George Bush's lackies never cease to amaze me. The same whack-o-doodles who scream about taxpayers' rights now are telling us that the White House has the right to kick out peaceful dissenters from a opublic event where the President is speaking at taxpayer expense. Listen to this:
White House officials can exclude dissenters from taxpayer-funded appearances by President Bush without violating the protesters' rights, according to lawyers for volunteers who helped eject three people from a hall where Bush was to speak.
This comes in a response to Leslie Weise and Alex Young, who have filed a lawsuit alleging violations of their rights. And why is this ok to do? Because, of course, the United States of America is nothing more than a corporation.
Attorneys for Michael Casper and Jay Bob Klinkerman said the government has the same rights as a private corporation when its officials speak.
"The president may constitutionally make viewpoint-based exclusionary determinations in conveying his own message," the attorneys said in a filing last week. "So in following the instructions of the White House and carrying out its viewpoint-based exclusions, Casper and Klinkerman did not violate any of plaintiffs' constitutional rights."
Hey bozos, a private corporation is NOT an employee of US taxpayers. A private corporation does NOT take a oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. A private corporation or its official are not lent a Seal of Trust under the United States (such as the Seal of the President) when a CEO speaks. AND, a private corporation has to pay for its own damn space. When they speak at a publicly funded event, they don't get to choose their freaking audience.
Now, I am no lawyer, but it seems to me that you don't need a law degree to understand the common sense idea that when the President of the United States, on the public payroll, speaks at a podium and a place provided at public expense and under the protection of security provided to him with taxpayer funding, he is speaking as an employee of We The People, and all of us have the right to be in the audience. It is our right as taxpayers, as citizens, and as his goddamned employers! When the President is speaking at public expense, dissent is not simply to be tolerated, but it is to be celebrated as the highest form of patriotism.
Listen you boneheaded idiots: the government does NOT have the same rights as a private corporations to control their audiences when its officials speak. Because in America, WE are the government. Every single solitary power the government has is on loan from every single American.
It is just stunning where the Bush supporters have come. Sigh.