On Wed, 05 Sep 2007 17:27:39 +0000, Cary Kittrell wrote:

http://asheville.indymedia.org/article/107Clowns


-- cary

Hrmm.... I... have issues with this.

<quote>

After the VNNers (Nazis/KKKers) left in their shiny SUVs to go back to
Alabama and all the other states that they were from the clowns and
counter demonstrators began to march out of the area chanting ‘WHOSE
STREETS? OUR STREETS!”

But the cops stopped the clowns and counter protestors. “Hey, do you want
an escort” an African-American police officer on a motorcycle asked. “Yes”
a clown replied. “We are walking to Market Square in the center of town to
celebrate.”

</quote>

It is not _entirely_ clear whether the cops blocked off the streets for
the KKKers, but from context it appears they did not... but *did* do so
for the counter-protesters.

While I do not condone what the KKK or the Nazis do or believe, I have a
problem with the different treatment of the two groups; as I read it, only
the one group had the help from the cops to block the streets and promote
their views.

This, to me, strikes me as favouritism at best, discrimination at worst.
One of the key ideas behind freedom of speech is that even speech we do
not like, do not condone, do not agree with has *exactly equal* right to
be heard.

When the police, as representatives of the state, grant one side the boon
of blocking streets and making it easier for them to move about spreading
their word, they are also, in effect, censoring the other side by not
giving them equal opportunity, equal exposure, for their views.

I don't like the KKK, I don't like the Nazis... but if the state's
representatives are - as I read it - imposing a form of censorship on one
side which they're not imposing equally on all sides, I can't say I much
like that, either.