I think I'll start a new category here, or a new tag -- it'll be called "WTF." I've already done one post with that title. And it's sure to be a recurring theme in the Land of the (cough cough) Free.
This past Tuesday, September 17th, was, in case you missed it, Constitution Day. I was lucky enough to be sitting at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) hearing a local and national treasure, David Simon, speaking. More on that in the coming days when I post video.
But across the country, at Modesto Junior College in California, other people weren't so lucky. Not just because they weren't listening to David Simon speak, but because one of their own was prevented from passing out free copies of the Constitution to his fellow students.
Free copies. Of the Constitution. On Constitution Day.
No, you can't make this shit up. (In fact, that should probably be the name of the new category, given that this country is full of shit you can't make up.)
And why, may you ask, was the student prevented from passing out free copies of the Constitution?
Why, because said student, Robert Van Tuinen, wasn't standing in the designated "Free Speech Zone."
That's right, my fellow Americans, in case you've been living under a rock, so-called "Free Speech Zones" have become the norm in this country ever since George W. Bush was elected and didn't want any of the great unwashed, e.g. peace activists, to come anywhere near him. Since then, it's been continued by the Obama administration and legions of authoritarians of every stripe.
Never mind that a pesky thing called, ya know, the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech and prohibits the government from infringing on it -- in other words, we have this right by nature, it is ours, it isn't bestowed on us by the good graces of our overlords -- never mind that pesky fact. You, peon, are obviously not worthy of this inalienable right, say our overlords; therefore, fuck you.
Anyone who can even invoke a "Free Speech Zone" with a straight face deserves to have a tomato thrown in his face. (Oops -- is that condoning violence? My, my, perhaps I should expect a visit from one of our DHS lackeys one of these days. Then again, I did throw a pie in the face of somebody 35 years ago -- I think the statute of limitations has run out on that one.)
Hello?? The entire country is a free speech zone. That's what it is. And if Modesto Junior College -- and the thousands of other colleges around the country that have similar odious, moronic regulations -- don't understand that, then maybe it's time for not just one student but hundreds of thousands of students to rise up and take back their schools -- the vast majority of them publicly funded, I might add -- and teach the administrators a lesson.
Watch this video of the punk police officer -- and later an administrator -- trying to intimidate Van Tuinen, while he records the encounters:
I would love to see students all over the country handing out copies of the U.S. Constitution on campuses left and right. And no, not in designated "Free Speech Zones."
By the way, this brings up a related issue: the notion of "hate speech" and the regulations thereof. Will do a full post on that another time. For now, suffice to say it's an idiotic concept. The way to fight speech you don't like, people, is with more speech, not less.
