POLITICS - Silencing Dissent

The silencing of any dissent by the government, at all levels, is growing and few are saying anything about loosing this basic Constitutional freedom.

The article "Politicians are stifling dissent, critics say" by Steven Thomma, Knight Ridder Newspapers, has examples of our plight.

Here are some of the examples:

1. The ejection of two women from the U.S. Capitol for wearing message T-shirts during President Bush's State of the Union speech this week was the latest incident in a growing trend of stifling dissent in politics. Capitol Police later apologized for ejecting the women from the House of Representatives gallery - after one of them, the wife of a congressman, complained bitterly, as did her husband. The police acknowledged that they'd acted over zealously.



2. In Denver last year, three people were thrown out of a Bush town-hall meeting on Social Security after they arrived in a car sporting a bumper sticker that proclaimed: "No more blood for oil" and wore T-shirts under their other clothes that said "Stop the Lies. Evicting people who oppose the president, even if they don't say a word, was a carryover from Bush's 2004 presidential campaign.



3. In 2004, protesters at both national party conventions were herded into areas far away from delegates, officials and the news media. At the Democratic National Convention in Boston, protesters were kept in enclosed areas surrounded by fences topped with razor wire and watched by armed police.

These are just examples, there are more.

Local, State, and Federal officials are acting as if they don't believe in the Constitution or Freedom of Speech. They act as if dissent is a crime.

We have to teach and reiterate to all Law Enforcement Officials (local, state, federal) that in the USA dissent is not a crime and stop treating people as if they don't have a right to publicly dissent. Especially in "public" speeches given by government officials, "public" includes dissenters.

If we loose the right to protest or dissent protected by the Constitution it will be because we gave it away.