Comments on: A Look Back: Free Speech Zones

By: White House Is OK With Citizens Carrying Loaded Weapons Outside Presidential Events | My Blog Channel

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:03:06 +0000

[...] by President Obama. Many have made note that countless people were shoved into cages called “free speech zones,” or arrested at events held by former president George Bush for merely wearing anti-Bush [...]

By: The Mahablog » Weenies With Guns

The Mahablog » Weenies With Guns — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:00:29 +0000

[...] forces of civility already are bowing to the pressure of the mob. We might remember that people wearing anti-Bush T-shirts were not allowed to be within view of Dear Leader, whereas law enforcement can do very little about [...]

By: Swami

Swami — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 22:47:38 +0000

Maybe my memory isn’t as good as I like to think it is, but I can only recollect Bush speaking to military audiences for the last 7 years he was in office. And that’s only because they wouldn’t dare make a whimper of objection to his policies, or his bullshit statements about freedom being on the march.. The best way to find yourself in the stockade would be to openly disrespect your Commander in Chief. Adulation of your Commander in Chief is mandatory in the military.

Oh, and congratulations American taxpayers for your fine Christian service in supporting the farmers and families of Afghani opium growers. The Lord would be proud that even in hard times at home when millions of American families are nearing destitution our government can still hold fast to their Christian spirit and charitable giving by supporting opium growers to the tune of 300 million dollars. It’s only pennies a day…Bless you America.. the Lord loves a cheerful giver!

By: joanr16

joanr16 — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:50:01 +0000

JR– good point.

By: Sam Simple

Sam Simple — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 03:06:27 +0000

I remember going to see Bill Clinton speak in Minneapolis in the mid-1990s. He would wade right into the crowds, some of whom were holding anti-Clinton signs saying “Whitewater this” and “Vince Foster that”. He didn’t care. Obama is the same way. They feel a need to be close to the people.

Not George W. Bush. His public events were tightly controlled – “free speech zones” miles away for protesters. Even friendly crowds were kept at quite a distance. When you saw Bush close to crowds, they were pre-screened and carefully stage-managed, with lots of security close by.

This contrast in how the two political partys interact with the people says it all in how they view the common people and the elites.

By: JR

JR — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 03:01:49 +0000

There’s a crucial difference: the President is the president of the entire country, while congress answers to their local constituents. Therefore there is no out-of-towner faction at national conventions. Disrupting the local meetings and interfering with the right of locals to meet with their own personal representatives in congress is another matter entirely.

By: c u n d gulag

c u n d gulag — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 20:41:27 +0000

Thanks everyone. Because that pop-up is as annoying as coming across Rush when you’re fiddling with your radio at a stop light – and it’s as if everytime you changed stations, Rush came on until you hit a button. AARG!
I’ll try it and hope it works. I’ll probably do it later. Too much to do right now.
Thanks again.

By: maha

maha — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 19:29:58 +0000

I’ve checked the page source code and found no pharmaceutical spam in it. I’ve found such in pages in the past, but not this time. If you keep seeing it, let me know. It’s possible the spam is in the google rss feed. The other feeds don’t seem to be displaying today’s posts yet.

By: moonbat

moonbat — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:58:14 +0000

CU, if you’re running Internet Explorer, I would look at the Add-On Manager, and disable anything that looks suspicious. This is a common hook point for legitimate and malicious code to extend IE’s capabilities. It’s also a performance drag, commonly attached to by third party software with extra unwanted junk. How you get to the Add-On Manager will vary by whatever version of IE you’re using. On mine (IE7), it’s found under Tools/Manage Add-Ons/Enable or Disable Add-Ons.

Firefox has similar idea, but since I’m not presently running it, I can’t tell you how to access it. Good luck.

By: joanr16

joanr16 — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:49:50 +0000

Sounds like Google’s taking the “free speech” thing way too far…. I confess I’m terribly un-technosavvy, and I just use Firefox to view this site. No pop-ups and no spammish weirdness.

Re this post: it’s important to remember that anti-Bush protesters were disruptive on very, very few occasions. Once every several months or so, someone would stand up at a public event, having somehow slipped through the Third Reich-y paranoid screening, and shout at Bush or Cheney or Rummy or Rice… and then would be promptly arrested. Again I stress: this type of behavior during the Bush years was very rare, even though the need for it was far greater than today; after all, Bush’s sins led to torture and death and national shame. Obama’s sins, far as I can tell, stem from his being too wishy-washy, and sometimes from being too much like his horrid predecessor. And we all know that the pathetic, gullible Monster Shouters of today aren’t upset about that.

(Side note: I love their bipolar signage, because it shows how dimly they understand… well, anything. “Obama’s a Nazi!” “Obama’s a socialist!” Apparently they see him as some kind of mutally-exclusive cartoon hybrid, like that CatDog TV character from a few years back.)

Bottom line, I think the town-hall disrupters suffer from an incurable case of Sore Loser Syndrome. Them and their talking-points overlords, Glenn Beck and Rush and so on. They’re not mad about health care reform specifically; they’re mad that they’re no longer in power.