freedom of assembly

[wesw]

you know what really burns my ass?

....a flame about yay high (wes holds his hand out at about waist level)

[Scooter]

Do you hear that, wes?

That's the sound of chickens coming home to roost.

A candidate can preach violence against those who refuse to support him for only so long without expecting blowback.

Live by the goon squad, die by the goon squad.

[BoSoxGal]

The one true church of Freedom of Assembly:






yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Do you hear that, wes?

That's the sound of chickens coming home to roost.

A candidate can preach violence against those who refuse to support him for only so long without expecting blowback.

Live by the goon squad, die by the goon squad.

After the incident in Ohio, Trump bellowed some tough guy braggadocio saying "I was ready for him, but it's better to let the cops handle it."...

"I was ready for him" my ass...

If you look at the clip, you will see an expression of absolute terror flash across his piggy face...

The big bad bully boy looked like a terrified little school girl....

ETA:

I really do not get the supposed "Trump charisma"...

I find every single aspect of the man absolutely repugnant and repellent...

The silly mugging, the hate filled scowls, the sound of his voice, his ignorant sounding accent and manner of speech, the faux swagger of his walk; the guy is just one big ball of repulsiveness...

And this is before you even get to the vulgarisms, his nonsense spouting, his hate mongering, his egomania, his violence inciting, his audacious lies, his low brow junior high school humor ....

The whole toxic brew that spews non-stop from his maw...

Just the sight or sound of him makes me feel like taking a long hot shower...I can just imagine how unclean I would feel if I were actually in the scumbag's physical presence...



I should put his picture on the refrigerator; he's a real natural appetite suppressant...

It really speaks to the utter desperate hunger of some people for "something new" that they could find anything about this amoral self absorbed clown appealing...

[wesw]

jim and Bernie, sittin' in a tree

moveon.org and Hillary

first comes anarchy then revolution

then he joins in the final solution.

the kill us all cause we are bad

big brother rules and jim is glad

scooter cheers and is happy

poor little baby in his dirty nappy

shut us down, put boots on throats

hatred rising floats their boats

so we stand and we are afraid

but live free or die is what we say


it s a political revolution, but you seem determined to make it a violent revolution

well, you will reap what you have sown and god help us all.

so jim, join the anarchy if you will, but you had better fortify your ivory tower if you choose to thwart democracy

the people may or may not elect trump .

either way, your party is destroyed.

it s gone.

bye bye

[Lord Jim]

Ralph Waldo Emerson you ain't wes....

And BTW, I have nothing but compassion for the Trumpanzees....

I want them all to get the therapy and medication they desperately need...

[Bicycle Bill]

Ralph Waldo Emerson you ain't wes....

And BTW, I have nothing but compassion for the Trumpanzees....

I want them all to get the therapy and medication they desperately need...

And they won't get it if Drumpf is elected.  All they'll get is more and stronger servings of the "Fool-Ade"™.



-"BB"-

[Econoline]

Just for the sake of comparison THIS is how a real President handles protesters in Chicago.



Gee look at that.

No name calling, no violence, no police being called to clear the building.

[BoSoxGal]

[dales]

I AM PAYING FOR THIS MICROPHONE!

[RayThom]

Just for the sake of comparison. THIS is how a real President handles protesters in Chicago.
No name calling, no violence, no police being called to clear the building.

BORING!!!
Obama is such a wimp. I like the Trump/UFC method of settling protests.

[Burning Petard]

The Raygun clip confirms my conclusion that the Republican debates are not broadcast as a public service to inform the voter. The rules about time limits and speaking out of turn or all shouting at once could be easily controlled, by just selectively shutting off the mics. They don't. It is just pandering entertainment, copied from the Jerry Springer Show.

snailgate

[Lord Jim]

A couple of thoughts on this rally brawl business:

First of all, obviously Trump is deliberately inciting it with his rhetoric, and being the toxic, cynical fellow that he is he sees it as a plus for him, for reasons I'll go into in a moment.

That having been said, there's been a recent shift in this that has been going on that also deserves criticism.

Initially the protestors at Trump rallies were local people, either single individuals or small groups. They came to say their piece, and then they were escorted out.

Now something very different has begun. Apparently there is now a co-ordinated effort among a number of leftwing groups, (including moveon.org) to prevent Trump from speaking at all and to "shut down" his campaign events.

This is not right either, and moreover it's poor tactics...

Nobody would be happier than I would to see Donald Trump STFU. I think I've made pretty clear what I think of this gentleman and the poisonous game he is playing...

But the rights to free speech and peaceable assembly are a two-way street, and they apply just as much for the odious Mr. Trump and the Trumpanzees as they do for the protestors. He has a First Amendment right to spew his swill, and his devotees have a right to assemble and listen to it. Deliberately attempting to prevent these rights from being exercised, is every bit as "Un-American" as many of the things Trump advocates.

So ethically, this certainly doesn't give the protestors the high ground, but also as I said from a tactical standpoint, it just plays right into the hands of the guy they say they want to stop.

Trump uses protestors at his events as stage props in his Traveling Road Show to be able to do his faux tough guy routine, and fire up his supporters. If protestors weren't showing up at his events, he'd probably hire actors to play protestors so he he could continue to have this skit in his act.

Taking it to a larger scale and more confrontational level only helps him to do this more effectively. It also plays into his narrative of how he's the besieged victim, and (probably worst of all) it increases his media coverage (I've noticed a lot more live coverage of his events as the cable news networks are waiting to cover anticipated outbreaks of violence) which helps him even further dominate the news cycles...

In attempting to silence Trump, all they are doing is turning up the volume on his megaphone...

I'm sure he's laughing his ass off...

[wesw]

well, thanks for that , jim. perhaps there is hope for America.

....now if you would only announce that you renounce a military coup.....

[Lord Jim]

Well wes, I'm the kinda guy who believes in not taking options off the table...

[Big RR]

I agree with Jim, the only thing I hate more than hearing an idiot like Trump speak is seeing an idiot like Trump being prevented from speaking. It's tactics like this that pushed me out of the antiwar movement. That being said, if he opens it up to questions, he shouldn't be able to silence those he doesn't like with a "go back to Univision".

[Sue U]

But the rights to free speech and peaceable assembly are a two-way street, and they apply just as much for the odious Mr. Trump and the Trumpanzees as they do for the protestors. He has a First Amendment right to spew his swill, and his devotees have a right to assemble and listen to it. Deliberately attempting to prevent these rights from being exercised, is every bit as "Un-American" as many of the things Trump advocates.

This is where you have the wrong end of the stick, Jim. Having a First Amendment right to free speech and peaceable assembly means only that the government cannot constitutionally suppress speech/assembly because of the message. The First Amendment says nothing about a private individual's non-governmental actions. And in fact, if Trump's speech were taking place in a public forum, the government could not constitutionally suppress the speech and assembly rights of protestors who show up to shout him down. Do you have a problem with demonstrators who show up at neo-Nazi/Klan rallies to heckle and mock the white supremacists? How about the motorcyclists who interpose themselves between the Westboro Baptist Church demonstrators and their targets, revving their engines to drown them out?

Whether the Trump protests are wise or effective is a different matter entirely, and I agree with you that they probably help him more than hurt him, particularly in energizing his base and keeping his name at the top of the news cycle.

[Big RR]

Sue--you are clearly correct, people can do what they want and the actions are generally protected. However, I do have a problem with anyone trying to prevent a point of view (generally any point of view) from being heard. Mocking is fine IMHO, as is heckling (and laughing, etc.), but shouting down a person is not except in very exceptional circumstances (like drowning out hateful speech from the hearing of attendees at a funeral or putting a IPOD on someone crossing the gauntlet into an abortion clinic). Now this is only my opinion and not the law, but it does bother me when this is done.

[Econoline]

(from xkcd, of course)

Oh, and Trump wasn't "shouted down" at the UIC Pavillion last Friday; he cancelled the event without ever even taking the stage. (And that was his decision, not the decision of the Chicago Police, the U.of Illinois campus police, or the Secret Service.) See the video I posted earlier of Obama handling a heckler--also in Chicago, BTW--to see how a real mensch deals with criticism.

[Big RR]

But Trump is not a real mensch, or even an artificial mensch; he's a thin skinned idiot who'd rather pretend that he's being treated differently than everyone else. But I agree with Jim that some of the protester tactics just play right into his hands (as small as they are ).