The Shrub Strikes Again?

[Elfenwolf]

You have to go back much further than the 50s or 60s to see where we made that wrong turn into a liberal path and screwed things up. My great great great grandfather claimed we screwed everything up in his time, the 1860s, when we freed the slaves. He hated Liberals.

His son claims we screwed things up in the 1870s-1890s when we quit slaughtering the Native Americans and put them on reservations. He hated liberals.

My great grandfather claims we screwed everything up when we gave women the right to vote and abolished child labor and sweat shops. He hated liberals.

His son, my grandfather, claims we screwed everything up when we gave African Americans the right to use the same drinking fountains and the same Universities us whites do. He hated liberals.

My father blamed this whole sorry-ass state of affairs our great nation has come to on the anti Viet Nam protesters and non- European (read White) immigration... He also hates liberals.

Me? I'm liberal. I'm proud to feel an affinity for my fellow liberal/activists who have accomplished so very much for social equality and basic human rights in America. Thank God liberal thinkers were able to convince America women deserved the right to vote. Thank God liberals managed to convince Congress children belonged in school- even the children of immigrants- rather than working 12 hour days in a sweat shop. Thank God liberals fought for the abolishment of the "poll tax" that had denied the vote to African Americans. Thank God for every labor union for their efforts in slowing the erosion of our middle class.
And thank God for the liberals who showed us the fallacy of Viet Nam.

It's easy to be a conservative. All you have to do is maintain the status quo, never change anything unless you want to change it back to the way it used to be, and declare all social progress  finally completed.

It's much tougher to be a liberal. It requires you to present revolutionary ideas that oftentimes are at odds with the powers that be. You will be personally attacked and your ideas will be ridiculed as preposterous. Case in point? Governor Moonbeam. Do you know how Jerry Brown got that nickname? Because he commented that we would be able to to put satellites into orbit that could beam audio and video signals from point A to point B.
See what I mean?

[Tumor]

Elf
  If your going to start protesting the war on terrorism... please, please... refer to my posted poster  And no, it's not so easy to be conservative.  I don't like some of the things liberals try to shove down my throat, mostly in the form of the Democratic Party.  To save a good bashing by the militant left, I'll leave you to guess what those things may be, however... I guess my point is the hard liners.  I prefer not to stomach or approve of some of the petty garbage the liberal left throw at me. There's plenty of things I don't like about the conservative right (Generally Republican) too, just not nearly as much.  Therefore, I choose and reserve the right to lean right, not left.  ...but please, liberals  and Democrats didn't build this country alone.

Abraham Lincoln was a REPUBLICAN!!

(OH THE HUMANITY!! gasp, horror!!)  

[Leslie]

Back to the original topic Sandman posted.  Did the students have a first amendment right to protest at the graduation commencement ceremony?

What comes to mind for me is they didn't, due to the invitational nature of the ceremony, i.e. invitations were sent out by the graduates for guests to attend, making it an assembly of like-minded people...which is protected by the constitution.

Regarding freedom of speech, this is not mentioned in the first amendment...freedom of the press is specifically mentioned.  And also the press has responsibilities and is accountable for what it prints.  If you don't like or agree with the editorials, you can write a letter to the editor.  You sign your name to it and take responsibility for what you write.  In this way, you're excercising your freedom of speech through freedom of the press.

Protesting, picketing and demonstrating are legal devices, providing all the proper request forms are filled out and permits obtained.  This is to help insure there is adequate fire and police protection on the scene.  I'm sure this has to do with city codes, etc...

Taking all this into consideration, I don't equate these students' rights with what they were planning on doing at the ceremony, and, in my opinion, the university should be applauded for standing up for the constitutional rights of the assemblage by removing potential troublemakers.  

Les