hey doc? if we keep whipsawing thatoneguy enough maybe we can convert him to the rightside. eh eh eh eh eh

Not bloody likely Mod... I believe in freedom being non-profit. (rimshot)

I'm Kidding...I'll be here all week folks. Try the FISH!

Not bloody likely Mod... I believe in freedom being non-profit. (rimshot)

Mod, now he is mixing religion and Politics!  Uh, OneGuy, Separation of Church and state?  It's in there!

Whatever happened to the good old american counter protest? Ever think of that? IF someone protests and you don't like it...You conterprotest! Not drive your chevy through the other guys.

A) There are counter protests (of the kind you approve).

If burning a flag is protected as free speech, why isn't driving a pickup through some crosses free speech? Isn't it meant to say something political? Didn't it accomplish saying that? (You seem to have gotten the message.) And isn't that a counter protest?

Now, if someone stood up with a bullhorn and yelled, "I believe all them soldiers issa bunch of a-holes and got what they deserved!' we would all find that equally reprehensible, but isn't that his right to say (and your right to disagree with)? Just because something's reprehensible doesn't make it off limits.


That notwithstanding, the driver probably committed some type of moving violation, and was arrested.

By the way, I wonder what the legality of planting two-tenths of a mile of crosses is. Is it public land? Do they have a permit to erect 1000+ feet worth of crosses? If it's private land, do they have permission? Just wondering.

From the story you linked:

The protesters acknowledged the area has been crowded but said they have kept it clean and quiet.

Not if they littered the road with 1000+ feet of crosses they haven't.

I've seen people get their panties in a knot over government workers removing those roadside shrines that pop-up where someone is killed in a car crash, too. Governments regularly have to remove all kinds of cross memorials. While I can sympathize with the intent and feelings of those who erect them, it doesn't mean the "memorials" have any right to be there. (Yes, I'm not equating the trucker running them over with officials removing them. There's no comparison there. That was just a further meditation on the crosses legality regardless of their intent.)

I think the pick-up driver's anger, frustration, and message are as understandable as the protesters'. In many ways this is just one more case of being against the actions of those you don't agree with, and for those you do. I'm just glad he had at least enough presence of mind to only mow down representation of people rather than actual people.

If burning a flag is protected as free speech, why isn't driving a pickup through some crosses free speech? Isn't it meant to say something political? Didn't it accomplish saying that? (You seem to have gotten the message.) And isn't that a counter protest?

Interesting way to look at it, but that's burning your OWN flag. It's not protected "speech" if you go to a vet's house and take his flag down and burn it. Then you're destroying someone else's property.

It gets pretty complicated here, because discussion could turn to who owned the land and whether Cindy and her group had permission to place the crosses there, etc.

Regardless, the pickup truck driver's act of "counter protest" makes me sick, and I consider it to be very disrespectful of our military and particularly of those service members who have given their lives for our country.

thatoneguy:

I don't Tex. I remind myself that there are millions of folks just like you still living there

Thanks. Here's the part where I have to say that while I am, and will always be, a Texan at heart, I haven't lived there in 2 years, and probably won't be back for another 1 and 1/2 + years. Hehe.

But a lot of my family lives there, and they're representin'. Hahaha.

She isn't breaking any laws.

Are you sure?  The "camp" is obstructing traffic.  They are also trespassing (the land they are on is not theirs).  Those crosses would also be considered littering in most states.

Also, did she contact the families of all those people whose names are on those crosses?  Did she have the right to use them in that way?  What if some of those soldiers weren't christian?  Did she have the right to put their names on a cross to use for her own purposes?

You ever been to Crawford Miler? I have! I don't remember seeing any Volvo's or Subaru Outbacks anywhere in that whole county.

Therefore the driver must have been a redneck?  Interesting reasoning...

The bottom line is that this "protest" is done very poorly.  Chances are, the driver of the truck is frustrated because they are making his daily life hell because of what they are doing to traffic.  What gives people the right to obstruct other people's lives?  This isn't a protest- it's more of a publicity stunt.

I think the whole thing is sick.

Interesting way to look at it, but that's burning your OWN flag

Not always.

Yes, she is a grieving mother. I can't imagine the pain that she is suffering through right now. However, she is the one who politicized her grief. She is the one who opened herself to the vultures who are more than willing to take her grief and run with it for their own purposes. She is the one who is using her son's name for a cause she knows he didn't support.

She has every right to protest the war, the president, and anything else she chooses. Her right to politicize her grief doesn't infringe on anyone else's right to speak out against her statements, activities or even herself.

It's kind of disengenuous for her and her new found handlers to use her grief for political purposes, then accuse anyone who opposes her of being "insenstive", "meanspirited" or even rude. It's a very effective ploy, but in the end, it is just a ploy.

As for the crosses, they were put up to make a political statement, a statement from people whose stated belief is that everyone killed in Iraq died for no good reason. This is a tribute?

SPC Casey Sheehan died doing what he believed in, now Cindy Sheehan (his mother) is twisting that into something he would not have backed. This is not a tribute, this is a mockery of his service, his sacrifice and his opinion. Does his feelings about his own service and purposes in participation in the war mean nothing to his mother?

As for destroying the crosses, that was mean spirited and cruel. The crosses may not have meant anything to the person who drove through them, but he knew what they meant to the people who put them up... and destroyed them anyway.

Both sides have to remember that the other side has just as much right to disagree and protest the opinions and actions of the other side. That is the freedom SPC Casey Sheehan believed he was taking part in bringing to the people of Iraq, and that is the very freedom we take for granted here in the U.S.

Well, from what I just heard on the news, the land she put the crosses on belongs to President Bush, and thus is private property. Which put him in a pretty sticky spot, because while he could have easily had them removed, it would have made him look REALLY bad.

According to the news report, the man was a neighbor and was arrested for driving over the crosses.

Sheehan apparently plans to move her display elsewhere.

Tex -

I agree completely with your reply #17 - well said.

As uncomfortable as such vigils may make us, she must deal with her loss in a way that's healing for her. I disagree with her objective, but I feel we should honor her right to protest as she sees fit. Mowing down the crosses was a classless act, though placing them on private property may have been a bit provocative, too.

Cheers,
Daiwa

Damn straight Daiwa. And well said. You get the insightful today!

I can't help but wonder if the neighbor was the idiot with the shotgun? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

Annnnnd the troll goes to Karma.

"Casey" supported the war and Prs. Bush. Where does his mother get off using his name for a cause he didn't agree with?

cindy leaving her family behind, her son pleading for her to come home does not matter, nor does it matter that she is destroying the memory of her fallen son by using his death as a political tool.

pretty bad when her own husband basically disowns what shes doing and files for divorce

Obviously she's lost sight of what really matters the most.

She's making the president look bad, that's a given; she's making the soldiers fighting for us look bad, that too; she's making the death of her son meaningless, definately. But that's not what she's thinking about. She doesn't look at it this way. People who are grieving do it in different ways and she obviously feel she's justified in protesting the way she is regardless of how we all feel.

I will grant that she be being misguided by people around her

This isn't a protest- it's more of a publicity stunt.

She is the one who opened herself to the vultures who are more than willing to take her grief and run with it for their own purposes

SPC Casey Sheehan died doing what he believed in, now Cindy Sheehan (his mother) is twisting that into something he would not have backed

it's obvious to me she's either stupid, crazy or weak. in other words...a woman. if only her husband had the balls or good sense to get her some paxil or something.

it's equally obvious yall sure do make a lot of assumptions about what her dead son woulda wanted her to do...about how his death can be so easily diminished...about she's just some sorta robot who's being manipulated.

her son died in part because the whole country was manipulated by a small group of vultures for whom nothing was more important--not you, not me, not her son, not the war on terror--than invading iraq in 2003.

if you wanna know just how important her son's service and sacrifice is to bush and cheney, ask yourself why they aren't in attendance at any of the funerals for the fallen.

it's equally obvious yall sure do make a lot of assumptions about what her dead son woulda wanted her to do...

One indication of what her son wanted, is that he re-enlisted for six years while in Country and just before his death. He was not just a one time enlistment, but a man wanting to make the Army a career.

He was not just a one time enlistment, but a man wanting to make the Army a career.

and that would automatically mean that he would prefer his mother stifle herself or that he hadda approve what the president was doing? the hallmark of a professional soldier is service without regard to personal opinion is it not? how many career military people would there be if all of them opted out everytime a new administration took office?

Kingbee:
I can't speak for the others, but I make no assumptions whatsoever. Neither do I diminish his death by politicizing it or saying it was for nothing. SPC Casey Sheehan died doing what he believed in, if you can't accept that, well, that is your problem. As for your stupid rhetoric about "Funerals of the Fallen", Prs. Bush has met personally with many families of fallen troops, privately where they could talk openly. He has not made huge media circuses or photo ops out of their funerals with the presence of himself and those who travel with him. That, my friend, is a huge sign of respect... I'm sorry that you are so against Prs. Bush that you can't see that. Your choice though, and like Mrs. Sheehan, you have a right to your dissent.

, my friend, is a huge sign of respect...

so every president going back to the invention of the camera was being disrespectful? thankfully lincoln is so universally despised for dragging his media circus to gettysburg and insisting on openly delivering that hokey speech.

I make no assumptions whatsoever

other than the one about how that poor mindless woman is being manipulated by her handlers into dishonoring the memory of her son.

or your insistence you know what her son wanted based on the fact he reinlisted. since when do professional career soldiers pick and choose their wars?

wb btw

kb -

You're stretching here, especially the Lincoln bit. If Bush made a point of attending such funerals he'd just be accused of crass grandstanding, maybe even by you. Either way, the teeth get sunk in in search of the pound of flesh. There's always an angle for the opposition to work - it's what opponents do, I guess.

Cheers,
Daiwa

If Bush made a point of attending such funerals he'd just be accused of crass grandstanding, maybe even by you

definitely not by me. if a president is gonna order troops into harm's way, the very least he or she can do is honor those who lose their lives with a presidential presence. i don't recall any other president being being slammed for having done so.

it's a very cynical policy and one that should shame this administration.

one more thought: this is exactly the kinda weasel move that infuriates bush opponents because there are some things a president should and shouldn't do as a matter of decency, image be damned.

even the president of the united states sometimes must stand naked.

Thnx for the wb!

True, troops don't pick their wars, and many who are serving in Iraq are not exactly on board with Prs. Bush. However, SPC Casey Sheehan reenlisted in Aug 2003, he knew he would be going to Iraq. On the day he died, he volunteered for a quick reaction force mission into Baghdad. He neither had to reenlist in August, nor did he have to volunteer for a mission that would take him outside his unit motorpool or perimeter.

In an interview, Cindy Sheehan said,"he felt it was his duty to go because he was in the Army. And he felt that he had to go to protect his buddies, to be there for his buddies, to be support, and they are brainwashed into thinking that even if they don't agree with the mission, they're brainwashed into just blindly following it. I begged Casey not to go. I told him I would take him to Canada. I told him I would run over him with a car, anything to get him not to go to that immoral war. And he said, “Mom, I wish I didn't have to, but I have to go.”

This doesn't add up. He reenlisted in Aug 2003, 5 months after the war started. The 1st Cav Division were given their deployment orders on 2 March 2003. 23 July 2003 the 1st Cav was given its rotation date in July 2003. He didn't "have to go", he had every oportunity to NOT reenlist...

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/1cd.htm

In other words, He Knew He Was Going When He Reenlisted!

Then Mrs. Sheehan goes on to say...

CINDY SHEEHAN: We were told that he was going to rescue a group of soldiers that had been ambushed on April 4th in Sadr City, Baghdad. It was when L. Paul Bremer inflamed the Shiite militia into rebellion, first in Fallujah, then it spread to Sadr City, which is a Shiite slum in Baghdad. And so we were told he volunteered to go rescue a group of soldiers that had been ambushed, and on the way there, his convoy was ambushed, and seven soldiers were killed in that ambush.

http://sacramentofordemocracy.org/?q=node/view/3078


Once again we see that he participated in the war above and beyond his MOS (He was a mechanic).

In Mrs. Sheehan's own words, and matching SPC Sheehan's reenlistment with the dates that his unit was put on orders, there is no way SPC Sheehan was unwilling to go to Iraq. He had an easy way to get out of the Army...but he chose to reenlist and he chose to go to Iraq.

As far as the insulting crap about "brainwashing", there are too many troops who did get out when they had the chance, and even more who have made their own thoughts known (both for the war and against it) for the whole "brainwashing" excuse to hold water.



Again Cindy Sheehan has every right to protest this war. She has chosen to make her name and her face an icon of anti war activity (which is also her right). However, she is making statements that simply don't add up, and she is using her son's name for anti war activities that his actions show were not the way he felt.

(((((Sorry for the long post SLC, if you would rather not have this on your blog, I'll move it to my own... afterall, it is your blog and this reply is to Kingbee))))

one more thought: this is exactly the kinda weasel move that infuriates bush opponents because there are some things a president should and shouldn't do as a matter of decency, image be damned. even the president of the united states sometimes must stand naked.

If you are looking for decency and "standing naked"... which is more personal, a public appearance at a funeral, or a personal meeting where the family members and the president can actually have a conversation?

Having been part of many military funerals, a few with political dignitaries, I can tell you, they are very professional and impersonal. A quick "I'm sorry for your loss", or "Thank you for your son/daughter's service" is about all there is time for from any one of them.

Cindy Sheehan has said that she wasn't happy with her meeting with Prs. Bush, but many have given a completely different and much more personal account.

If it was your son or daughter, which would you prefer?