The Duchess of Zeon wrote:Durandal, covering up the breast of a statue is not an explicit endorsement of religion even if everyone knows why Ashcroft did it--which even then is not so certain. Maybe he really was just annoyed that everyone was distracted by the statue. Did you know there's an Air Force barracks in Southern California which looks like a Swastika when viewed from the air? Are you going to demand they tear that down because it promotes Nazism? There's no explicit violation of anything and there's no firm reason to doubt the official explanation, so there's no conceivable reason to go so batshit insane over it like this board managed to do.
The government allows artistic works depicting nudity in public museums. This kind of inconsistent behavior incites some doubt in official explanations in most reasonable people.
As for your ridiculous swastika example, that's simple to explain by design efficiency. Come on, Marina, I can't believe that you don't know the difference between accusing a fundamentalist Christian of using his power to repress a totally benign expression of free speech and saying that the United States military supports Nazism.
Oh, like I should apologize for noticing the name and dismissing it as "article by guy who compared the President to Adolf Hitler, more overblown shit from the Left."
Ad hominem. You should know better. I wouldn't care too much if you'd actually read the article, but you stated that you only skimmed it and dismissed it out of hand because you don't like the author.
I'm not saying that the arrest didn't happen, I'm referring to the placement of the protestors. It's basically purely a bunch of people talking now and making claims and we're all asked to believe them. I suppose one of us could go to Pittsburgh and look up police arrest records for an incident report and that would put the matter to rest, but short of that we're simply being asked to believe eyewitness testimony which is being distorted for both political and legal reasons.
The article which you did not read wrote:Paul Wolf is an assistant supervisor in charge of operations at the Allegheny County Police Department and was involved in planning for the presidential visit to Pittsburgh last fall. He told Salon that the decision to pen in Bush critics like Neel originated with the Secret Service. "Generally, we don't put protesters inside enclosures," he said. "The only time I remember us doing that was a Ku Klux Klan rally, where there was an opposing rally, and we had to put up a fence to separate them.
"What the Secret Service does," he explained, "is they come in and do a site survey, and say, 'Here's a place where the people can be, and we'd like to have any protesters be put in a place that is able to be secured.' Someone, say our police chief, may have suggested the place, but the request to fence them in comes from the Secret Service. They run the show."
The statement by Wolf, who ranks just below the Allegheny County police chief, is backed up by the sworn testimony of the detective who arrested Neel. At a hearing in county court, Det. John Ianachione, testifying under oath, said that the Secret Service had instructed local police to herd into the enclosed so-called free-speech area "people that were there making a statement pretty much against the president and his views." Explaining further, he added: "If they were exhibiting themselves as a protester, they were to go in that area."
Oh, it is, is it? Why is it? Disorderly conduct--how do we know they weren't threatening the Bush supporters in some way?
Because sworn statements indicate that all protesters were to be moved to a specific area. Do you need me to explain about how refusing to do what a police officer tells you to do can land you in hand-cuffs?
The ACLU has been bitchsmacked in court before for taking tenuous cases and they certainly aren't pleased with the administration. They think they have a chance--not that this is a slam-dunk like you seem to imply. We don't have access to the incident reports right now and we don't have access to the legal testimony because the proceedings have not started--and only one side is talking. Unless one of us wishes to go to Pittsburgh, we are going to continue to hear a completely biased story, and instead of understanding that the story is biased and at least attempting to take that into account, you just ran with it. And that, really, is what I have the problem with.
Ah, so all the people being arrested just happened to be people who refused to run off and be in a cage a quarter of a mile away is all just a coincidence? Based on the pictures of the Neville Island demonstration, which depict pro-Bush demonstrators completely unperturbed and anti-Bush protesters segregated away and out of site, the multiple, harmonious accounts of these arrests and the ACLU's ability to file a lawsuit on behalf of people who've had their arrests thrown out in court or had charges dropped, I'd say that it's not a stretch to say that these people are telling the truth.
Or they were removed to a completely different area, which is standard procedure in crowd control, to keep the two groups from fighting?
See Gil's post. You might be able to use the "crowd control" excuse if protesters were simply moved to the other side of the street, but they were shipped a quarter of a mile away.
A. Comparison with comments of the officers on the scene.
Which are entirely consistent with the claims of the people who were arrested.
B. An official statement from the USSS, which isn't forthcoming so we can rule that out.
C. Results of the legal proceedings.
Fox News wrote:During a Bush visit to Tampa, Fla., last November to support his brother Jeb Bush's re-election campaign for governor,
police arrested three protestors for “trespassing after warning.”
A designated protest zone had been set up several hundred yards from the president. Police said the three men willfully violated the protest zone and toted their signs: “Why Do You Let These Crooks Fool You?” and “War Is Good for Business. Invest Your Sons.”
The Hillsborough County Court later dropped the charges, but the three are now suing for damages.
The result? "Oops, I guess they really didn't do anything wrong after all."
D. Official incident report.
Essentially, just something to support notoriously unreliable eyewitness testimony, worse yet, completely biased and one-sided eyewitness testimony which has so far virtually all be seen in the context of either ideologues or lawyers getting ready to argue a case.
See above, and try reading the article as well as other links posted in this thread.
I'm sorry--but this gulf between satire and hate speech has escaped every PC-speech lover on both sides of the political aisle, even though I recognize it just fine. You're point it out to the wrong person. Go tell it to those people who get mad at George Lucas for casting Jar-Jar or the Christians who go apeshit at movies that poke fun at God. You are lambasting Bush for an attitude which is totally common to both political parties and trying to make that attitude into something unusual and dangerous. It might be dangerous in the long run, but not in the way you're making it out to be, and it's hardly unusual.
Red herring. We
both know what definition of "hate speech" you were using, and it
wasn't the one exploited by political correctness activists to suppress satire.
I completely agree with you. I wouldn't restrict them at all, actually. But a lot of people in both political parties would--and a lot of other kinds of speech, as well. That's what I'm getting at. You're singling out the President for a kind of viewpoint which is totally typical and common in modern American politics.
Yet another red herring. This debate is about his administration, not every politician in existence, so of
course I'm going to single him out. I don't expect the president to
like a website which satirizes his campaign, but I don't expect him to say that it should be silenced for making fun of him.
I grant it hasn't gone that far, yet, but you know there are Hate Crimes legislation which are basically Thought Crimes legislation--including Hate Speech. How much of a stretch is it? Well, you can sue someone for defamation of character already--so what's the next step? Making it a criminal as well as a civil crime? That isn't necessarily a big step with the modern PC attitude that pervades both sides of the aisle. I am not condoning the attitude but I am saying that it is not some sort of attitude common to the President alone--that sort of belief in the regulation of "offensive" speech is utterly pervasive in our modern political climate.
Again, I fail to see how any of this matters. If you want to talk about the PC movement, start another thread.
That does seem to be the stated goal of the PC movement--legislated civility in society.
So?
Reasonable enough. However, the limitation of certain kinds of speech in itself is not something--sadly--that is terribly odious by the standards of modern Washington, no matter which party or position.
I realize that. But what does that have to do with the definition of hate speech that
you were using.
