Republican Smackdown on Civil Rights Continues

Politics International Politics
1

cnn.com/2004/US/South/08/21/ … index.html

Interesting that a consultant working for a school district has the pull to get a advertising firm to fire a graphic designer for using free speech. So, basically this guy who represents the school district as their agent feels he can use his position to threaten advertising-agency service providers for the political beliefs of their employees. Also, while in his role of representing the school district in business deals with service providers, what is this guy doing giving out political rally tickets?? Sounds like some pathetic Halliburton wannabe – guess we see how the Republican party works at the lower, cheesier levels of patronage.

Also, this in the same article: “Last month, Charleston City Council apologized to two protesters arrested for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts to the president’s July 4 rally. The pair were taken from the event in restraints after revealing T-shirts with Bush’s name crossed out on the front and the words “Love America, Hate Bush” on the back. Trespassing charges were ultimately dismissed.”

Reminds me of the days at the start of the Iraq war when that dad got arrested for wearing in a mall a “peace” themed T-shirt he had actually purchased inside that mall.

The Republicans seem to hate the liberties this country were founded upon. Given that they love the entitlement of inherited wealth and privileges and their hatred of the U.S. constitution, why don’t they pack up and go back to England?

2

The constitution was a great idea, and it worked for a couple hundred years. Note the past tense of the verb in the previous sentence. At this point, it is a joke at best (and I have ancestors who signed the bloody thing). As in Taiwan: If the law is enforced only at the convenience of those in power, the law is not a law.

3

Gee, Mofogangrene, why didn’t you protest the Amtrak conductor who was suspended from his job for complaining about Kerry?

story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s … rry_amtrak

[quote]Train Conductor Suspended for Kerry Quip

Wed Aug 11, 5:50 PM ET

By DAVID A. LIEB, Associated Press Writer

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - An Amtrak conductor has been suspended without pay for telling his train passengers that they should vote against Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

Conductor Leslie Farr was on a Kansas City-to-St. Louis train that was delayed to allow Kerry’s campaign train to leave St. Louis and head to a Jefferson City rally.

Farr tells The Associated Press that he used the public address system to tell passengers they would be delayed because of Kerry’s train and then quipped that they should vote accordingly in November.

“These people’s lives were seriously affected by this, so I tried to defuse the situation,” Farr said.

Amtrak has suspended him without pay, accusing Farr of violating company policies by making “inappropriate and denigrating announcements” to customers that “caused embarrassment to the corporation and the loss of good will of our passengers.”

Farr said he’s very upset about the suspension, although he regrets his remarks. “I feel like I’m being unjustly picked on,” he said.

Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said he could not comment about personnel issues.

Farr, who is not the regular conductor, said he was filling in only because one of the regular conductors was assigned to Kerry’s train. [/quote]

4

My law school had, on balance, a politically very liberal faculty and administration. As it happened, in the summer before my first semester, its graduates had collectively totted up a low pass rate on the bar exam (I’m not at all implying a connection between liberalism and bar exam failure–I’m simply reporting what happened). Consequently, just as we freshmen were entering, the school was put on probation by the ABA (I say ABA, but I think it’s really an accreditation society that I think is affiliated with the ABA). Someone in the administration or on the board of supervisors must have gotten the idea that the low bar-exam pass rate had to do with writing ability. So we entering freshmen had to take a dual diagnostic test to determine whether we needed “remedial writing” (although the school didn’t use that unpleasant term).

The first part of the diagnostic test was a multiple-choice grammar exam. The second part was an essay. The topic of the essay was “What Is Your Opinion of Capital Punishment?” One of my classmates, later a friend, is politically quite conservative and a good, solid writer (I’m not implying a connection between conservatism and good writing, etc.). In his essay, he took the position of favoring capital punishment. He scored high on the (objective) grammar exam, but got a low score on the (subjective) essay. He had to take remedial writing.

I made a perfect score on the grammar exam (I’m not boasting; it was stuff we’d had in junior high), and got a so-so score on the essay. I had taken a fence-straddling position on capital punishment (I said that if they were going to have it, they should make it truly public and televise it–maybe the grader didn’t know what to make of that). Anyway, I escaped remedial writing.

Just thought I’d mosey on over a few feet and take a peek at the experiment’s control group. . . .

5

MPS: Interesting. Most offices have rules that say you can’t shill for any political candidate while on the clock. If you’re finished for the day, you generally can do whatever you want so long as it’s legal. Thus, the conductor probably should have been fired for accosting passengers with his political beliefs – even if Amtrak is a corporation run by the Federal government, there should be some reasonable restrictions on time and place.

The advertising exec in the CNN situation was given the tickets and probably should be allowed to do what he wants if he’s not attending the event with clients, etc., as part of his job. However, it is probably not appropriate for a person representing a public school district in business transactions to give out tickets for political events to companies providing services to the school district, regardless of the party. A person in a position to dole out public contracts to the private sector should also probably not be insisting that his service-providers toe any particular political line.

Nobody should be arrested for wearing a T-shirt that expresses their political or anti-war/pro-war views. That’s pretty creepy, and the police should frankly know better.

6

So in other words, you AGREE with the Aladdin’s decision to throw Linda Ronstadt out on her ass for pissing off half the audience with her political rantings?
lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stori … 01671.html

7

MPS: I would agree with the right of Aladdin to do so – they’re a private company looking to offer up shows that appeal to broad audiences. However, any private venue should be able to make a business decision about what their performers do on stage. Basically, it’s a market-driven thing. Ronstadt is primarily there to sing, and she’s not such a hot act (although that sorta goes with the territory for Vegas shows…) that people will see past the politics just to hear her music.

With famous entertainers, the venue is generally going to be hiring the person, warts and all. There are Republicans who probably would pay to see U2 no matter how many times Bono urges African debt relief and better protection of human rights. On a practical level, most people would find it pretty ridiculous for a venue to toss out George Carlin for what he says on stage – the more outrageous the better.