...To Petition The Government...
by Vince?Daliessio
...for the redress of grievances". I caught a press conference on CNN of these folks;
http://blackteasociety.org/index.php
and they appeared to be nice, well-scrubbed college students (not aging hippie agitators). Their biggest issue is the way that the City of Boston is denying their first amendment rights by confining them to a pen far from the DNC. All of the kids in the press conference are Bostonians, and they have a right to walk down a public street and use their rights as protected by the first amendment. They are also going to NYC to do the same thing - to try to petition the government for redress of grievances - where they will be treated similarly. The way these kids are being treated is maddeningly unconstitutional.
Let me just say, I used to take a dim view of anti-war protesters. I still think a lot of those protesting the Vietnam War were doing it for other than?deeply-held American?principles. But they made?things ?uncomfortable for those in power, and had a positive effect on a controversial war policy. But now the same generation that came of age during that period?seems hell-bent on enforcing prior restraint?on exactly this sort of speech, and I have to tell you, that makes me a whole lot more uncomfortable than anything the old hippies ever did.
Comments
Did you see the Peggy Noonan piece in the WSJ today? The part about Barick Obama's masterful speech making Jesse Jackson look like he was sucking on a lemon was priceless.
Let me elaborate on my last statement. I will not argue that there are not opportunists out there that capitalize on mob mentality to push their own agenda. Jesse Jackson, perhaps?
I think a lot of the people that garnered attention in the "Peace Movement" (then as now) were not about peace, but rather self-aggrandizement and advancement in a power structure that was much more compact vertically (e.g., easier to climb) than the corporate, government or academic one (people like Abbie Hoffman, Timothy Leary, and Ira Einhorn come to mind).
Yep. And as a bunch of ofey white dudes in wigs once said "Congress shall make no law..." What part of that formulation is so hard to grasp?
I've been hearing a lot about this "Free Speech Zone" thingy. It's terrible. Anyway, as far as hippies go, looking out for your own ass is about as American as you can get. Whether or not they had a deep-seated resentment of serving the state aparatus is irrelevant. The most important thing to the Framers was INDIVIDUAL liberty. As a matter of fact, there really is no other kind of liberty. The individual is the ultimate sovereign. "Sovereign state" is a misnomer.
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