Freedom Isn't Free, Pansies

Today, CNN reported on a man in Phoenix who carried an assault rifle to a town hall meeting protesting President Obama's health plan₁. Can you fucking imagine anyone doing the same thing during a Bush rally? All throughout the Bush administation, people were harassed and arrested for wearing clothing critical to the president_2,3,4. But people at town hall meetings carry weapons₅, shout down reasonable people, and rip up Rosa Parks posters₆ with impunity.

Openly carrying an assault weapon to a public venue is not about gun rights or freedom; it is an implied threat of violence. This is further evidence of the rule that conservatives will NEVER advocate for your right to anything, if they disagree with you. They will work toward a society that is less equitable and less free, and they will gladly do so with your money. They will continue to bully and to lie, and call Obama a socialist.

The things they are mad about - prayer being taken out of school, abortion rights, gay marriage - are things that offend their religious sensibilities but that don't have anything to to do with them. They will always advocate for less rights for those they disagree with. They are driven batshit crazy by the notion that there is room for opposing viewpoints. Meanwhile, soft, pansy liberals like myself are bending over backwards to make certain that their free speech rights aren't abridged, that we don't enter arguments with lies and half-truths, that we are ingenuous, that we don't quote statistics we know to be false just to muddy the water. Good luck getting the same thing out of these wingnuts.

As the blogger Atrios put it, "Nobody could've predicted that electing a black man president would drive this country completely fucking insane."₇

Artman2003 sez: "I just read the whole daylog. Dude. They didn't let them in the building. They weren't in the venue. Trust me. Those guns weren't getting into the actual venue."

Sources:

1. http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/17/obama.protest.rifle/#cnnSTCText

2. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20980625/ 3. http://www.sptimes.com/2002/11/03/TampaBay/7_protesters_arrested.shtml 4. http://www.progressive.org/mag_mc082007 

5. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/lieberman/detail??blogid=70&entry_id=45684

6. http://wonkette.com/410463/wingnut-grabs-black-ladys-rosa-parks-poster-rips-it-up 

7. http://www.eschatonblog.com/2009/08/deep-thought_11.html