[Vision2020] responding to No Weatherman

[No Weatherman]

Bill London defended anonymous free speech that called a local school
"Hitler Youth" but he condemns my anonymous free speech because it's
anonymous, mean-spirited, angry, and offensive.


"Don't bury free speech in Friendship Square"
Town Crier, by Bill London
Wednesday, September 14, 2005 — Page Updated at 12:00:00 AM

On Aug. 17, officials at New Saint Andrews College discovered the
words Hitler Youth written in chalk on the sidewalk in front of their
building in downtown Moscow. NSA officials quickly launched a frenzy
of accusation, claiming the college had been vandalized. Wrong and
ridiculous.

First, the Hitler Youth message was not vandalism. There was no damage
to property. The words were written in chalk. Furthermore, the words
were not even on NSA property. The message was left on the public
sidewalk, actually part of Friendship Square.

Second, the person who wrote Hitler Youth on that sidewalk was
exercising his/her First Amendment right to free speech. The words
Hitler Youth may be mean-spirited, in poor taste, or inappropriate to
NSA, but those words have a political meaning and the person who wrote
those words had a constitutional right to write them, in chalk, on the
public sidewalk.

The U.S. Supreme Court says that nobody can criminalize speech unless
it threatens imminent harm, agreed Elizabeth Brandt, University of
Idaho law professor and American Civil Liberties Union representative.
Burning a cross on someone's lawn does threaten imminent harm. Words
of a broad political meaning, especially written in chalk on public
property, do not.

Third, NSA officials also claimed that the states malicious harassment
laws were violated by those words. Nope. Idaho's malicious harassment
law makes it illegal to try to intimidate or harass anyone on the
basis of race, religion, ancestry, etc. Physical harm to the person,
property damage, or a specific threat are required for this statute to
apply. Also, there must be a reasonable cause to believe that the
threat will occur. As David Duke, assistant police chief in Moscow,
explains: the Hitler Youth message is none of those and thus is not
malicious harassment. The message is legitimate and legal speech.

No laws were broken by the person who wrote Hitler Youth on that
sidewalk, Duke said.

Despite the relevant laws, Christ Church and New Saint Andrews
officials chose to respond to the Hitler Youth message with a
public-relations blast calling those chalked words vandalism. This
response is really just another political move by this group of
spin-meisters. They rushed to the offense, raising the spectre of
vandalism where none occurred, with the goal of limiting dissent and
quieting the response to the impact of NSA downtown.

The men who control Christ Church and New Saint Andrews just dont
understand that Moscow is not a theocracy and that they have not been
anointed as the theocrats in charge of everyones thoughts and actions.
Moscow citizens still have, and can exercise, their rights of free
speech. Those rights are especially important at Friendship Square,
the heart of the community.

Its no accident, after all, that Doug Wilson selected downtown Moscow
as the home for the (as they are described on the Church Web site)
ministries of Christ Church. These ministries, which include Canon
Press, New Saint Andrews College, and the church offices, all are
located in downtown Moscow. As Wilson has made it clear in sermons and
writings for years, his goal is to take Moscow, to refashion this
community to his own beliefs, to dominate the downtown with NSA and
his other church ministries.

Wilson needs to be reminded that his political plan for taking Moscow
is generating a political response that has every right to be heard.
The U.S. Constitution guarantees it.

We need to make sure our freedom of speech is not buried in Friendship
Square beneath Wilson rhetoric.

Perhaps the best statement of Doug Wilson's plan to dominate downtown
Moscow comes from his brother, Evan Wilson, in the documentary film,
My Town.

The film will be shown at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the 1912 Center. No
admission will be charged for this showing, but the sponsors (the
Auntie Establishment and Brother Carl Radio Show) request donations of
canned foods for local food banks.

Please note that I do not support or condone vandalism or malicious
harassment. Both are politically suicidal, ignorant and wrong.
However, equally wrong are efforts to quash legitimate speech.

* Bill London of Moscow is a freelance writer, active in progressive
causes, and works part-time as an information officer for WSU's
College of Education. Town Crier is a weekly series of columns
contributed by 13 local writers. The Town Crier columns run on
Wednesday."
http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2007-January/040307.html


On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 9:54 AM, Bill London <london at moscow.com> wrote:
> No Weatherman:
> Until today, I have not responded to your posts for several reasons:
> 1. you do not have the integrity to sign your opinions
> 2. you stretch and mangle the truth to suit your perspectives
> 3. your tone and message is strident, mean-spirited, angry, and offensive
>
> However, I am going to respond this one time -- just to gloat.
> The joke, you see, is all on you.  The more you sputter and bellow, the
> worse it gets for you.
> The national numbers clearly show this is happening in all parts of this
> country -- Americans are finally awakening to the reality of your kind of
> divisive rhetoric.
> The more the Republican spin-meisters try to compare a single sixty-year old
> professor of education with a horde of bomb-throwing Islamic warriors the
> worse it gets for the Republicans.  More and more voters are turned off by
> what they (correctly) perceive as the  desperation of the Republican
> true-believers.
> One reason is that Americans are getting tired of this empty anger, and
> another reason is that Obama has been masterful at reframing the issue.
>
> So, continue if you wish, I'll be laughing as you dig your hole deeper.
> BL
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "No Weatherman" <no.weatherman at gmail.com>
> To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Sent: Monday, October 13, 2008 1:50 PM
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Election Fraud
>
>
>> Chas:
>>
>> Dave absolutely made an argument and he premised it on the law — "they
>> have to turn in fraudulent ballots, it's the law!"
>>
>> However, his premise neglected to consider that tiny little fact that
>> ACORN broke the law when they committed felonies by knowingly
>> registering dead people to vote with the intent to turn in those
>> fraudulent registrations because according to them the law requires
>> them to.
>>
>> You can't have it both ways.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 10:02 AM, Chasuk <chasuk at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 10:19, No Weatherman <no.weatherman at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> You're arguing that once ACORN commits fraud by registering dead
>>>> voters, they have a legal obligation to submit those fraudulent
>>>> registrations to the state.
>>>
>>> Dave wasn't arguing anything.  He was stating a matter of law, which
>>> you didn't refute, but twisted into an "argument," solely for the
>>> purpose of making an ad hominem accusation.
>>>
>>
>> =======================================================
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>>         mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
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>>
>>
>
>
>