Damn Free-Speechers

From The Sunday Times:

Mr. Bush's advisers said they were girding for the most extensive street demonstrations at any political convention since the Democrats nominated Hubert H. Humphrey in Chicago in 1968. But in contrast to that convention, which was severely undermined by televised displays of street rioting, Republicans said they would seek to turn any disruptions to their advantage, by portraying protests by even independent activists as Democratic-sanctioned displays of disrespect for a sitting president.

I think if you change "Democratic-sanctioned" to "democracy-sanctioned" in the bold-faced sentence, you then know everything you need to know about this President.

I've been utilizing my free speech lately. Someone in the lunch room at work walks in yesterday, sees the Swift Boat "he said/she said" on CNN, and says "Shut up guys, you BOTH avoided service, let's move on and stop talking about this." I couldn't let the notion just lie there that Bush and Kerry somehow both avoided military service, so I kept making points until he relented with, "Well, can we agree that it doesn't matter?" Then, last night, I hear a man advocate the indiscriminant killing of Arabs, in Westwood, of all places (which, for those non-Southern Californians, has the highest concentration of Persians in the world outside of Tehran), and then when I reply to this with "Yay, killing! Yay, death! Let's go kill people," he unbelievably tags me as intolerant of HIS views.

The point is, you have to speak up and let the ignorant know they're being ignorant, let the racist know they're being racist, etc. Unless it's in the streets of New York City next week, that is. That would just be disrespect for a sitting President.