The more I think about it, the less sense it makes to me. On Saturday, there was a planned Tea Party rally to take place at the King Street side of the Wisconsin Capitol. It was the usual "tax day" event, made special by the appearance of Sarah Palin and also because the Capitol has been dominated over the last 2 months by intense anti-GOP/anti-conservative protesters. In fact, it was quite nervy of Sarah to show up in this town, which, even in quieter times, Republicans avoid if they can. I've been living here since 1984, and I don't remember any GOP presidential candidates ever stopping in for a rally. (By contrast, Obama has held huge rallies here twice.)
The anti-Tea party people had a rally planned for the opposite side of the Capitol, at State Street. Here's some video, shot by Meade and me, the first half of which shows the State Street rally, where the audience is able to assemble and listen to their speakers. In the video, you see a poet named Josh Healey who is mocking Sarah Palin. (What if Scott Walker and Sarah Palin had a baby?) No one is heckling him or interfering with his presentation.
At 1:55 in the video, we're suddenly at the other side of the Capitol, midway through Sarah Palin's speech, in a crowd that contains people who want to hear the speech and people who are trying to deny them that privilege. Watch:
At 2:09, you see a man in a black and yellow jacket pointing and yelling "shame, shame." After a cut, switching from Meade's camera to mine, you see this man directly in front of me. The black in the upper left corner is the brim of my hat. He had been shouting right behind me as I tried to listen to Palin, and I turned to include him in my video. He thinks he can deny me the right to show his face on camera as the person who was most interfering with my hearing the speech. The cut at 2:22 is the switch from my camera to Meade's, Meade having just arrived at my side.
At 2:25, the man says "I will knock those cameras out of your hands." Meade says, "No, you won't That would be assault." (Question: What do the letters CPD on the side of the man's hat stands for? )Clearly visible at 2:58.)) He tries to block my view with his hands and yells, "You're here to see the damned rally. Turn around and watch it." And he goes back to yelling "shame," as if I could listen to a speech with a guy yelling "shame" right behind me. Eventually, our cameras cause him to shrink back into the crowd.
Then you can see, there are people yelling "liar, liar" right next to me. The noise of vuvuzelas and "booooooo" seems to come from everywhere. Even though we are near a loudspeaker, you can barely hear Palin.
Now, my question is: What is the argument that making that noise was a worthy and good thing to do? I know these protesters believe they are the good people with the right values. So explain this to me. Now, any crowd is diverse. Maybe there were respectful anti-Palinistas. Maybe the local Madison folk were polite and the rude ones were from out of town, perhaps Chicago. Maybe the letter "C" on that man's hat stood for Chicago. CPD. Chicago PD. I don't know. You tell me. Anyone could have a CPD hat.
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 223 of 223There must be a minimum weight requirement to be a Capital Police officer.
Or is it the camera angle that makes all these guys appear 3x?
'The People's house, eh?'
Some of those people act like they don't know how to act in a house.
Why was it right to shout her down? Because she's a total bitch. Ask your buddy Prosser about total bitches.
Why did the anti-Palin protesters think it was right and good to shout her down?
Because she has a lot of that uncommon virtue called common sense, and she's not afraid to lay things out in a common sense fashion that appeals to other people with common sense.
But if you apply common sense to nearly all liberal talking points, those talking points fall apart like a house of cards in a hurricane. So she must be silenced, lest the protesters be forced to think.
Why did the Klan lynch people?
They decided that their victims had it coming. Same sentiment here.
There can be no convincing case it was "right and good", regardless of the justifications offered.
Ann wrote: I know these protesters believe they are the good people with the right values. So explain this to me.
Sure...them believing that they're "good" doesn't mean they are - they not - and they don't have the right values. Fairly simple, yes?
Rational people on either side of the political spectrum have consistent moral and ethical values -- if it's wrong for the other side to do something, then it's wrong for my side to do it too.
Extremists allow themselves exemptions for the behavior they find abhorrent in the people they disagree with -- "that's wrong/stupid/evil when you do it, but it's okay/special/different when I do it."
I love what Kent said in comment 21
"Why did the anti-Palin protesters think it was right and good to shout her down?"
Do not question Ape Law, human.
"You're here to see the damned rally. Turn around and watch it."
But apparently he didn't think you were there to hear it.
I'll bet that Mister CPD there is a police officer who was supposed to be on duty in Chicago at the time of the rally but was skipping out on work. I think it would be an interesting exercise if readers in Chicago tried to determine who he is and to see if he was supposed to be on duty, being paid by the taxpayers of Chicago, at the time he was in Wisconsin.
Great, just great -- as if giant, paper machie(sp?) puppets weren't enough, now with the vavazoolas, or whatever they're called.
Charming and colloquial during the World Cup, childish and annoying now.
Speaking of Sarah Palin speaking in Madison -- did any of the counter-tantrum-throwers' heads explode? Was it gross?
Mrs. Palin often has that effect on Lefties.
The Left is tolerant of all views--except those that are intolerable because they are racist, sexist, homophobic, or in some other way evil. And all views that the Left disagrees with can be classified as as racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. So it was only natural that the Left would object to Palin and shout her down, and to suggest that there was any intolerance in their actions is to reveal yourself as racist, sexist, homophobic, or in some other way evil.
This particular rally may turn out to be a seminal moment in American history.
We've had a long history of protests in public venues, usually held when some unapproved types hold a meeting, a rally, make a presentation, give a speech, etc. The purpose of the protest is to disrupt the protestee and make it impossible for him to say anything audible. To this end, protesters usually have music and bullhorns. However, the excuse is the right to free speech, which the protesters claim to be exercising. That fact that their free speech is louder than the other guy's, thereby denying him his right to be heard (implicit in the concept of "free speech") even if not his right to actually speak, is dismissed as a trivial matter.
But - surprise! - dumb ol' George Bush broke the back of that system by having protesters herded off to areas which were very close to where the action was, but not right on top of it. The protesters could bellow as loudly as they wanted without disrupting the communications of other speakers; but they could hardly claim that their own rights of free speech were being violated, as nobody was preventing them from speaking, or chanting, or parading around with big puppets. Tactical brilliance, actually, even if George still doesn't get proper credit for it.
Now, however, protesters have abandoned the fig leaf of freedom of speech. They're simply making noise, not speaking at all. Sirens and little plastic horns aren't speech. This may be a hugely significant escalation in America's political wars.
The next escalation would be full brownshirt mode. But it may not happen. If I might speculate:
Not long ago leftist activists would have tried violent beatings, with union goons as the front men, a technique perfected in Europe between the World Wars. Two things prevent that here and now. First, ubiquitous cameras. It's hard for a leftist to claim that he was the innocent victim of a violent encounter, even if his leftist buddies all have the same prepared story, if multiple videos show otherwise, and can be posted to a worldwide audience in a matter of minutes. In other words, the activists have lost their vital "control of the narrative." Second, because of the press attempts two years ago to paint the Tea Party rally attendees as "bitter clingers" with guns, it is now widely believed that the American right is heavily armed. No union guy is going to risk losing a nice long future of early retirement with a bloated pension just for the chance to bang in somebody else's head if that somebody might possibly defend himself with deadly force.
So be careful, these people are genuinely vicious. Not all of them, but certainly enough of them.
Garage is accusing other people of whining. He/she/it is funny.
Why do they think it's okay to act like thugs and trample the rights to assembly and free speech of others?
Because no authority figure has told them it was wrong. Not a single national figure, whether the traditional ecclesiastical or secular figures in the guise of ministers or "community organizers"; and certainly no authority figures which the thugs embrace, such as national TV news anchors, newspapers of record, union presidents, Jon Stewart, The Daily Kos...not even the current President of the United States (who never had a problem injecting himself into local matters when they involved Cornel West acting like a butthead).
Why should the thugs stop acting like thugs when the only people telling them to stop are the same ones they've told don't have the same rights they themselves have?
I know these protesters believe they are the good people with the right values.
You're being too naive. Many don't think that far. They just want their money and cushy benefits at taxpayer expense and don't care about anything else. They only consider what is good for themselves. They only act as a group because they share a common greed and a common enemy opposing their greed. Their "goodness" is a rationalized selfishness at best.
Bullies never think they are evil. They either think that they are indulging in nothing more than good clean fun, or that they are standing up for the highest of principles.
I haven't the time to read all of the excellent comments left by your readers, so please excuse me if I am making an observation already posted.
"She is a fertile mother, beautiful, and as a life-long huntress at home with guns and the military, qualifies as a warrioress already."
sarge here damn thar womens chromosomes is somewhat bent outta shape fer one, she dont look like she hunts much on that teevee show hell can barely get a round down the spout and what military yar be talkin about ?
" The original hillbillies were people who lived in the hills of Northern Ireland and supported William of Orange as King of England. Their descendants immigrated to North America and settled in western Pennsylvania and all down the Appalachians to the south. They are not well known for their learning, but they are very well known for their bravery and honor."
har har sarge here sarge has got a good moovie fer yar to see then :
http://www.wildandwonderfulwhites.com/
So if you're correct and the right is "winning", why are they so fucking miserable all the time? The pettiest little thing sends then to the fainting couch.
We're not heading to the fainting couch ... we're riding toward the sound of the guns.
And that is what you are trying to discourage ... parrot.
Garagie wanna cracker?
BTW, there are significant differences between this and the shout-downs of our elected officials by the Tea Party movement ... those shouted down were spreading intellectual dishonesty while (supposedly) working for US in official capacities, and they had already had respect extended to them, again and again, by their constituents, starting by their being elected by said constituents.
Shouting them down, AFTER they had made it clear they are intellectually dishonest, is VERY different from shouting down someone merely because they disagree with your own intellectually-dishonest viewpoint.
The shouting down of Ms. Palin is just another example of the intellectual/ethical bankruptcy of the Re-, er, Progressive Left.
Garage, until y'all exhibit consistent intellectual dishonesty, we will be riding towards the sound of the guns, to resolutely oppose the idiocy of Re-, er, Progressives like yourself. You and your ilk are no longer are going to be deferred to as our "betters" ... you are going to be DEFEATED.
I'm working on a gizmo that would put their noisemakers to shame. Would that make me "one of them?" I'd sure like to at least give it a whirl, but I'd probably need a security patrol.
@shoutingthomas: Why does the left think that the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings belongs to them These novels are about the eternal presence of evil in our lives and the necessity to fight (wage war) against evil.
I was really pissed, but not surprised, that the movies didn't include the Scouring of the Shire. Mustn't get the proles thinking they could form a militia to get rid of an authoritarian government and confiscatory taxes.
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