Ugh

Oct. 28th, 2004 10:35 am
ceebeegee: (Red Heather)
[personal profile] ceebeegee
Just another reason I can't stand our current Emperor with No Clothes. God forbid he be confronted with the knowledge that some of his constituents (you know, the people who pay his salary and to whom he is beholden) disagree with him:

As Bush has traveled the United States during this political campaign, the Secret Service and local police have often handled public protest by quickly arresting or removing demonstrators, free-speech advocates say.

...

"It's clear that some of these security zones are not based on legitimate security concerns. They are based on the idea of the president not seeing someone who disagrees with him, which basically undermines the whole idea of the First Amendment."

...

The Kerry campaign says it does not limit attendance based on political views, a point Kerry has made frequently when confronted by hecklers on the campaign trail."


If this happened to me, I would sue the shit out these people for false arrest. Arrest should not be a political tool to suppress dissent--it should an enforcement of the law. What law is there against telling the President you disagree with him? But I'm disgusted, not surprised--it's clear from Bush's policies that he intends to give the big middle finger to half the country's population, despite his running as "a uniter, not a divider" and notwithstanding that less than half the country voted for him. Why can't he talk to these people, why can't he acknowledge that a lot of voters disagree with his policies, why can't he reach out? Oh, because he thinks God told him to do this. I guess if God is in the Cabinet, you don't need to listen to the little people.

Date: 2004-10-28 02:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dje2004.livejournal.com
Actually, the point I took away from your anecdote is that there are assholes and petty tryants all across the political spectrum.

And are you sure that all the Republican rallies in question are private fund-raisers, and that none of them took place on public land? According to that article, it sounds like those people were being arrested in public spaces.

Date: 2004-10-28 03:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] minstrel70.livejournal.com
My point was that there's more than one way to skin a cat, and it's not only possible to be denied access even to a public event where protesters' rights aren't in question, it's actually not uncommon. I have no idea what the Secret Service response to us would have been, since we left before Gore arrived with the main Secret Service contingent (the few who were there in advance had more pressing concerns).

I would need to read up on it further to say anything with certainty, but I do know that for the past several weeks, Bush's events have been pretty much exclusively large ones, in large arenas (football stadia and the like). Likewise, the legality of excluding dissenters from a public event isn't clear. Perhaps those persons supplying the anecdotal evidence should take [livejournal.com profile] ceebeegee's suggestion and sue, if only to establish a legal precedent.

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