<p>So what do you guys all think of the protesters who have been here in NYC this week? Free speech aside, do you feel that their loud and in-your-face presence was really appropriate?</p>
<p>I wasn’t aware of them…what were they protesting?</p>
<p>As a rule, I think that aggressive protesters shoot themselves in the foot. Think of the early civil rights marches. One of the reasons they were so successful is because the protesters put on their Sunday best and marched with dignity.</p>
<p>Driver, they were carrying signs that said that the US (Bush, the military) caused the 9/11 attacks. Some were quiet and held up large signs, but some were totally out of control as they were during the last Republican convention. They were doing this even during specific memorial ceremonies.</p>
<p>Why anyone would want to bring attention to the fact that they are idiots I don’t know. The left likes to point to the fact(?) that a certain percent of the country thinks that we found WMDs in Iraq and claim that they learned this from Fox news. Surprisingly, a third of the country thinks that Bush was behind 9/11. Is this lunacy the product of CBS/NBC/ABC/CNN?</p>
<p>Well, if Bush can go there, not invite any Democratic representatives from NY to join him in his speeches</p>
<p>Bush made it political, so it is…</p>
<p>There is such a thing as respect, but can’t stop them, tacky is on both sides of the political spectrum, isn’t it</p>
<p>Think Ann Coulter and the widows…now that was a class act</p>
<p>CGM, the speeches weren’t the issue and the President wasn’t present at most of the remembrances that were disrupted. I find it remarkable that you could drag politics into your justification of personal viciousness, which is what this was. Actually, I don’t find it surprising and I’m not surprised that the feelings of the families don’t even enter your thought process. The ceremonies were for the families, the survivors and the citizens and had nothing to do with the President. It’s like protesting at soldiers’ funerals, personal viciousness from one human being to another.</p>
<p>I think protests when people are mourning, or in memorial, is wrong, on every level. </p>
<p>There is a time and a place for protests, but not at times like this. </p>
<p>However, being a protester doens’t make one an idiot, FF, just because you don’t like their viewpoint. They are idiots if they show no common sense or decorum…for example, the ultra conservative Fred Phelps is as big an idiot as there is, as he and his Wichita church constantly blather and picket at soldier’s funerals. Not the time…not the place…just like the situation that Zoos is describing.</p>
<p>Inexcusable.</p>
<p>didn’t I say tacky on both sides…I didn’t justify the actions, I tried to explain them</p>
<p>CITIZENS- yes it was not good judgement to protest, but they are citizens too, and how do you know that none of the protesters didn’t lose family members, friends, or were survivors and are angry…you don’t know that no one protesting didn’t loss someone is those towers, on a plane, whose loved one wasn’t a fireman, or a cop who died</p>
<p>I don’t think it did much good to protest at those events, but for you to assume that those who are mad at Bush and his politicising those memorials services didn’t also have loss is arrogant at its core</p>
<p>I think people should be able to mourn, but this is America, and even if we find the timing of the protesters bad, well, it is what it is</p>
<p>The current issue I am deailng with regarding our high school’s yearbook has given me great cause to contemplate the free speech issue lately. </p>
<p>I am finding that though I believe FULLY in the concept of free speech, I also believe strongly in the concept of propriety and knowing how, when, and where to exercise that precious right.</p>
<p>Living in a state which spawns “ministers” who callously protest at funerals of those who have died of AIDS, I have decided that free speech can just DAMN well take a backseat to people’s feelings once in awhile.</p>
<p>What a shameful act by those protesters.</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>CGM I spoke to a bunch of the protesters in various locations in three boroughs and I can tell you that I know, with absolute certainty, that it was an organized arrangement and almost all were from out of town.</p>
<p>By the way, there aren’t “sides” at a memorial service.</p>
<p>
No, I didn’t say being a protestor makes them an idiot; however, believing that Bush was behind 9/11 certainly does. A “viewpoint” is one in which two rationale people can disagree upon. Belief of a Bush-9/11 conspiracy goes way beyond “rational” and into the realm of tinfoil hats.</p>
<p>FF: You said:</p>
<p>“Why anyone would want to bring attention to the fact that they are idiots I don’t know.”</p>
<p>You used the word “idiot”. I just copied and pasted.</p>
<p>Yes, they are idiots, but let me say it a little slower… they are not idiots because they protested, they are idiots for believing in the whacko conspiracy theory that they do. The fact that they are out protesting and drawing attention to themselves and their views is what I find amazing. If I felt that I had been kidnapped by aliens and brought up to the mother ship, I would hope that I would have enough sense to not publicize my lunacy.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The man behind the Mothership Connection: <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:George_Clinton_(resized).jpg[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:George_Clinton_(resized).jpg</a></p>
![http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:George_Clinton_(resized).jpg[/url]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:George_Clinton_%28resized%29.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
<p>A man who famously said: “free your mind and your ass will follow”
[…not to be taken literally (‘ass’ does not always signify ‘Democrat’;))]</p>