Concerning the town hall protests.

What the hell has happened to our country. It used to be that we democrats valued dissent and even practiced civil disobedience (ever heard of the Vietnam protest and civil rights protests?) Now we sneer at people who do the exact same thing about an issue that we don't agree with them on. I even read on a post where our senior citizens who are speaking out should give up medicare and social security. For fucks sake, I think the protesters are wrong but they sure have the right do say what they are saying. And you know what, it doesn't matter if they are sent there by right wing organizations. They are still citizens and they have the right to free political speech. And yes this is political speech. Maybe we should put them in free speech zones huh?

I don't agree that we have a right to disrupt meetings to the extent that a meeting cannot take place or poses a risk to people.

:eyes:

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Free speech is denied. When only one side is heard, free speech is denied.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

You'd do well to remember that.

Can't protest in a shopping mall if the mall owner doesn't want you there. It's private property. So is DU.

Answer me this, why is it none of you can spell?

And that's who those useful idiots are being used by... lobbyists. Stupid tools.

abcdefghi jklmnopqrs tuvwxyz
123456789 1111111111 2222222
          0123456789 0123456

 6 = f
21 = u
 3 = c
11 = k

 4 = d
21 = u

:rofl:

pizza time for the freep troll scum

and threatening violence.

we have shut down meetings that were done by conservatives.

I'm very curious now.

I was hoping for an answer. Thanks anyway.

want my answer because it conflicts with your narrow view of the world.

:rofl:

Nice conclusion-jumping there, person who refuses to give a simple answer! :hi:

Tancredo was shut down at UNC by people yelling "NO TO HATE SPEECH". So much for civility at meetings. It's happened before on both sides and will continue. No group has the monopoly on allowing free speech.

Is that simple enough for you?

What happened to those poeple? Did they get arrested / escorted out?

Also, was this a town hall meeting?

I have to go run some errands... I look forward to seeing your responses when I can get back to this thread!

:hi:

is the University of North Carolina. I have a BA in Economics from this fine school. Some were escorted out, but the rest still shut down the discussion. Why would it matter if it were a "town hall" meeting. That's just semantics. This was a public meeting.

Good luck with your errands.

It's not semantics... it has to do with whether that was a forum for citizens to have their voices heard... or a forum for politicians to give speeches and answer questions.

dont want our congress persons taking away my right to protest the next time my dander gets up. I firmly believe that if The pubs rights are taken awy then mine will be next.

These people are not just trying to be heard... they are trying to shout down others.

I would ask why you're ignoring that point, which has been made more than once, but I already know the answer.

have never done anything of the sort? Do you really.

My son was one of the protester at the RNC when McSame was heckled.

:rofl:

You're a barrel of laughs, really!

What's this "The RNC" that you speak of? Do you mean a convention? A meeting? What is it that the RNC does that you think is just like a town hall (which is (taking pity on you here) a PUBLIC MEETING).

Fucking hell... it's really easy to see why the neo-cons can't resist taking advantage of people like you.

Yeah okay there little buddy... you enjoy the rest of your time now, you hear?

Make the most of it!

:hi:

This is an organized effort by the far right to shut down democracy. Isolated incidents of inappropriate behavior on the part of some on the left have nothing to do with us being able to comment on what is happening at these town halls and condemning it.

I would argue that your son protesting outside of the Excel Center is a far cry from going in and stopping the convention. He has the right to express he opinion and to advocate his position. If he had gone into the convention center and prevented business from taking place the analogy would be more appropriate.

Most of us are not saying these folks cannot attend and ask questions. In fact I think they should. But they should also have enough respect to wait for an answer and allow others to speak. We are saying they cannot shout over everyone else and intimidate others to prevent them from speaking. Their rights end where the person's next to them start. I have no trouble whatsoever criticizing their immature and abusive and/or violent outbursts. We do not live in a totalitarian society. We live in a democracy and we need to make sure it stays that way. Health care is a very important and for some a life or death issue. Town halls are set up to get input from constituents not for free-for-alls.

I don't hold back in my life and opinions because someone with similar viewpoints acted in a way that I would criticize. This argument keeps coming up and it's really irrelevant to this discussion. This behavior cannot stand. We need to get back to civilized discourse or our democracy will fall. This is a far cry from demonstrating outside of a convention. In fact, if they were demonstrating outside of the town hall I wouldn't give a crap. But they are demonstrating inside, which is something that the police wouldn't have allowed to even begin to happen in St. Paul.

it is the total shutting down of any debate at all. I don't mind that folks disagree..but they need to let everyone ask questions and be able to hear the answers. All these birf n turfs are doing is shouting no no no and screaming about nazis and socialism. They do not have any questions and will not listen to any answeres.

making it impossible for the representatives to answer questions, and threatening or committing acts of violence is not fine.

the protestors are not allowing anyone else to speak. This includes the people who are running the Town Hall meetings, and who are simply trying to convey information regarding the healthcare reform, and in turn then want people to ask questions. The protesters are shouting over everything and everyone. If you don't let anyone speak, you don't learn anything, nor does anyone else.

If they were only there to participate, that'd be one thing... but they're not. The lobbyists orchestrating these scripted hooligan mobs are instructing them to shout people down, and try to stop any kind of real discussion from happening.

And any thinking person knows why.

We object to their tactics of near violence to stop anyone else from civil discussion.

Will be watching for more posts from you. You seems very concerned.

Got a problem with it, don't post. It's simple.

Gonna be one of those nights around here. FR must have posted that DU has new mods. We should send supplies to the mod hot tub.

at least on DKos there's public tracking of recs/unrecs making trolls visible to all.

their protests are thuggery and intimidation NOT civil disobedience.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

from Rushbo, Hannity, Beck and all the other racist freeper/birthers.

I suggest you stop listening to them, they LIE!

tombstone for you - coming soon.

There was a report that some poor woman was held down while some big black man carved a - now get this- backwards "B" into her delicate skin. Sure, there was a report on that too.

Yeah, right... astroturf is democracy too, right? :eyes:

chimp did! Is anyone stopping them from speaking? No they are preventing others from exercising their right to free speech. There is a difference in free speech and inciting a riot.

Well no, not really, or at best rarely and then only long after the progressive rabble had made an issue, for example civil rights, so compelling and mainstream that is was safe to join in.

Yes of course the teabag SA goon squads have a right to express their political beliefs and to protest at town hall meetings in order to disrupt those meetings and attack the healthcare initiative. However, what we have here is not citizens expressing their individual beliefs, but an organized effort, a well financed and well organized effort to disrupt these meetings, so make no mistake about that. It does indeed matter that they are sent there by the well funded proto-fascist right. It does matter that the proto-fascist right is now into organizing goon squads to disrupt the political gatherings of others. It matters not because of the free speech issue: they have that right, it matters because of what this activity portends. It matters because of the alarming historical precedents.

We should be concerned.

But what if it was the other way around and Moveon was the organizer. Would it be wrong then?

Come on... you can't really be that stupid.

yes.

:hi:

When you compare "The RNC" to town hall meetings, you're not exactly hard to spot.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Still here though. Fucking baffling.

:thumbsup:

Try a better example: code pink. But wait, they don't go and disrupt town hall meetings, they go and disrupt government functions.

Anyhow - once again - the problem here is not free speech, freeper troll assholes have a right to free speech too - the problem is that the right is off organizing goon squads and sending them out on missions. I'm concerned about that. You should be too.

But they wouldn't be. Because Moveon believes in democracy.

I have seen posts saying the president should suspend first amendment rights and that ALL repukes should be locked up.

We are no better than them

"We are no better than them" Really? So you go around shouting down people at town halls? Prevening people from having their voices heard?

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

because they want to shut everybody up. They don't believe in honest disagreement; they believe in shutting things down. They are also threatening those with whom they disagree. That is not honest discussion either.

They are practicing thuggery, plain and simple.

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Makes you wonder... is this just a really stupid DUer? Or... ?

Shutting down the other side's speech isn't free speech, it's thuggery.

:think:

They shouldn't be disrupting townhalls like maniacs, but when people say that they should be arrested, that's a different story. Code Pink did the same thing during Bush, and rightfully so.

But if you listened to the fringe of either side, anybody who makes a point different from them, even on one issue, is a (Nazi / Communist) who wants to "disrupt the Democratic process," and therefore we should silence them because the populace is 'too stupid to make up their minds on their own and must be controlled.'

Hmmmmmm....

:think:

Must be nice that people from my generation went out there and protested to give you abortion rights. And my Grandmother fought to give you the right to vote. I can tell you she wouldnt have wated to take away anyones right to free speech.

I'm pretty sure you are... this is a TACTIC, just like you calling mob tactics "free speech" and comparing it to protests in the 60s'.

Fucking laughable and lame. Good luck with it though...

:rofl:

but I take issue to this mob mentality and their lack of civilized debate on the matter. What they are doing is not political speech, what they are doing is using and encouraging violence because that is the only thing they know how to do, if they came to a town hall and asked civil questions then there would not be an issue.

Their tactics are disgusting.

Take a good look at what's going on. In one week, they have managed to shut down many Town Hall Meetings (a cornerstone of Democracy) using violence and death threats, encouraging those with carry permits to take their guns to the meetings that have not yet been canceled, spreading outrageous lies, calling for the deaths of liberals, depicting Obama as Hitler and Dems as Nazis, and preventing constituents from meeting publicly with their elected representatives.

If it looks like sedition, smells like sedition, walks like sedition, and talks like sedition, then I'd be forced to call it sedition.

The chilling part is that it is being condoned and enabled by one of the two major political parties and bankrolled by their powerful corporate backers, who have no interest in a democratic form of government.

If left unchecked, what we'll end up with is not a Republic, but a Theocratic Oligarchy. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want to live in a country run by rich radical right religious zealots.

BUT THEM.

They are doing their best to drown out - suppress - opposing opinions. What's civil about that?

I grew up when the SDS & Weather Underground were smashing the windows of recruiting offices and pouring blood on the files, bombing ROTC buildings and the Pentagon, throwing Molotov cocktails, they broke Timothy Leary out of prison, robbed banks...

...and they were Heroes of the Left.

Just a few years ago it was:



http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/09/16/antiwar_wideweb__470x328,0.jpg



Most of the protesters I've seen in the town hall videos have gray hair, so they remember all of this, and the further right they lean, the more they're gonna blow up.

Settle down folks, after they've had their tantrums, it's all gonna work out.