Don't Ask This Senator a Question (video included) (1 Viewer)

[DadsDream]

From my experience interviewing U.S. senators, let me tell you how it works.

A group of six very large men are standing in a circle outside La. Tech's BioMed building with Louisiana Senator J. Bennett Johnston in the middle.

I come walking up the sidewalk.

When I'm 20 feet away, one big dude turns, holds up his left palm for me to stop. His right hand reaches inside the flap of his jacket, grasping something...ahem...

I hold up my green 4" X 6" Shreveport Times press card.

The big dude takes his hand out of his jacket and approaches me.

"I'm Dadsdream. Would you ask the senator if he'd like to comment to the readers of the Shreveport Times?"

Big dude nods. Another big dude takes his place watching me while he relays my message to the senator's aide.

The senator's aide waits for the senator to finish doing whatever he's doing, then he asks the senator if he'll see me.

The circle opens and a smiliing Louisiana Senator J. Bennett Johnston motions that it's OK.

The orginial big dude comes back and gives me a quick pat down while the other big dude watches.

The two big dudes then escort me to J. Bennett's inner circle.

Now, if I had come up there yelling and screaming, what do you think would have happened to me?

 

[DadsDream]

BTW - The same process I described for J. Bennett Johnston went double for Edwin Edwards. Literally, there were two rings of security, not one.

 

[Jay Foster]

They guy may or may not be a nut but this Senator may be one also. And regardless, a United States Senator should not have his cronies beat up someone for asking a question even if they have an agenda. That is just plain dumb. Sort of like Kerry doing jokes. . . I know what Kerry meant (the President is stupid and got us stuck in Iraq and the written speech apparently confirms that is what he was supposed to say) but that is not what he said and the comment ticked off a lot of people.

 

[Sandman]

>>Look at the video? Look at the guy's own comments. He went there to cause trouble. He deliberately went there to cause a scene. He admits it. Is that conduct okay? I say no.

I disagree. I'm not condoning what the guy did, but why not try to do what you can if you're not breaking the law? I remember going to the Dukakis rally at UNO about a week before the election and these weenies (aka Dorky College Republicans) were doing all these uber-gay frat-style chants. Because of the overflow crowd, they put speakers outside and you could only hear if other obnoxious morons weren't interfering with you. So I walked over to them with my boy "Rock" and we started screaming in the middle of their chants. My 1 "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" > 6 or 7 of them and they retreated. I'm sure they didn't want to tangle with Rock either, but so what? They were there to disrupt things, and that was their right to do so. I summarily shouted them down so I could hear the speech which was my right. They lost, I won. Of course no one took to fistfighting or defending lack of manhood or whatever. But that's when it gets ugly (apparently as it did in this situation as I haven't watched the video nor trolled the wingnut blogs for information or self-congratulations).

Which brings me to another point, one can be pretty into politics and pretty not into spin (no matter who's doing the spinning).

TPS

Yeah, we don't agree on this point. I don't see where anything is gained by going to a campaign stop for the sole purpose of "disrupting" it or getting into a fight.

Heck in college I wore my Bush-Quayle stuff to a Dukakis-Benson rally. The people we were with made no attempt to interrupt the proceedings. We listened and walked away when it was done. We were seriously outnumbered and would have been beaten to death if we had started anything, but it was never out intention to cause any problems from the start. The guys you were dealing with are idiots, too. I am no fan of the "make noise so no one can hear what the 'other side' has to say" strategy.

All of these "tactics" are escalating. You have "true believers" out there that think the ends justify the means. They are hungry for attention, and pretty soon someone is going to get hurt or killed.

 

[TPS]

>>Yeah, we don't agree on this point. I don't see where anything is gained by going to a campaign stop for the sole purpose of "disrupting" it or getting into a fight.

Fair enough. I just feel that as long as you are there to disrupt things, I think that's pretty much your right to do provided it doesn't go to another level. The guys at UNO would have been trounced based on the crowd, but I got tired of hearing other people telling them to shut up while they continued. So I exercised my right of free speech to shout them down.

TPS

 

[Sandman]

>>Yeah, we don't agree on this point. I don't see where anything is gained by going to a campaign stop for the sole purpose of "disrupting" it or getting into a fight.

Fair enough. I just feel that as long as you are there to disrupt things, I think that's pretty much your right to do provided it doesn't go to another level. The guys at UNO would have been trounced based on the crowd, but I got tired of hearing other people telling them to shut up while they continued. So I exercised my right of free speech to shout them down.

TPS

I think you were perfectly right in how you reacted. You went there to hear the speaker, not them shouting frat cheers. The reason why it bothers me so much is that I am of the opinion that once a protestor begins "shouting down" someone, they are telling me that they are no longer interested in debate. That tells me that (1) they aren't smart enough to engage in debate, or (2) they admit they have lost the argument, so "I am just going to scream." In either case, they aren't offering any real input. They are part of the "my team" mentality that will support their party no matter what they say. I think this type of activity should be discouraged.