Your right to free speech is seriously being taken away over and over

[mesue]

Please read this link its about your right to free speech and how in many cases around the country it is becoming an aggressive assault on free speech, anyon surprised. Heres the link,
http://www.voiceoffreedom.com/archives/bushgoonsprotesta.html

[momfromTN]

Originally posted by mesue
Please read this link its about your right to free speech and how in many cases around the country it is becoming an aggressive assault on free speech, anyon surprised. Heres the link,
http://www.voiceoffreedom.com/archives/bushgoonsprotesta.html

Yes, and if you are a Christian person and you mention God anywhere, some would like to take that away too. I understand that fully.

People, write your representatives! Emails, letters, phone calls. You might not think it will help, but you never know until you try. Make your feelings known!

[jonette5]

It happened in St. Louis just this past weekend. Bush was here for a fund raiser and people outside were protesting the "overtime cut" they were peaceful and not threatening in any way. The police disbanned them after only about 10 to 15 minutes and threatened to arrest people if they did not leave. That was CHIT! We have a right to protest as long as it is in a peaceful manner and it was. I think Bush is juat a big baby and doesn't want to have to listen to the people. The people he is hurting with all is unfriendly labor laws and bills.

[schsa]

Were you there and have you read other accounts? Do you know that this was a peaceful protest or when the police asked people to back up did they continue to move forward?

The fact that they were protesting at all says that our right to free speech has not been stopped. The police have a job to do. Large crowds can easily become mobs and when people feel very strongly about something they can be known to become agressive.

I don't see anything wrong with the police using pepper spray or anything else to let a crowd know that they are overstepping their boundries and doing what they have to do to take control. We have seen what mobs in action can do. Many very peaceful protests have gotten out of hand not that the people protesting wanted it to happen but it did. The police have to do what they have to do.

[gemini26]

Well said Schsa.

[Technologist]

Mesue, all the stories in your link are from 2002.... why bring up old news???

and Jonette, got a link to the event this weekend, so I can read it???

[gemini26]

Nice catch Tech!! I didn't notice that.

[mesue]

It is continuing, it has not stopped everywheres he goes he does this, the fact that he ever did this at all should worry us all, he has been doing this since his governor days. I will look for a more recent link, recently one man in a factory was arrested because he held up a sign at a Bush speech about lack of jobs, thats all, he was carted off to jail he claimed free speech when it went to court and the judge agreed. But old news or not did you ever think you would see the day that someone would be arrested for holding up a sign just because it wasn't supportive of the speaker.

[momfromTN]

Originally posted by mesue
It is continuing, it has not stopped everywheres he goes he does this, the fact that he ever did this at all should worry us all, he has been doing this since his governor days. I will look for a more recent link, recently one man in a factory was arrested because he held up a sign at a Bush speech about lack of jobs, thats all, he was carted off to jail he claimed free speech when it went to court and the judge agreed. But old news or not did you ever think you would see the day that someone would be arrested for holding up a sign just because it wasn't supportive of the speaker.

Is that a verifiable fact? I would like to see that. Do we have the WHOLE story?

[Technologist]

Originally posted by mesue
recently one man in a factory was arrested because he held up a sign at a Bush speech about lack of jobs, thats all, he was carted off to jail

I'd like to see a link to that too.... where he held up a sign thats all and was carted off to jail.....

[mesue]

Just for you Tech and MomfromTn.here is a link to the story of the worker being arrested,
http://austin.buffaloimc.org:8080/newswire/display/15269/index.php
btw the sign said, "The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so may of us."
Here is a link about the fact that the use of these tactics against free speech has been going on since his governor days. Here is the link.
http://search.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/08/31/p2s1.htm

[momfromTN]

"Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign."

Thats the other part of the story.

[momfromTN]

"The suit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and a group of environmentalists, argues that Governor Bush and state police violated free-speech guarantees under the state constitution by arresting protesters outside the Governor's Mansion in April.

Charges against the protesters, for blocking the sidewalk and failing to obey the order of police, were later dropped for lack of evidence."

And the rest of that story. It is all not cut and dried. To hear you say it, one would think Bush sits around all day, looking for ways to arrest people and take away their rights. You have a right to protest. You don't have a right to block sidewalks and streets and make a nuisance of yourself. If there is a designated place for protesters, that is also a safety issue. There ARE nuts out there, you know. But, I guess if someone guns down the president, because it is not Gore, or another democrat, that would be ok. (sarcasm)LOL! Not that YOU said that, mesue, but that is the general feeling I get from some. Oh Well!:rolleyes:

[Technologist]

Thanks for the links.... and now I see the whole story....

and your second link is also old news...1999!

Let's see if I can dig up some old news...thinking..thinking... hmmmm... nah! :)

[momfromTN]

Originally posted by Technologist
Thanks for the links.... and now I see the whole story....

and your second link is also old news...1999!

Let's see if I can dig up some old news...thinking..thinking... hmmmm... nah! :) ]

LOL! Tech, you are BAD.:p

[mesue]

Originally posted by Technologist
Thanks for the links.... and now I see the whole story....

and your second link is also old news...1999!

Let's see if I can dig up some old news...thinking..thinking... hmmmm... nah! :)


The link for 1999 I think I CLEARLY stated it was proof of his doing this when he was governor so yes that would have to be a date before 2000.

OK my question to you is this, You think this man who has used these tactics since his governor days against protestors has changed? Do you think its Ok for a 65 year old American to be arrested in Sept. 2002 for simply holding up a sign that had something on it that was not supportive of the President? I don't and if you read all the way through you would have seen where the man said that America every inch of it was a zone for free speech, apparently a judge agreed with him since he was acquitted of any wrong doing and the judge threw it out of court. So do you think its ok for our right to free speech to be trampled by the very administration in charge as long as it just happened in Sept. 2002 and it by a republican administration? If you read further down in the article you would have seen where grandmothers are also being arrested for simply holding up a sign, I suppose it ok it just happened a few years back, here is a quote from the article which is btw a quote from a police officer under oath during the trial, At Neels trial, police Detective John Lanachione testified that the Secret Service told local police to confine "people that were there making a statement pretty much against the president and his views" in a so called free-speech area.

[Technologist]

Originally posted by mesue
the man said that America every inch of it was a zone for free speech, apparently a judge agreed with him since he was acquitted of any wrong doing and the judge threw it out of court.

Free speech....in every inch in America....

So then I can come into your house and saywhatever I want??? Or I can come to your workplace and tell you boss things that aren't true???


the Secret Service told local police to confine "people that were there making a statement pretty much against the president and his views" in a so called free-speech area.

Last time I checked, the President doesn't instruct individual Secret Service agents. But even if he did, as I said before, if they were disruptive, then of course they should be "told" to move away.

Let's say that YOU are the president... or governor.... YOU apply for and get a permit to hold a rally. You have topics to discuss, and people show up to hear YOU talk. Now I show up, and start USING MY RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH, by screaming LIAR everytime you open your mouth to talk.... Think I should be arrested???

'nuff said, regarding constitutional rights, and how they are misapplied against demonstrators....

As many have already said, there are 2 sides to every story...

[momfromTN]

Originally posted by Technologist
Free speech....in every inch in America....

So then I can come into your house and saywhatever I want??? Or I can come to your workplace and tell you boss things that aren't true???



Last time I checked, the President doesn't instruct individual Secret Service agents. But even if he did, as I said before, if they were disruptive, then of course they should be "told" to move away.

Let's say that YOU are the president... or governor.... YOU apply for and get a permit to hold a rally. You have topics to discuss, and people show up to hear YOU talk. Now I show up, and start USING MY RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH, by screaming LIAR everytime you open your mouth to talk.... Think I should be arrested???

'nuff said, regarding constitutional rights, and how they are misapplied against demonstrators....

As many have already said, there are 2 sides to every story...

Apparently it is only free speech if it is against Pres Bush.:rolleyes: LOL! ITA Tech.:D

[momfromTN]

There are laws against disturbing the peace.

[jonette5]

Originally posted by Technologist
Mesue, all the stories in your link are from 2002.... why bring up old news???

and Jonette, got a link to the event this weekend, so I can read it???

Sorry Tech don't have a link, but it was shown on KMOV channel 4 news here. The whole thing was shown on the news. The protesters where parading PEACEFULLY in front of the building and the police made them disban or be arrested. The news crew got it all on tape. I also know for sure this happend because 2 of my very close friends were there in person and were demonstrators. I was supposed to go with them but could not because of back problems. I am very involved in the "overtime" matter and watched the news VERY closely to see what happened. So it is true, link or not. I went to news web site but nothing was on the site about it. They only have things from the past day or so and I saw nothing about archived stories.

[bngomom]

This happens every time the President comes to St Louis. Protestors are not allowed to be anywhere the President can see them. They are only allowed to protest several blocks away.

Sorry if you don't believe what we post here because there is not an article in the newspaper for you to read.

[mesue]

Tech if you had read the entire article you would have read that all the protesters were peaceful and not screaming or disrupting anyone, thy were simply holding a sign with something on it that did not support the president and so they were locked up, one woman and her 5 year old daughter held a sign and was arrested; her and her 5 yr. old daughter were separated by police and taken in different cars all because the mother held a sign. No one was shouting or causing a disturbance. I do not understand why you are not aotraged by this, is it because its a republican president who is doing this? It really does not matter it is a president trampling on your rights to freedom of speech and yes you know you can walk into anywheres including where anyone works in the US and say anything, but you had better be able to prove it if it is slanderous. Just don't try and hold up a sign not supportive of the President outside the free speech zone or you will be arrested thats right you, so if this continues and we have a democrat president who does this and you want to peacefully protest and exercise your right to free speech and the democrat president has a so called free speech zone and you step outside of it and you are arrested will this be ok with you too.

[FMDiva]

Gosh, The President has come to my town several times. The Protestors are out in full force, yet no arrests or anything of the nature suggested in the OP's article. Freedom of Speech and the Right to Assemble is alive and fine.

Wait, one man was arrested because he stormed the motorcade, unlike the others who were assembled peacefully. In fact, the uproar on this was that so much media attention was placed on this ONE MAN who didn't follow the rules and nothing about the other hundreds of protestors that were there trying to get their message across in the local news.

[llbriteyes]

Free Speech is just that. Free. It is NOT without consequence.

Linda

[Technologist]

Originally posted by mesue
Tech if you had read the entire article

I did read the entire article..... I just took it with a grain of salt, because it was NOT written by someone with real knowledge!

The link was to a website named "Independent Media Center" Below is their mission statement:

The Independent Media Center is a global network of collectively run media outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth. We are motivated by a love and inspiration for people who work for a better world despite corporate media's distortions and unwillingness to cover efforts to develop an egalitarian and sustainable society.

The austin Independent Media Center is a grassroots organization committed to using media production and distribution as tools for promoting social and economic justice in the austin Area. We are dedicated to addressing issues that the mainstream media neglects and we do not conceal our politics behind a false objectivity. We will empower people to "become the media" by providing democratic access to available technologies and information.

They have no phone number, no physical loaction... their editor / author / photographer is the same person... they have links on their site to places like http://www.voxfux.com (DO NOT CLICK THE LINK) which is a filthy, disgusting site, full of slang and cursewords, all aimed at the government (esp Bush) and full of idiot conspiracy theorists.

That's like bringing a comic book to a philosophy reading...

Bring me real proof, and I'll continue to discuss. For now, I'll go read the other threads.....

[mesue]

Originally posted by Technologist


Bring me real proof, and I'll continue to discuss. For now, I'll go read the other threads.....


Here is a link where the actual court cases are if you would like to download them, it also has the one about the 65 year old retired steelworkers case who held up a sign, "The Bush family must surely love the poor they made so many of us" The link is:
http://www.aclu.org/FreeSpeech/FreeSpeech.cfm?ID=13699&c=86

[MoodyBlues]

In this country, you have the right to say what you want to say (within certain guidelines of course). What these protestors don't seem to realize is that they DON'T have, never have had, nor never will have, the right to be heard.

Just because you can say what you want to say doesn't mean that people have to be forced to listen to it.

IMO

[mesue]

Originally posted by MoodyBlues
In this country, you have the right to say what you want to say (within certain guidelines of course). What these protestors don't seem to realize is that they DON'T have, never have had, nor never will have, the right to be heard.

Just because you can say what you want to say doesn't mean that people have to be forced to listen to it.

IMO

The protesters I have written about were doing nothing more than holding a sign with something written on it that was not supportive of the President, they were not shouting or disturbing the peace they were SILENTLY holding a sign. And they were arrested for it.

[Technologist]

You're right, I give up....

The ACLU (american communist leftist union) says it is the truth.... it must be...

They (the ACLU) is also against a border crossing initiative, which will keep track of foreign nationals (some of which are terrorists).... http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=14649&c=206

But they way you read the slant they put on it, it is a total waste of money, and will only confuse the poor foreigners....

OH, here is a joke.... ACLU is against monitoring of citizens, for any reason.... read their privacy statement for their website!!!

http://www.aclu.org/Privacy.cfm

"Our servers collect and aggregate user information site-wide, including anonymous site statistics, such as the number of views of each page. We log domain names and/or IP addresses of visitors (such as umich.edu, aol.com, 209.168.1.1, etc.), which permits us to know "where" visitors are from, or what access service they use, without knowing their individual identities."

Why do they need to know where the traffic comes from??? so they can target the audience, and ask them for donations, etc...

This part sounds just like Amazon's policy: "We review and discard the information in some cases (e.g. IP address logs for file transfers), while in others we may use the information to tailor our users` Web experience in the form of custom content or results drawn from databases."

They want to SELL you stuff!!!

So, anyway..... you win, cause you can find more sites (not necessarily from reliable sources), that agree with your opinion...

I'm outta this thread....

[mesue]

I gave you a link with the actual court cases listed where if one did not believe this to be true they could find enough info to look it up through the courts thus proving totally to themselves whether or not it is true. I personally find the ACLU to be a group with a long standing history of fighting for civil rights and liberties

[momfromTN]

Originally posted by Technologist
You're right, I give up....

The ACLU (american communist leftist union) says it is the truth.... it must be...

They (the ACLU) is also against a border crossing initiative, which will keep track of foreign nationals (some of which are terrorists).... http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=14649&c=206

But they way you read the slant they put on it, it is a total waste of money, and will only confuse the poor foreigners....

OH, here is a joke.... ACLU is against monitoring of citizens, for any reason.... read their privacy statement for their website!!!

http://www.aclu.org/Privacy.cfm

"Our servers collect and aggregate user information site-wide, including anonymous site statistics, such as the number of views of each page. We log domain names and/or IP addresses of visitors (such as umich.edu, aol.com, 209.168.1.1, etc.), which permits us to know "where" visitors are from, or what access service they use, without knowing their individual identities."

Why do they need to know where the traffic comes from??? so they can target the audience, and ask them for donations, etc...

This part sounds just like Amazon's policy: "We review and discard the information in some cases (e.g. IP address logs for file transfers), while in others we may use the information to tailor our users` Web experience in the form of custom content or results drawn from databases."

They want to SELL you stuff!!!

So, anyway..... you win, cause you can find more sites (not necessarily from reliable sources), that agree with your opinion...

I'm outta this thread....


I TOTALLY AGREE.:rolleyes:

[mesue]

A brief history on the ACLU they have safeguarded the rights of the downtrodden people ignored and without power, they have provided lawyers and won cases to protect all our rights yep even those republican's rights, they have provided lawyers for African American to help them fight for rights that they supposedly did not have all the way to the Supreme Court and they won changing many lives for the better. The ACLU has not chosen political bias as a rule for noticing whats going on in the world they have persevered throughout Democratic and Republican administrations to fight for peoples right both democrat and republican. Personally I believe until some of you see "Dubya" beating up some old lady in a wheel chair for holding up the wrong sign you will continue to not believe proof of whats going on, no its not on mainstream news it probably will not be but the court cases are there and stand for themselves as proof of what is going on, there are many things not reported on mainstream news, a member here on this board gave you details of what she saw and said it was true, why would people lie On Dubya that man gives us enough fuel that is true without making up lies on him.

[momfromTN]

Ok, whatever. The president beating up old ladies. Ok.

[DAVESBABYDOLL]

Originally posted by Tina
:D I was just reminded of why I usually stay out of these political threads.

:eek: *using my freedom of speech ~I'm outta this thread

[schsa]

My very last comment on this. You cannot have mobs of people standing around with the president is in the area. Security cannot protect our president and we are in a state of alert due to this little war he started in Iraq. There is always a chance that someone with alternative motives will join the group and have a gun. So you have to keep anyone who wants to demonstrate away from any high ranking government official.

Secondly, the police only do what they are instructed to do. Maybe there was a threat in the crowd or something that we are not being made aware of. And that was why the crowd was asked to dissapate. Either way, the crowd was asked to break up and if you didn't move, the police were going to arrest you.

There are many more factors that you are not being made aware of.

[cSoReNSoN]

The http://www.voxfux.com link was quite interesting. haha But then again, I am not a Dubya fan, so I enjoyed it thoroughly!

[mesue]

Originally posted by schsa
My very last comment on this. You cannot have mobs of people standing around with the president is in the area. Security cannot protect our president and we are in a state of alert due to this little war he started in Iraq. There is always a chance that someone with alternative motives will join the group and have a gun. So you have to keep anyone who wants to demonstrate away from any high ranking government official.

Secondly, the police only do what they are instructed to do. Maybe there was a threat in the crowd or something that we are not being made aware of. And that was why the crowd was asked to dissapate. Either way, the crowd was asked to break up and if you didn't move, the police were going to arrest you.

There are many more factors that you are not being made aware of.

Actually there are mobs of people around him all the time at these things as in a crowd standing in front listening to what he has to say, but if one person holds up a sign not agreeing with him they are arrested, these articles I have listed have repeatedly said that the demonstators were not doing anything nor were shouting just holding a sign thats all, the aclu has won the cases of people. Read the court cases if you do not believe me. And the ones in the so called free speech zones are attacked with mace and beaten with batons. I think people are totally confused because they want to believe this could not happen here but it is happening then there are others who see my writing on here about this as simply an attack on Bush, it is not if any democratic president had allowed this to happen I would be just as angry and upset about it, but irregardless of that it is still happening. And even sadder is that the mainstream news is not reporting this, even though there are court cases on record, pictures on the internet, they are totally staying away from it. Makes one wonder how free the press is.

[harloo]

The ACLU always get a bad rap from conservatives who criticize the organization, but support other extremists like Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition who wants to impose their precepts upon the country.


Conservatives cannot have it both ways, if you support The Christian Coalition and them attempting too incorporate their religious views into the political arena, then you have no right to criticize the ACLU.

IMO, both organizations are so caught up into fantasy, they seem to think that they are some makeshift gods.;) :rolleyes: