Wednesday, June 15, 2005

I'm Frightened

When this can happen in our country, the land of the free, I'm a bit scared.

Since when does creating art deserve harrassment by the Secret Service? Perhaps we could take all of it and make a Degenerate Art Show, like Hitler did. Not comparing our fearless leader directly to Nazis, but free speech doesn't really mean free anymore, does it?

Soon, all the amendments but the Second shall disappear. Sucks to be us.


EDIT: Here's a related question. If a piece of art depicts the president with a gun pointed at him, but no overtly stated threat of harm, does it fall under protected speech? Someone I know insists that such art could be construed as an incitement to violence, and thus not protected. Please, let me know what you think. Even if you think that I won't agree.

4 comments:

Melleners said...

Well, I think he's a pussy for bringing his stuff down, but, then again, I've always been a bit of a non-conformist. You can't let the big guys push you around or they'll do it to everyone.

EdWonk said...

The Secret Service scanned MY site back in late October. (I know it was them from my referral log.) So we all are under Big Brother's watchful eye....

If one accepts (as I do) Jefferson's definition of freedom as being "The absence of restrictions imposed by others," then we are indeed losing our freedoms, slowly, over time.

Which is sad. The current administration seems to be little more than a nest of NeoCons. It's gave traditional conservatism a bad name...

Anonymous said...

Holy shit! Thanks, Kate, for posting that, I think. I say, "I think", because, in a way, I wish I didn't know that stuff like this can happen.

melleners, I don't blame the guy one bit for taking his work down in response. Sounds like he's got a wife, maybe a family, a job to keep to pay the bills. I'd do the same thing.

Unless he's prepared to be a fully committed activist, willing to sacrifice A LOT in order to make a political statement, he really wouldn't accomplish much by being charged with a federal crime, and rather, at a minimum, his life would be fucked for a long time.

We write A LOT of anti-Bush stuff at Transcendental Floss, so considered me scared.

carmilevy said...

Us bleeding heart liberals who live north of the border haven't been quite so infected. Yet.

Speech is still free in Canada, far as I can tell. Which is a good thing for me, considering what I do for a living.

Provocative entry. And scary. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.