Two Pace University students heckled Bill Clinton today, calling him a “war criminal”.
You know, we’ve got a President now who has set up a gulag archipelago from Cuba to Eastern Europe to Afghanistan; who has countenanced the worst possible prisoner abuses from Abu Ghraib; who hires, keeps and promotes folks like John Yoo who make up legal justifications for all this…
And these cats are heckling Clinton? For being a “war criminal”?
Maybe this is one of those “made you look” moments of political idiocy. I guess I’m the sucker. *sigh*…
Please share widely!
Religious protesters are showing up at funerals for soldiers killed in Iraq with the following signs – “Thank God for IED’s” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.” as reported by Ed Lavandera from CNN
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Why? Because the say the soldiers are fighting for an army that represents a country that accepts homosexuality.
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This really tests the limit of free speech.
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Jim Caralis
I don’t really think Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church “test the limits of free speech.” What they say is hateful and vile, but it looks that way to everyone, and they’re surely not winning any support for their cause. In fact, they’re doing the opposite — when they only protested the funerals of gay victims of hate crimes, the right was often loath to denounce them, but now that their charming signs include those you mention — and “Thank God for 9/11” — they simply have no friends. And don’t let the fact that most news articles, in the misguided pursuit of fairness, generally refer to these protesters as “a church group” or “religious protesters;” the fact of the matter is that Westboro Baptist Church is made up of Fred Phelps, his immediate and extended family, and hardly anyone else.
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Anyway, there’s no need to resort to such drastic measures as proposing that this tests a limit of free speech — quite effective countermeasures have already been found, such as well-publicized Phelpsathons: people like us, that is to say, sane people, make pledges of $x per hour that Phelps protests, to go to (usually) gay-rights groups, charities supporting victims of hate crimes and their families, and so forth. On, I believe, more than one occasion, this tactic has led to Phelps cutting short or calling off a protest.
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And free speech remains safe. Er, as safe as it was under this administration, anyway.
The free speech issue at hand here is should protesting be allowed at or near funerals. It’s not so much what they say or who they are, but where they are saying it.
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Do free speech rights extend to funerals?
I’m generally wary of setting limitations on free speech; it has the potential to set a dangerous precedent. Free speech will not always be tasteful speech.
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I guess it might be helpful to look at this comparatively, taking funeral protests on the one hand, and abortion clinic protests on the other.
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In the case of abotion clinic protests, the courts have ruled that protesters must keep a certain distance from the entrance to clinics, but they are otherwise protected by the First Amendment (as long as their actions are within the law).
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Does it make sense to propose a similar “buffer zone” around funerals/memorial services/etc.? I’m not sure….
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Clearly there are differences: In the clinic case, as I understand it, the buffer zone is in place to make sure that clinic workers and clients are not physically prevented from accessing the facility.
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In the funeral case, it seems that — unless a protest group is actually, physically preventing a funeral from taking place — there is no real harm being done.
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So, while protesting at funerals is presumably a distasteful practice, I can’t really see grounds for restricting the “free speech” rights of the protestors themselves.
I’m with you, Charley. Moreover, I think many on the Dark Side will never, ever forgive Democrats for Nixon’s impeachment. They were killer whales going after Clinton.
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Now let’s see. Nixon and Shrub subverted the laws of the nation, gravely insulted the citizens, spied and lied, and spit on the Constitution. Clinton…well, he lied about his adultery.
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Think. Think. Think. Who are the dastards?
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The argument used to be that what the current young folk needed was an unjust war causing the deaths of Americans. Hey, they got it. They have no excuses and obvious work to do.
well, he lied about his adultery.
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To be fair, those who protest Clinton from the left and call him a war criminal, are usually not people who think much the Lewinsky affair. That’s not likely the grounds of their protest. They’re much more likely upset about things like bombing that factory in the Sudan.