I spent some time in Seattle many years ago, and I would never have believed this would happen to that beautiful city. Then, because I was a Californian, the people there were a little standoffish to me thinking I was a liberal. Now I would be scared silly of them!
I venture into my birthplace of Seattle daily and I am convinced that by backing the President I am showing more gumption than anyone else.
But I will go weeks without seeing another BUSH sticker on any other vehicle.
Thanks for taking the time to type this up!
Remember my post on to you guys about seattle?
This story confirms it.
Seattle is NOT open minded.....they're BRAIN DEAD leftist morons.
There is going to be a lot of downside to CWII -- but then again, some real positives!
Semper Fi
It looks like Mr. Sims succumbed to the mental disorder commonly known as PC.
The obvious fact is that today's leftists are the most intolerant, hate-filled, violent, and anti-American and anti-western civilization segment of the population. They simply can't tolerate anyone who does not agree with each and every one of their screwball positions on politics and social issues.
Sounds like he could have responded with this one recommended for use against many bloviating anti American Europeans;
You: "Do you speak German?"
Eurotrash ( or any leftist ): "No"
You: "You're welcome."
Great column by John Carlson. I was reminded of an old column by Michelle Malkin (written in December 1999). There is no question that, just under the surface, Seattle has a mean streak.
Amateur hour in Seattle
by Michelle Malkin
From http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin120699.asp
I WATCHED FIRE, tear gas, and mass chaos consume Seattle last week, one wicked little thought crossed my mind: It couldn't have happened to a more deserving city.
I lived in the now-tarnished jewel of the Pacific Northwest for three years – not long enough to grow moss on the bottom of my feet, but long enough to acclimatize to both the region's outward beauty and beastly hubris.
Not content to rest on its natural physical assets, the Emerald City launched an aggressive campaign to become a "world-class" metropolis. Public officials have gone to great lengths – plundering tax dollars, short-circuiting democracy, trampling constitutional rights – to enhance downtown and attract global attention.
Take the convention center where the World Trade Organization delegates hunkered down last week. Despite a state constitutional ban on tax subsidies to private enterprises, city officials convinced Washington's legislature to bail out the construction project twice. Low-income senior citizens were kicked out of their lifelong homes, a family barber shop was shut down, and other small-business entrepreneurs were displaced to make way for a $200 million expansion of the trade center.
Private property owners were forced to go to court when public officials refused to compensate them fairly for seizing their land. A jury awarded those owners up to $20 million more than the government had meagerly offered.
The most notorious abridgement of local voters' rights in the pursuit of world-class status was the construction of the half-billion-dollar Mariners baseball stadium. After the M's threatened to leave town unless they got a new palace, King County (which encompasses Seattle and outlying suburbs) held an election in 1995 on a sales tax to finance the new stadium. The electorate said no.
No matter. Egged on by Seattle's political and business elite, the state Legislature thumbed its nose at the vote and authorized new taxes anyway. To prevent citizens from exercising their constitutionally-guaranteed right to a referendum on the matter, the Legislature declared the baseball stadium a "public emergency." Local opponents of sports pork took another beating two years later, when the Legislature essentially sold a special election to Microsoft mogul Paul Allen – who secured another half-billion-dollar, tax-financed, world-class stadium for his Seattle Seahawks.
Gagging unruly dissenters is quintessentially Seattle. When Mayor Paul Schell declared a "demonstration-free zone" in downtown Seattle last week, it came as no surprise. The political establishment has been trying to transform downtown into a demonstration-free zone for years. It's illegal to sit or lie down on downtown and commercial-area sidewalks between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. It's illegal to put political posters on utility poles or any other city-owned surface. And it's illegal to make too much noise.
Unsatisfied with its current noise ban, one city council member attempted this year to outlaw any sounds that were "loud and raucous and frequent, repetitive or continuous which unreasonably disturb or unreasonably interfere with the peace, comfort, or repose of another." Another almost succeeded in limiting picketing and protesting to 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekends.
Anti-begging laws have been used to squelch peaceful pro-life activists. Nuisance laws have been wielded against law-abiding nightclub owners in the name of public safety. Implementation of the city's so-called "civility" agenda is entrusted to law-enforcement officials whose apparent motto is: Infringe civil liberties first, infringe them selectively, and worry about the constitution later.
Journalists worldwide noted Seattle's grossly inconsistent treatment of protesters last week. Peaceful marchers were gassed; rioters were free to roam. A local newspaper reporter, Kery Murakami, was hauled off to jail despite displaying his press credentials.
Foreign dignitaries expressed surprise and dismay at the incompetence of the Seattle Police Department. Mohammed Asfour, a Jordanian minister of industry and trade who was kept away from the WTO's opening ceremonies, told the press: "People like us who came from thousands of miles and to find no organization - it's very sad." Sad, but all too typical of a scandal-plagued police department whose own rank-and-file officers lost confidence in their hapless police chief a long time ago.
Before the WTO came to town, Seattle prided itself on its cosmopolitan achievement of neatness, tact, and order through covert bully tactics and social control. The façade has been shattered. The whole world was watching. And now they know what kind of player Seattle really is on the global scene: A wannabe. A hinterland. Not ready for prime time.
Sounds to me like Mr Potts could resonably assume he is in fear for his life.
Seattle is an embarrassment. Boeing after moving out and downsizing decided to go right back and award the city with a new contract of planes. That means unions and unions means more demoncrazies. Too bad an earthquake doesn't swallow the city along with San Francisco. WA state would be a lot better off without Seattle. CA would be a lot better off without San Francisco.
Seattle is a stupid place.
Don’t worry folks....
They are surrounded by massive military to the west, south and north.
And they're back is up against the mountains with a hoard of gun loving patriotic Americans just past lake Washington all the way up and over the Cascades.
We will keep them enclosed in there decadent liberal babykilling perverted homo city for fear of infecting other parts of the state and the world
:o)
Im not joken
Yes, Seattle is the home of Bagdad Jim McDumb-wit, D congressman from the soviet of Seattle. Yes Seattle has a very liberal political bias to it.
However, Seattle is a bit different than most cities.
As someone born and raise in the Puget Sound area, when I was in Chicago a few years back and a policewoman was on the sidewalk looking at people j-walking, I asked if it was OK to cut in the middle of the block if there wasn't any traffic. She looked at me and firmly told me that "she had a real job to do, and it was more important than handing out j-walking tickets." In Seattle, the police hand out lots of j-walking tickets. I would J-walk in NYC, Chicago, SF or a lot of cities, but not in Seattle!
Another episode comes to mind based on your posted story.....It is Seattle where police were ordered to pull back during WTO, which allowed the streets to be taken over and occupied by tens of thousand of demonstrators.
My wife works on Capital Hill and during the WTO riots she was coming home and trying to get on I-5 freeway when the rioters were being driven up from downtown toward Capital Hill. There she was in the middle of the road with rioters come up the entire street toward her in her little car. She was very close to the freeway entrance. She was scared, then all of a sudden she realized that the rioters weren't crossing the street toward her, they had ALL STOPED BECAUSE THE TRAFFIC LIGHT HAD TURNED RED! She ran the red light at the intersection and got onto the freeway before the crowd crossed the street. Only in Seattle!
I have heard that one can be so open minded as to have their brains fall out or so broad minded that their head is flat.
My first experience with Seattle tolerance was when my tires were flattened and my car keyed because I had Bush/Cheney bumper stickers on it.
I guess with enough rain you can eventually expect to see your civic pride running in the gutter. Word is out on the Northwest though. These punks give hippies a bad name. Real hippies wanted libertarian ideals accepted by their country rather than imposing third world theocractic dictatorships.
Real hippies believe in the system and are willing to work within the framework to change things rather than imposing a cultural makeover that would never be accepted according to the constitution.
On the other hand, the loser hippie of the Northwest may be counted on to put an ugly face upon what was once an honest attempt to change society while working within the system.
Yesterday's hippies smelled a rat, today's hippies are rats. Big difference.