Read this-I won't even comment on it

[stacilu]

TRB FROM WASHINGTON
Uniform Standard
by Peter Beinart

Post date 10.14.04 | Issue date 10.25.04

On July 4, Jeff and Nicole Rank went to hear George W. Bush speak in Charleston, West Virginia. Tickets in hand, they found seats ten or 15 rows from the stage. There they sat, quietly, wearing t-shirts that read love america, hate bush and regime change starts at home. Forty-five minutes before the president took the podium, event staffers approached the couple and said, "You need to either take those shirts off or leave." According to The San Antonio Express-News, Jeff Rank replied, "People around us have Bush-Cheney t-shirts, pro-Bush t-shirts. Why can't we express our views?" The staffers left, but a few minutes later, two police officers arrived and told the couple to "cover up, take them [the t-shirts] off or leave completely." The Ranks refused, at which point they were handcuffed, expelled from the event, and briefly thrown in prison. With the Ranks safely off the premises, Bush addressed the crowd, declaring that "on the Fourth of July, we confirm our love of freedom, the freedom for people to speak their minds, the freedom for people to worship as they so choose. Free thought and free expression, that's what we believe." Two days later, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Nicole Rank's employer, told her that, as a result of the incident, she was being dismissed from her assignment in West Virginia....R

 

[kayaman+]

So much for freedom of speech under big brother georgie.

 

[cussin'it]

You mean to tell me the "Gestapo" actually let them go and didn't declare them "enemy combatants" and ship them off to Guantanamo????

Geez the "compassion" is shining thru :blueguy:

 

[xpanda]

Fascism.

 

[D2bets]

I hope they have a good lawyer. Somethinglike this should make front page news. Disgusting.

 

[American]

Why would they show up at a Bush function with "Hate Bush" t-shirts on? They were obviously trying to start trouble and stir up confrontation. If they're stupid enough to pull a stunt like that they deserve to get hauled off. It probably saved them a beating. I'd like to add that I sincerely hope the cops roughed them up a little.

 

[stacilu]

I have a shortcoming or two, I am very annoyed by stupidity.
Sometimes I forget that brain damaged people are not always
to be blamed. Birth defects, disease, trauma or a shotgun blast
to the brain are all valid excuses for brain dysfunction and these individuals
should not be legally or morally responsible for their
actions, their beliefs or their comments. If this is the case
I may owe an apology to some, and I do apologize to these people.
However, if your stupidity is because you refuse to
read, you refuse to observe, you refuse to believe in
the many benefits of science and you just refuse to
progress I am sorry no apology to you is forthcoming.
To you brain damaged people I say, move aside because
science will always prevail and stem cell research will become
a reality and even people like you will benefit.

 

[xpanda]

Why would they show up at a Bush function with "Hate Bush" t-shirts on? They were obviously trying to start trouble and stir up confrontation. If they're stupid enough to pull a stunt like that they deserve to get hauled off. It probably saved them a beating. I'd like to add that I sincerely hope the cops roughed them up a little.

Remember back in the day when the cops would wait until the perps actually did something wrong before hauling them off to jail? Thank god those days are behind us! In the post-September the eleventh world, this dangerous dangerous world, you never can be sure when a couple of words on a t-shirt might turn into a knife-fight. Best to pre-empt the problem and just arrest these hooligans on the spot. There is such a thing as too much freedom. Liberty is a priviledge, not a right. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.

 

[kayaman+]

Like Ben said those that willing give up their freedom don't deserve it.

 

[D2bets]

Why would they show up at a Bush function with "Hate Bush" t-shirts on? They were obviously trying to start trouble and stir up confrontation. If they're stupid enough to pull a stunt like that they deserve to get hauled off. It probably saved them a beating. I'd like to add that I sincerely hope the cops roughed them up a little.

American, so if somebody did nothing other than show up at a Kerry rally with an anti-Kerry T-shirt, you would say they also deserve to be arrested and "roughed up a little" by the cops?

 

[kayaman+]

Sorry, obviously I meant "willingly" on that last post.

 

[bblight]

Geez =- I remember when the cops just pulled out their billy clubs and wailed on the protesters - oh yeh - that was a democrat ebvent - so it's ok!

 

[stacilu]

Whether it was a democrat "ebvent" or not please tell
the forum what you mean by that. It makes no sense,
you start right off just like you haven't missed a beat.
Good for you.

 

[American]

I have a shortcoming or two, I am very annoyed by stupidity.
Sometimes I forget that brain damaged people are not always
to be blamed. Birth defects, disease, trauma or a shotgun blast
to the brain are all valid excuses for brain dysfunction and these individuals
should not be legally or morally responsible for their
actions, their beliefs or their comments. If this is the case
I may owe an apology to some, and I do apologize to these people.
However, if your stupidity is because you refuse to
read, you refuse to observe, you refuse to believe in
the many benefits of science and you just refuse to
progress I am sorry no apology to you is forthcoming.
To you brain damaged people I say, move aside because
science will always prevail and stem cell research will become
a reality and even people like you will benefit.

You are the one who sounds stupid. Everytime someone takes an opposing position on something with you, you regurgitate three or four posts babbling about nothing except that you are brilliant and the other person is stupid. That's weak.

 

[stacilu]

American

Show me one post where is said I was "brilliant." Please
just one.

 

[American]

You imply it constantly, you pompous ass. Anyone who agrees with you is "educated" and you want to invite them to speak in one of your kangaroo classrooms and spead your horsesh1t gospel. Anyone who doesn't agree with you is stamped "uneducated" and their viewpoints are automatically dismissed on this basis. Unfortunately for you Hitler, it's ONE MAN, ONE VOTE! The vote of the guy who never got past 5th grade counts just as much as the guy who has a doctorate. ONE MAN, ONE VOTE. That's why everyone's opinion has a right to be heard, you sonofabitch.

 

[JudgeWapner]

American,including the couple wearing the tee shirts.

 

[American]

Their intention was to stir up trouble. Why else would they pull a stunt like that? Would you be disillusioned if I told you that people in America can't always go around saying and doing what they please in any given place or situation? That's the way it is and we'll all just have to deal with it and get on with the pursuit of happiness, despite shattered notions of unbridled freedom of speech and expression.

 

[JudgeWapner]

American,I don't see it that way.To sit there wearing tee shirts expressing your opinion,would fall under freedom of speech. If they stood up in the middle of the rally and started screaming stuff[which has been known to happen at rallies for both parties]that would be different. You really can't tell me you condone the action taken here. You honestly don't think you have the righ to wear an anti Kerry shirt to one of his rallies???? Is this what the US has become.My god,I hope not.

 

[American]

You're still down there in CR. Now that I'm back in the states, let me tell you...things are getting pretty heated up and confrontational with this upcoming election. I've never seen it this emotional before an election. There is hostility stemming from both sides. It's probably better to let sleeping dogs lie. As far as this Bush speach goes, I don't even know if we're getting all the information on it. They might have had a stipulation for those in attendence to not wear or display anti-Bush messages, which would be understandable. If Kerry had a speaking engagement, I wouldn't see anything wrong with him imposing the same stipulation with his patrons. That's how I see it. I think the event was most probably under those conditions. Otherwise, opposing parties could go around and crash each others events constantly and it wouldn't be good for anyone. What do you think?