you do.
And now we know what it is.
There sure is, but if you were trying to protest his motorcade you wouldn't know it.
If Bush could magically abolish death, disease, hunger, and suffering in all the Earth you would still hate him.
I wouldn't ask him to do any of those things. All I ask is he uphold his oath of office to uphold the Constitution and respect the rights of free speech and assembly.
I have to admit it this issue gets me riled up. It really steams me to see the supposed leader of the "freest" country having protesters banned from his presence as if he was a perfumed prince of a third world banana republic. I expect better of him.
It was fun sparring with you though.
Thank you. I appreciate your contributions to the thread.
So now basically you're arguing against seperating the KKK from the NAACP. Sorry Freeeee but when group A and group B decide to get past hurled epithets things get dangerous, people get killed sometimes. And as for people being near the area assukming a risk, BS. I had a motorcade go right by my work, was I not supposed to go to work that day in case the liberal morons I work with took things too far? The standard motto of cops is "to protect and serve" part of protecting has involved seperating waring factions BEFORE things get ugly.
Telling people they can't assume their own safety going to a protest like it's some sort of Alphabet City riot is the worst kind of pathetic defeatism. Basically here you are again worshipping the protest sign, saying that once people have signs to wave even providing for basic public safety is a violation of the First Ammendment. Not the case. Seperating the sides is NOT a violation of the First Ammendment and often IS a very good idea. Welcome to the real world where you can't trust all sign wavers to be nice polite FReepers who leave the place better than they find it.
I summarily reject the zero tolerance mentality. I find it wholly repugnant to the notion of liberty, and I will to the end disagree with anything that stems from it.
We've also agreed not to agree that this is a 1st Amendment issue. Shall we do so again?
But the position you're pushing now is that no form of restraint to keep protest from turning violent is justifiable, that everybody in the neighborhood had just better duck and cover the second a protest sign comes out and if they get caught in the cross fire they should just thank God for free speech. That's another version of zero tolerance, basically you have zero tolerance for anything that might inconvenience somebody with a protest sign, that might be a workable position in an idealized world where everybody is sane, but like the Walgreens ad says "we're a long way from perfect".
I'd love it if the cops could go back to making judgement calls, that actually worked pretty well. But your brand of zero tolerance is no less crappy than their brand of zero tolerance, it just make free speech a sacred cow that everything, including the lives of people not participating in any way, is secondary to. That's a dangerous level of extremist thought and a shining example of exactly why the Founding Fathers did not garauntee place time or audience.
No we didn't agree to disagree. You proposed it, I rejected it.
I'd like that too. Only I'd like there to be some objective criteria for being removed from a protest. You know, threatening behavior (expressing dissatisfaction with the government in itself is NOT threatening), violence, that sort of thing.
What they've got now is a one size fits all "protesters are banned except to 'free speech zones' under penalty of arrest" policy that IMO is inconsistent with free speech, and temptingly easy to abuse when some politician gets his poor little feelings hurt by a protest sign when he ventures into public.
No we didn't agree to disagree.
Read what I wrote a little closer.
No what we have is a one size fits all "opposing sides shall not have line of sight" system. Whichever side fills out the most paperwork first gets to pick location and time, the other side is SOL, welcome to life in an entreched bereaucracy. Waiting until threatening behavior happens isn't the right answer, at that point usually the crowd out nubmers the cops and there isn't anything they can do to keep things under control. They've got to use profiling, some sides are more likely to use violence and they're the ones that need to be cordoned off.
But cordoning off people is not inconsistent with free speech, regardless of the selection criterion. If they still get to say their bit they're still getting free speech. Some people HAVE to be cordoned off because they're nut but on a general principle there's nothing wrong with it.
Do you not see the immense potential for abuse here? ie. a situation where safety or security concerns are not the primary motivation, rather political motives are?
Abuse of what, since cordoning off people doesn't restrict their free speech there's nothing to abuse. Do you really think politicians look at waving signs, pro or against? It's just a bunch of people outside the car yelling. Actually some of the first cordoning off was done purely for political reasons, Democratic National Convention 1968, they didn't want the anti-war protesters screwing up traffic and shoved them down the block. BFD, they still got to wave their signs and turn it into a riot and get beat up by the cops, everybody had a good time, nobody's speech was impinged.
Nevermind. Gotta go, see ya round.
I already responded to that post, that is what started our thread.
Recursion isn't good.
Do you every respond to what people say or do you always keep trying to change the subject to prove what every point you may have?
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