[U]nion thugs join together in creating a pigsty -- and we know that they create pigsties, especially compared to Tea Party rallies. You look at any public grounds where these people have been: The trash is littered everywhere, trash cans are overturned, beer cans, bong pipes. Hell, it's all over there. The Tea Party people, you don't find anything. Not even a discarded tissue....
The Democrats and the media want you to think it's just a bunch of average, hardworking out of working, valiant teachers, firefighters and so forth, and it's a bunch of slobs. Maggot-infested, dope-smoking, damn it, hell, longhaired, the whole nine yards. You got longhaired, maggot-infested, dope-smoking FM rock 'n' roller types, exactly who they are. Bong pipes, you name it.
Now, that's just ridiculous. I've lived in Madison, Wisconsin for 25 years — and I've gone over to the protests nearly every day — and I've never seen a used Kotex anywhere. I put up a post showing trash on one of the first days of protest, but ever since then, I've been impressed that they are picking up trash. They care about the impression they leave and are making a big effort about that. They are putting up signs, taping them up and sticking them in little snowmen outdoors. And there are piles of belongings, such as bedding that are piled up in a way that isn't aesthetically pleasing. But that's not trash. And I haven't seen any beer drinking or beer cans or pot smoking or pot paraphernalia anywhere. The last time I was in the building, I didn't think it smelled, but Meade was there more recently (for the Governor's Budget Address), and he says it smelled. People are living in there, the human body is what it is.
Here is part of a presentation made at the University of Wisconsin Law School on February 22, 2011 by Donald Downs, a UW political science professor:
Downs is very briefly raising the issue of whether it should be considered viewpoint discrimination for the protesters at the state capitol to be permitted to post signs and sleep overnight when other groups are not going to be given the same treatment.
The case he mentions is Clark v. Community for Creative Nonviolence, in which the Supreme Court upheld a neutral rule that prohibited everyone from sleeping in the park. In that case, protesters argued that they had a right to special treatment, because they were sleeping as a form of expression, to say something about the plight of the homeless.
In the current Wisconsin situation, the protesters are being allowed to do many, many things that ordinarily no one does. It's hard to imagine how the state could operate in the future if other groups were given equal treatment and permitted to stay overnight for days on end, to post thousands of signs all over the historic marble walls and pillars, to prop and post signs on the monuments, to bang drums and use a bullhorn in the rotunda to give speeches and lead chants all day long for days on end. Tell me then, what will happen when the next protester comes along and the next and the next? Hasn't the state opened the Capitol as a free speech forum in which viewpoint discrimination will be forbidden under the First Amendment?
But, you might say, the Republicans hold the political majority and the special treatment is going to their opponents. To that I say: So what? If you discriminate in favor of your political opponents, it's still viewpoint discrimination. It's interesting to speculate about why the Republicans are permitting such a giant extra helping of free speech to their opponents. Perhaps it is so they can say, when their friends show up on some later occasion — some Tea Party group? — that they must give them the same access.
But I don't believe they want that. The Capitol has for years and years been a solemn place. For 25 years, I have brought visitors there and walked slowly through the beautiful spaces looking at the different colored and patterned marble on the walls and gazing with awe up into the dome. This is the Capitol Wisconsinites know and treasure. It can't become an all-purpose free-speech forum.
At Christmastime, there is a big tree in the rotunda. The Freedom from Religion Foundation doesn't like that. This week's anti-Scott Walker people are banging on drywall buckets and chanting "This is what democracy looks like." How about a hundred atheists in the rotunda for a week in December banging on buckets and chanting "This is what stupidity looks like"? (Okay, there's a conlaw exam for you. Submit your answers and I'll grade.)
I think the Republicans are simply refraining from confrontation and waiting for the protesters to get tired and leave or — on their own — to upset the ordinary people around the state. Any attempt to sweep them out or pull down their signs might make them look sympathetic or generate an air of martyrdom, and so, I assume, it has seemed to be the wiser path to leave them alone.
UPDATE: At the Capitol today (2/26/11) I talked to the police enough to get some insight into what the legal theory is. I've got a lot of video and photographs to process this evening, so I will put off writing more about this until tomorrow.
UPDATE 2: Prof. Downs emails:
Ann raises points that merit serious First Amendment attention. In my talk last Wednesday, I raised the concern about viewpoint discrimination, but said it was outweighed at that point by public necessity. But the necessity position loses force as time passes, and police are able to adjust to the situation. Regardless of where one stands on this particular issue, it is never a valid or good thing if government grants special First Amendment rights to one group or set of protesters that it would not extend to all other groups. This is bedrock First Amendment principle based on a long history of experience. And police need to maintain a position of absolute neutrality in such matters. And it doesn't matter how peaceful or respectful a group might be behaving, for such otherwise laudatory behavior does not entitle anyone to special treatement under the law. The First Amendment either applies equally to everyone, or it is subject to political barter.
A person at a Tuesday town hall with Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., got up and asked, "Who is going to shoot President Obama?"
The exact wording of the question is not clear because, the Athens Banner-Herald reports, there was a lot of noise at the event.
If you don't know the "exact wording," why do you have some words in quotes? This non-quote has gone viral in the leftosphere, the leftosphere where no one seems to mind all the violent and over-the-top language and imagery at the week-long Wisconsin protests. If you don't have that quote, why are you spewing it out there? Maybe what hasn't changed post-Tucson is you?
Seriously. Why put out a quote that you don't have? You're trying to stir people up and create discord! You are the problem you are talking about? Do you have any self-awareness at all?
The question prompted a "big laugh" from the crowd, in Oglethorpe County, Ga., according to the Banner-Herald. Broun, for his part, did not object to the question. He said in response:
"The thing is, I know there’s a lot of frustration with this president..."
And now, you want to attribute incivility to Broun, but you don't know what he heard. He mentions the president, so presumably, he caught that it was something anti-Obama, but beyond that you are making stuff up.
If the crowd was so big, and it was a planned event, where's the digital video? Don't tell me the crowd was too noisy for anyone to record it AND that the crowd heard it.
Now, as is widely known, it's a serious federal crime to threaten the life of the president, which makes it less likely that the words are as reported in the pseudo-quote. It also makes it less likely that a person of the left was trying to make trouble for Broun (a theory I see some righties are propounding). If it was said, it was said by someone who was both malevolent and stupid. Why would a whole crowd of people give a big laugh when they found themselves in the presence of someone malevolent and stupid?
Althouse later announced that she'd only believe the "shoot Obama" story if she saw a video of the encounter.
Care to quote me? This is about quotes and you can't quote me saying that, because I didn't. Pathetic. I'm announcing that Media Matters is pathetic. And you can quote me.
That's fine, except Broun's staff confirmed the "shoot Obama" question was asked. The Congressman has since sort-of apologized for his non-reaction to the "shoot Obama" question, and the Secret Service was alarmed enough by the question to interview the person who asked it. (The elderly man apologized for the what he said was a joke.)
Still waiting for the video Ann?
Yes, I am. For video or some other good-enough evidence. And you should too. As I've said — nay, announced! — you shouldn't spread viral stories unless and until you at least have your facts straight. When I wrote this post, I'd already seen that Broun’s press secretary, Jessica Morris, reportedly said "Obviously, the question was inappropriate, so Congressman Broun moved on," and I chose not to lengthen my post with the obvious question: What did the person who spoke to her say before she said that?
The quote from Morris doesn't establish that she knew what was said independently from what was just said to her. Whoever elicited that quote from her might have just told her what was purportedly said at the town hall. Imagine a reporter saying, "At the town hall, someone yelled out 'Who is going to shoot President Obama?' Why didn't Congressman Broun denounce that person on the spot?" Her remark would fit that context, and therefore doesn't work as a confirmation of the pseudoquote.
MORE: Now, I'm clicking through to the Washington Post story, which came out after I made this post. And I'm just now paying attention to the business about the Secret Service in the Media Matters piece that links to it. The "ADDED" part above relates only to my reaction to what the spokeswoman said.
A law enforcement source confirmed that the Secret Service interviewed the constituent and determined that he or she was an "elderly person" who now regrets making a bad joke.
"In this case this was poor taste," the source says. "The person realized that."
That WaPo item is updated at 11:50 a.m. to say that "Rep Paul Broun appears to admit he should have condemned his constituent." Broun now repeats the quote, which suggests he heard it that way, and says "I was stunned by the question and chose not to dignify it with a response; therefore, at that moment I moved on to the next person with a question. After the event, my office took action with the appropriate authorities."
So, I'll accept now that the quote was made.
And, Media Matters, what do you say about all the violent images and statements that have been in this last week here in Wisconsin? What do you say about the death threat that was made to me? Where are your condemnations of that? I'm waiting!
Roy Edroso asks some good questions. I have one for him: What would he say if he were looking at 8 minutes of raw footage showing 2 large municipal vehicles cruising around the square blaring horns in apparent support of a big Tea Party rally?
The light, low-key demonstration on February 13th: "It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm Sunday, and our new governor has just dropped a shocking union-busting proposal that our newly Republican legislature is likely to step up and pass. This is the push-back from the unions?"
February 16, when the Madison schools first closed for the protest: "Okay, now, everybody go to the demonstration! The kids won't have school, but you can learn a lot of things outside of school. Some of these things are even taught by the teachers who are not there. For example, it's okay to call in sick when you're not actually sick, but you just have something that you think is really important."
On February 18th, I wonder what's really happening: "Why wouldn't the Republicans embrace a strategy hostile to the public employees? Why wouldn't they drive a wedge between the public employees and all the other citizens in the state?"
A sign at the Tea Party side of yesterday's demonstrations:
Other signs on display in this picture: "Scott Walker for President! Balance the Federal Deficit too! Stick with Walker and we're behind you!" and "PASS THE BILL" and "What DO you do when you're out of other people's..." (presumably: "money").
I can't guarantee that everyone in this picture is on the pro-Scott Walker side. I mean, I've been walking around everywhere, lending my body to the mass of humanity that reads as support from whatever the surrounding signs say. You tell me: Do you think the shaved-headed young man in the sunglasses and North Face jacket is a Tea Partier? If not, why not?
The amended bill still contains controversial limitations to unions' collective bargaining powers, as well as an increase in state employee contributions to pensions and health care....
As the discussion continued, so did the clamor of drums and chants coming from the Capitol rotunda.
"For five seconds, listen to what's going on outside this room," said Rep. Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse. "It's the drumbeat of democracy."
I read that quote to Meade, who went down to the demonstration yesterday (to get his fair share of video). He laughed and said he'd tried to get video of the dancing to the drumming — and did the exaggerated flailing arms and stomping legs of drumbeat dancing, accompanied by the chant "THIS is WHAT deMOCracy LOOKS like." Putting the mock in democracy.
The fact is that the Republicans decisively won the governorship and both houses of the state legislature — probably with next to no votes from the people who came to the demonstration. If you're asking — like Shilling — for the Republican legislators to listen to democracy, they should look at the last election, the people all over the state who voted for them and, presumably, for fiscal responsibility and shared sacrifice.
The people around the state were probably at their jobs yesterday, not able to travel here, into the heart of the state's liberal politics, to do a counter-demonstration and show their numbers (the numbers recorded last October at the polls). Did the demonstrators — many of whom were teachers — try to speak to those people or did they mostly look inward, at each other, pumping up their own resolve?
What are the people around the state supposed to think of them — teachers who have pretty nice jobs and who decided they could go somewhere else for the day instead? What did those teachers teach? I didn't notice any of them trying to speak to the people of the state, trying to win anyone over. In fact, there were chants — simple, repeated words that don't try to explain and persuade — and ugly signs full of name-calling and violence. There were plenty of nice people too and gentle signs, but the nice to ugly ratio was worse than at the Tea Party rallies I've seen, and Democrats aimed such contempt at the Tea Partiers. Why should the Tea Party-type people of the state be impressed by the other side's crowds?
I find Obama's respect for protests funny. He hates the Tea Party, he hates their rallies, he accuses them of being all kinds of things, but the protesters in Egypt, why, they are great, Muslim Brotherhood, secular, they're not interested in violence. Obama loves these people in Egypt all the while he is in violation of a federal judge. This man is so concerned about the law in Egypt, he's got his own health care bill declared unconstitutional, and he acts like the court has never ruled. So all this talk about democracy and the rule of law, give me a break, he's flipping Judge Vinson the bird.
He may claim to love democracy in Egypt. He knows what that group is. He's a community organizer. He knows exactly what that group is. That's why he's such a big supporter of that. He knows that group's just a bunch of agitators. But to sit around and start talking about, "Oh, we love democracy, and whenever we see it bubbling up, we're gonna support it out there." Yeah, except when the judge says your health care bill's unconstitutional, we're gonna ignore that. He loves democracy in action except when it's the Tea Party. Then all of a sudden they become a bunch of tea baggers, as far as he's concerned. Yeah. I'm not kidding. The American Tea Party, they're responsible for shooting people, they're responsible for all the violence. I mean, who's worked this crowd up into a fevered pitch? I don't know that my program's on the air there. And if it were -- he-he-he-he-he-he-he -- they wouldn't like me much.
There's a lot of stuff in there. I'm focused on the question I put in the title. Obviously, I'm also interested in the health care case. He wove that into the discussion — awkwardly... or elegantly?
The Egyptian military, complying with most of the principal demands of the opposition, said Sunday that it had dissolved the country’s parliament, suspended its constitution and called for elections in six months, according to a statement by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces read on state television. It also said it would honor all of Egypt’s international agreements, including the peace treaty with Israel.
The military did not address a third major opposition demand to lift emergency rule. In previous statements, the council had promised to take that step once the security situation improved.
So, at this point, it's pretty much a military coup, making references to an entity called "the opposition," dissolving parliament, and suspending the constitution. I'm just trying to understand what's going on and why we should feel so much confidence about it.
Or is it political theater? Perhaps Obama et al. are only acting as though they have full confidence that the outcome will be democratic and free, because it is a way to state our expectations, make that outcome more likely, and position us to pressure the military government if that doesn't happen.
Have I stumbled into the answer to my original question up there in the post title? If it's "political theater," then a completely different set of gestures with respect to the Tea Party makes perfect sense.
House Republicans suffered an embarrassing setback Tuesday when they fell seven votes short of extending provisions of the Patriot Act, a vote that served as the first small uprising of the party's tea-party bloc.
The bill to reauthorize key parts of the counter-terrorism surveillance law, which expire at the end of the month, required a super-majority to pass under special rules reserved for non-controversial measures....
The vote was the latest signal... that on certain matters House leaders could face a sizable resistance to compromise from within their own ranks, both from the 87 GOP freshmen and from conservative veterans who have been emboldened by the newcomers.
Good! The Republicans don't own the Tea Party movement.
"These same men -- all men, I believe, as per usual with the black civil rights groups -- got all in a multi-week, if not many month, tizzy with their allegation that what obviously was a 'say it don't spray it' situation at a Tea Party rally was a spit attack on a black Member of Congress, but they evidently do not care when persons at an event affiliated with one of the nation's most established liberal groups, Common Cause, publicly say they want Clarence Thomas physically attacked and put into slavery."
Says Amy Ridenour, via Instapundit, who uses the word "hypocrisy." It's something beyond hypocrisy, though, I think.
One of the commenters declares that my "assertion that 'the best test of the truth is its ability to get accepted in the marketplace of ideas' was probably the most offensive part of her argument." When questioned about whether I really said that, he comes back with:
She cited a Justice whose name I haven't retained, as in: "As Justice X says, ..." followed by the verbatim passage I quoted.
She cited a Justice whose name I haven't retained.... Oh, for the love of God, why doesn't every educated person in America know the name of the Supreme Court Justice who said that... or at the very least know that it's embarrassing not to know? As if I'd thrown out some abstruse legalistic peculiarity!
And that was part of an argument by the commenter — echoing Bob Wright — that free speech is too dangerous because it might be false and it might inspire bad people to act out in terrible ways.
Remember when lefties were all about free speech? When did that change? Why did that change? Perhaps the answer is: Free speech was only ever a means to an end. When they got their free speech, made their arguments, and failed to win over the American people, and when in fact the speech from their opponents seemed too successful, they switched to the repression of speech, because the end was never freedom.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia will speak on Monday on the separation of powers at an event organized by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and her Tea Party Caucus.
Organized by... but every member of Congress has received an invitation to attend.
The lecture is going on despite the objections of some observers. The New York Times editorial board called for Scalia to cancel his commitment.
“By meeting behind closed doors, as is planned, and by presiding over a seminar, implying give and take, the justice would give the impression that he was joining the throng — confirming his new moniker as the ‘Justice from the Tea Party,’” the board wrote in December.
The Times said it would oppose a similar event featuring a liberal Supreme Court justice and targeted at Democratic members of Congress. “The ideological nature of the group and the seminar would eclipse the justice’s independence and leave him looking rash and biased.”
Wouldn't it be ironic if that editorial left the NYT looking rash and biased? Some liberal members of Congress will attend the session. If anything fishy goes on, they'll let us know. I presume Justice Scalia will give the lecture he always gives about the proper role of courts in our constitutional system. I look forward to hearing about the supposedly outrageous statements that turn out to be entirely mundane within the set of things Scalia has been saying for decades.
What it all boils down to is: Liberals don't like it that Scalia is on the Supreme Court. They've never liked it. And the NYT is especially dedicated to making people think that his being on the Court is something untoward, some abuse of power. I'm sure there are some NYT readers who are titillated by that sensationalism, but I find it embarrassing.
The theme of the event was "An American Conversation Continued"... When Tucson Tea Party founder Trent Humphries rose to suggest that any conversation about gun control should be put off until after the funerals for all the victims, witnesses say Fuller became agitated. Two told KGUN9 News that finally, Fuller took a picture of Humphries, and said, "You're dead."...
The event wrapped up a short time later. Deputies then escorted Fuller from the room. As he was being led off, Fuller shouted loudly to the room at large. Several witnesses said that what they thought they heard him shout was, "You're all whores!"
Fuller, age 63, is a political operative who specializes in gathering petitions for ballot initiatives. Before the program began, he passed out business cards to people sitting around him that read:
"Signatures "Expediting Initiatives since 2006 "J. Eric Fuller "Political Circulator."
Fuller has been charged with one count of threats and intimidation.
