Really, I think McCain's acceptance speech was the wrong place to stage a protest. The nation wants and needs to hear what he has to say. So the protester with the anti-war signs bothered me. But the parrots shouting "USA!! USA!! USA!!" bothered me more. Is the message that protesters are somehow not for the USA? Are you only for the USA if you fall in line with McCain? I'd have been happier with the response if they'd boo'ed him out of the building. They may have looked like ********, but at least they wouldn't have looked like a bunch of mindless followers who respond to a challenge by just waving the flag around.
Were the guys in the black shirts war protesters or POW protesters? I couldn't tell what their shirts said.
They chanted USA when there were protestors. They chanted USA at the rally in Ohio introducing Palin. They chanted USA whenever anything patriotic was said at the convention... You'd think it was an Olympic hockey match.
the protesters have little in the way of a following and so they disrupt others from hearing what they choose to listen to in order to be able to bring attention to themselves. the protesters should have stayed in the streets. as for the USA chants, I find them tedious. They say nothing and sound like a big pep rally, which is what these conventions have become anyway. Did anybody besides me find both conventions reminiscent of the big show put on for the party faithful in Nuremberg? Not the content, of course, which was vapid as opposed to evil, but in style?
I saw less of the Pub convention than I did olympic gymnastics (although both did feature pre-pubescent little girls), so I don't know what happened. Anybody care to fill me in? Thanks.
If you were organizing the Republican convention (and trying to do a good job ) would you tell conventioneers to: - drown protesters' messages with chants of "USA! USA!", - drown protesters' messages with chants of something else (what?), - let protesters get their message heard on national TV? I choose the USA chant. It's not perfect, but what is better?
Two things here... 1) Freedom of speech isn't the freedom to say whatever you want wherever you want. It's the freedom to say things without consequence from the government. 2) If the protestors have free speech don't the thousands of other people there have the freedom to shout over them should they choose? It's a two way street.
