Posted on 02/08/2008 11:25:12 PM PST by Doctor Raoul
An Orwellian phenomenon if ever there was one, the “Free Speech Movement” flourished at the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1960s. We call it an Orwellian phenomenon because freedom of speech was the last thing the obstreperous little left-wing snots and their professors who participated in the “movement” were interested in.
To the “Free Speech Movement,” free speech meant the right to shriek lame-brain slogans and malicious slanders, throwing in some choice obscenities along the way, and shout down any who didn’t agree with your views.
This tradition continues at Berkeley. The Berkeley city council has given its approval to measures crafted to harass and hector Marine Corps recruiters into silence. The aim is to pressure the Marines into shuttering the one recruiting office they have in town.
The council was nagged into action by the harridans of “Code Pink,” a stridently anti-U.S. military group that pursues its rigidly left-wing agenda under the banner of feminism. Code Pink meanwhile is pushing for an ordinance to bar military recruiters from operating within so many feet of schools, libraries, parks, churches and so on.
If the Marines persist in staying, they’ll do so “as uninvited and unwelcomed guests,” declared the council. Indeed, the council added, in its view the Marines are “intruders.” The council’s anti-Marines jihad also included a vote to investigate whether the military’s “Don’t ask/Don’t tell” policy violates Berkeley’s anti-discrimination ordinances. (Maybe the council could start its probe by asking Bill Clinton for his thoughts on the matter since the policy was instituted by him when he was Commander in Chief.)
Ratcheting up the harassment, the council has given Code Pink reserved parking spots outside the Marines’ recruiting office and granted protesters an exemption from noise-ordinance provisions. Beyond Berkeley, not many are cheering this municipal-level version of Soviet-style heavy-handedness. One irate U.S. senator, Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, proposes that Berkeley’s federal aid be shut off. “The First Amendment gives the city of Berkeley the right to be idiotic, but from now on it should do so with its own money,” he says.
Yes, Berkeley has a First Amendment right to be idiotic, but its actions go beyond that. It is actively striving to suppress the First Amendment rights of others — especially those who choose to visit the recruiting office. The First Amendment confers a right to associate freely as well as speak freely.
If Berkeley’s revolutionary vanguard wants to protest — peacefully — the Marines’ recruitment efforts, that’s one thing. If the council, in rhetoric reminiscent of Politburo propaganda, wishes to condemn America for it history of “illegal, immoral, unprovoked wars of aggression,” as the council has, it is constitutionally entitled to do so. But what’s going is not peaceful protest or free expression. It is unconstitutional harassment and obstruction. And as such it shouldn’t be allowed to persist.
— The Trentonian
“free speech” ~~ the right to call dog crap “art.”
FRee speech movement. my arse..
The petition
We, the undersigned condemn the Berkeley City Council’s treasonous attack on US Marine Recruiters stationed in their city. We ask that Congress cut off funds from any and all municipal entity within the confines of the city of Berkeley, California, until such time as the city council withdraws it’s action.
The City Council has voted to tell the Marines their downtown recruiting station is not welcome and “if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome guests.”
The measure passed last week by a vote of 8-1.
The council also voted to explore enforcing a city anti-discrimination law, focusing on the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
In a separate item, the council voted, also 8-1, to give the Marxist protest group Code Pink a parking space in front of the recruiting office once a week for six months and a free sound permit for protesting once a week.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/cutoffberkeleynow
If you wish to, please share with your friends or e-mail to your address books
signed it. and just added my name to yet another database...
I could not agree more with Senator DeMint’s suggestion about the elimination of federal funding to the city. These aging hippies are an anachronism. If you want to live in a fantasy world of the psychedelic past, do it with your own money dirtbags!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.