Its Way Past Time To Be Concerned

[ThomWV]

Look back at what happened this past week in Washington, DC. The city was essentially shut down. Snipers were on the roofs, military vehicles on the streets, dissenters heard-ed off to some unseen shadows. All this was done under the authority of The Patriot Act.

OK, you say, "it was the inauguration." In these troubled times I understand that extraordinary effort must be taken to insure the safety of the President. That is just the way it is in our times and it doesn't matter if the President is one properly elected or that clown we have in office at the moment. While that is a nice argument for last week it overlooks the sad truth that the administration could use the same authority to put snipers on the roofs and tanks on the streets in San Francisco, Cleveland, Boston, you name it. We have given this authority to a megalomaniac and no one seems to have noticed.

I do not know when protesters were first segregated and heard-ed off into special zones where they might exercise their Constitutional right to speak, either in favor of or in disagreement with the powers that be of the moment but it happened. At that very moment we, as a nation, should have raised our heads in a riot of anger that would have forever swept away the notion that this could be done by any Government official. Today no political even takes place where protesters haven't been heard-ed off to an out of the way spot.

So you have to ask yourself how far of a slide would it be for the next step to involve heard-ed up protesters AND snipers on the roof tops in a town where nothing more objectionable was going on than a normal political rally - on either side?

It is way past time to be concerned.

Thom

[punpirate]

1. The creation of free-speech zones...

... started with Bush, when he was governor of Texas. He got tired of environmentalists walking the sidewalks around the governor's mansion, so he had the police herd them into a nearby park in Austin, well out of view and earshot of the governor....

[salvorhardin]

5. Actually free speech zones

started in the late 1980s on university campuses.

http://www.issues-views.com/index.php/sect/1001/article/1027

# In 1988-89, at Tufts University, President Jean Mayer announced the establishment of "free-speech" and "non-free-speech" zones on campus. In protest, Tufts students from across the political spectrum united to overthrow the policy. To attract media attention, they partitioned the campus with tape and chalk to designate which parts of campus allowed free speech and which parts allowed only censored speech, making it look like Berlin in 1946. Embarrassed by the widespread media criticism that followed, Tufts abandoned the policy.

# At the Stillwater campus of Oklahoma State University (OSU), in 1998, a plan by some members of the student government to create limited "free speech zones" galvanized opposition from the University's faculty. Led by Professor Nancy Wilkinson, the Faculty Council emphatically condemned the idea, prompting President James E. Halligan to state publicly, "It's healthy for our students to question and interact with other ideologies." After this outcry, the student government never raised the issue.

# At the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, in the fall of 1999, the administration created two "speakers' areas" to which the exercise of free speech rights would be limited. Students and faculty immediately criticized this appalling restriction of their rights. Within weeks of its announcement, claiming that the policy was "too controversial," USF abandoned the plan.

Granted, the Bush administration has taken them to a whole new level.

[punpirate]

7. If you notice...

... each of these was a failed attempt to institute a policy.

Bush is the first government official to impose and maintain the policy by force of police powers. I'd say, on that basis, he's the first to implement them.

Cheers.

[UL_Approved]

2. I was afraid the Boston scare would be real with martial law declared

It would be the perfect timing. IT would justify all of the anti-terrorist propaganda that Bush has fed the world. It would be a "national emergency". I'm glad that nothing happened out of that (knock on wood).

[KharmaTrain]

3. Someone 'Splain This To Me...

The attack on the Pentagon was a commercial airliner hijacked...not a jet fighter...so WTF are they deploying anti-aircraft batteries on the mall? That stuff doesn't make me more secure, it makes me more paranoid.

[geekgrrl]

4. do you think they really know their policies make us less safe- but tell

us we're safer as a total con job!

[deutsey]

6. I was concerned in 2000

I'm now well pass alarmed.

[eleny]

8. What can they do if it's nationwide?

I do see your point and agree. But the thought occurred to me that if there was a draft, people would be out there all over the country. You can stretch the Patriot Act response just so far. Especially since people aren't flocking to join the Guard.