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• Buzlno

  SNICKER  SNICKER

  Follow the rules, folks. You overstepped them.We got your message(s?) long ago and understand them. Mostly agree, too. But….

• Anonymous

  Awwwwww.

• Anonymous

  Na Na Na Na, Hey, Hey, Hey, Good bye!

• Anonymous

  So dose that mean if ten of my friends an me go into the park i half to get a permit ??

• Anonymous

  No sleeping in parks, and clean up your messes. Parks are for walking, playing, tossing a frisbee. Picket on bridges. March in front of those you believe are going down with the CEO’s keeping their bonuses. After all the captian should go down with the ship. Peaceful marching can be effective.

• Anonymous

  Gee – that’s the first time I ever heard anyone say that the First Amendment had some “buts” or “excepts” in it.  I guess that Judge Torresen  likes to judicially amend the Amendment.  Would that we all could  just add some little riders to the Constitution whenever we like if something in there irritates us. 

  So when Assistant Attorney General Stern says that the current rules are “established practices” that override First Amendment rights and that there is no case law to support anything else, he must also mean that the the Amendment looks good on paper but, in fact, doesn’t mean anything when it’s closing time in Augusta.  Actually, that’s not a bad idea.  Maybe it IS time to close a few other things in Augusta.

• Anonymous

  It appears as though you may have slept through part of civics class. Claiming “free speech” doesn’t give you carte blanche to do whatever you want. You can’t drive a sound truck through the streets in the middle of the night while announcing your views. That crosses the boundary of speech and conduct. Nor can you pitch a tent in a park that has a rule against camping. That, too, crosses the boundary between speech and conduct. Nor can you claim “free speech” to justify threatening to kill somebody.

• Anonymous

  Never realized how afraid people are of tents and camping since Occupy WS began. Why isn’t camping part of free speech? Maine has 19 million acres but a little 1/4 acre spot is too big for the first amendment ….. Cowards all.

• Anonymous

  Only if you want to stay overnight or host an event or organized protest that will affect other normal uses of the park. But if you and a bunch of friends want to go there and toss a frisbee around or just hang out and enjoy the scenery for a few hours, no permit required.

  Besides, does ANYONE really believe that a bunch of people sleeping in tent cities all over the country is going to have any impact whatsoever on how big banks or multinational CEO’s do business? If you don’t like something about a specific company, then don’t buy their products and don’t do any business with them, and if you don’t want banks and corporations to get bailed out with taxpayers money, then start voting for politicians who believe in limited government instead of pols who think they are in Washington to fix everything and protect us from ourselves. Sleeping in a park isn’t going to accomplish anything except to alienate millions of working Americans who might otherwise agree with you.

• Anonymous

  You folks keep say things like how others are afraid of you like that gives you some sort of power over them. People aren’t afraid of you. I have heard more ridicule than fear. The point is that the Park isn’t yours on a permanent basis. Its just not.
  You want to effect something join the political process. Presenting demands like the children did to the Portland city council last night also will not work. You need to join the process, Not dictate the outcome.

• http://pulse.yahoo.com/_66ZAIIT2G52RMJ2WGCIFREBVZ4 Joe

  Feel free to camp 60 miles out the Golden Road.  You can beat your drums all you want out there.  It’s nice to see that I can bring my children to the park and play again without the threat of these despots!

• Anonymous

  So long losers!!

• Anonymous

  They need to be camped out at the post office. Then they could send letters to our “public servants” and let them know exactly how we feel about lop sided trade agreements that have destroyed our middle class and American small businesses. Does anyone else find it ironic that they are camped out in tents purchased from WalMart and made in China while pointing the finger of blame everywhere but where it actually belongs?

• Anonymous

  send him over to Quimby’s land.

• http://twitter.com/NorthernRants Bill Buck

  Love the picture. Somehow he doesn’t look like the disabled, retired senior citizen that all the posters on here insist the ocCUpiers are.

• Kevin Grant

  Why don’t these people taking pictures back up a little and show what these “concerned citizens” have done to the park.  They need to get packed up, move out and be held accountable for the damages to the park.  End of story.

• Anonymous

  I found this on the WLBZ website. It is not on the BDN website. It appears that an OCCUPY protestor burnt down their own tent in Augusta in order to get sympathy.

  http://www.wlbz2.com/news/article/181687/315/Arrest-made-in-Occupy-arson-case-in-Augusta

• Anonymous

  Have you seen the mess they made of that park? Mud and hay all over the encampment and the sod is all ruined. They should be made to pay for the damages. Oh, and BYE BYE OCCUPY!

• Anonymous

  If the permit is only required when the group wants to express its opinions, and not when it wants to “play frisbee”, and the groups are the same size, then the requirement for the permit is specifically aimed at “speech” and should be held unconstitutional.  Just because the case law doesn’t support my opinion doesn’t mean that the judiciary has interpreted the constitution as the authors and ratifiers intended.  When the 1% rule they rule everything.

  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

  Seem pretty clear to me on the issue of “peaceful assembly”.  Yup, these folks infringe on others’ use of the park.  Its unfortunate, but seems reasonable that a park across from the seat of government should give priority to the people’s right to “peaceably assemble”

• Anonymous

  Talk about throwing crap at the wall hoping something sticks! lol.

• Anonymous

  Our country has become degenerate, transferring its people’s money to the rich, who then invest it in China.  The only group that dares to directly confront the corruption and malaise head on, OWS, gets nitpicked and attacked, not only by the authority structure of the Empire, but by angry, misinformed citizens as well.

  This is a sure sign we are as sick as an alcoholic in denial; but instead of alcohol our drug is ignorance.

• Anonymous

  Um…ok Sherlock..the right to free speech is not an absolute. If it impinges upon others liberty, safety or property. Over and over again the courts have ruled that there are indeed limits to speech.

• http://twitter.com/NorthernRants Bill Buck

  BDN had the story, but buried it.   They also never came clean that it was a sympathy attempt.  Just called it arson.

• Anonymous

  No, but you have to go back to elementary school to learn how to read and write.

• Anonymous

  Mine was aimed at the BDN and their politics.

• Anonymous

  hi sprucy. you are still full of crap.

• Anonymous

  One of the guys in the office says on the news it was reported that way because of a confession.

• Anonymous

  Mine was aimed at the OWS movement and their constant beating of the wrong drum.

• Anonymous

  I’m in the mood to speak up today, so I am going to use your post to say more … Thanks for the opportunity.

  America was the greatest country in the world after World War II.  But in less than sixty years we have lost our power and China is ascendant.  What happened?  Greed.  In any children’s book, you learn that greed is bad.  It makes people selfish and competitive, and turns citizen against citizen. A child knows this, learns this.

  In 1960, America was doing great, and the wealth was spread evenly.  Today, America is sick and angry and full of in-fighting.  There is still a lot of money.  We have the highest GDP in the world; but the wealth is no longer spread evenly.  The rich have almost all of the pie, and the rest of us have nothing.  The battle to get more and more money resulted in winners, the 1%, and losers, the rest of us.

  This is discussed lucidly and with scholarly detail in the book, Winner Take All Politics.

  America is the shortest lived Empire in the entire history of human civilization.  Our supremacy lasted about sixty years.  Greed ripped us apart, made us hate each other, and it gave the rich a lot of extra money to manipulate the masses and prevent education.

  I fear we are going to have to hit rock bottom, like an alcoholic, before we begin to heal and admit our addiction to ignorance and money. The same sort of thing happened to Spain after it got so much gold from the “New World.” The influx of wealth ripped the virtue of the society apart, creating a few winners and lots of poor.

• Anonymous

  Keep talking you are making my point.

• Anonymous

  Funny my daughter read it an she knew what i was saying you better go back to school

• Anonymous

  I have one thing to say:  TOLD YOU SO!!

• Anonymous

  It isn’t free speech because YOU don’t get to decide what the Constitution says or means, the USSC does. If individuals got to define the document any way they chose, and act in accord with that belief with impunity, the Constitution would stand for nothing except the complete absence of law. 

  Grow up and join the real world Hugger.  It aint a video game.

• Anonymous

  (Thanks again–I’m not talking to you, by the way, just posting to the public. Feel free to keep insulting me. I have a little time to fill right now).

  400 billionaires currently own as much wealth as the bottom 50% of Americans.  That’s 400 people having as much as 150,000,000 people.  Are those 400 people so much smarter and harder-working than half of America?

• Anonymous

  Keep puffing  that pipe Mike.  No need to let reality disabuse you of your delusions of self importance and rectitude.  What could 200 years of reported, consistent opinions of the highest court of land possibly have to offer in contrast to your insightful conclusion that the law is “pretty clear”. 

  Consider that perhaps, just perhaps, that more than 200 years of published legal precedent and jurisprudence exceed the complexity and scope of slogans that can be crayoned onto a piece of dirty cardboard.

• Anonymous

  You don’t like me Sprucy? I think you are a nice guy but full of bad facts. The way you want to have the country run is like a socialist country. That doesn’t work either.  

• Anonymous

  What is the diffrence of 10 people expressing there opionion an 10 people going to the park. 10 people is 10 people no matter how you look at it 

• Anonymous

  Can we also give these losers an invoice for all the sod that will have to be purchased to repair the grass that they killed?!

• Anonymous

  Wasn’t it free market capitalism that allowed loony moonbats like George Soros and Roxanne Quimby to become rich and subsequently donate tons of money to liberal causes?  If you espouse to a more socialistic system then we will become nothing more than a country like Greece dominated by black markets and tax-evading rich people who would tend to move their money offshore or hide it as cash.  Good luck with all that.

• Anonymous

  What kind of loser says to ten of their friends: “Hey guys, want to go to the park today”?  I’m just imagining having said that to any of my friends from age 14 to present (32), and it’s basically unthinkable.  Outside of being a child and going to a playground, or having some type of 5-minute walkthrough or the very occasional BBQ,  or party event which might only last a few hours, there is no reason to go to a park.  The Occupiers were obviously waaayy over the line.

• crystal_clear

  Glad they can’t hang out where the homeless are not allowed to put a tent and get out of the elements!

• gaily

  Those bottom 50% pay “nothing”.  We the Middle Class pay for everything they get.  If you’re a Mother with kids and no husband, you get your nice apartment (and I’ve seen them) free, welfare checks, food stamps, free health care, dental etc.  You don’t even have to mow your lawn or be responsible for snow removal.  And yes, they don’t work BUT get a “income” tax check every year.  As for the rich, there again, Washington gave Middle Class tax money to bail out these rich entities!  We owe 15 Trillion dollars and still spending!  Get rid of the Czars and their unaccountability to anyone except the President.  Get rid of the LOOPHOLES that is legal for the rich to use and hide money.  The rich are taxed the highest of all of us and this is a brainwash thing that is being used.  It’s creating class warefare. 
  We should ALL have to contribute in some way.  We could put thousands of people to work tomorrow.  There ARE shovel ready jobs but this Administration wants people that are dependent on the Government! 
  And there is another class warfare going on here – One class of people have to get permits to wave the American Flag on the street and a fire permit?  Everyone has to get a fire permit.  And, if you make a mess, clean up your own mess.  Don’t leave it for the poor working person to do it for you.

• Anonymous

  Should, but instead Tax dollars will be used…

• gaily

  No.
  If you have a tent, a fire, and promoting with signs – Yes!

• Anonymous

  I said that city officials from Maine to Cali have used tents and camping as an excuse to tear down the OWS encampments. OWS Augusta or anywhere else has not asked to occupy the parks on a “permanent basis” ….. People in Haiti and other disaster areas like NOLA camp in tents for years with no problem …. Thus it really can”t be the camping per se but what the movement says about this country ….. No one is dictating anything since the criticism all along has been that OWS has no demands …. You can’t have it both ways… You’re afraid that OWS reveals that when it comes down to it force is the only option you have … Other than addressing the issues but that would actually require some level of thinking.

• Anonymous

  The USSC makes lots of mistakes and often gets it wrong … Hope they have to rule on this one soon….

• Vincent Bryant

  I read somewhere the OWS movement was initiated by Canadians – is this true? Just wondering – I am not keeping up with it all that much, as I have other matters to attend to.

• Anonymous

  The “USSC” makes lots of mistakes and often gets it wrong? I guess a mistake is something YOU disagree with? those “mistakes” are still the law of the land whether you like it or not.  give some thought to the possibility that an opinion contrary to your own just might mean that YOU are “getting it wrong”.  Or does your uninformed hubris exclude that possibility?

• http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1628932330 Naran Row-Spaulding

  In other words — “Free Speech Does Not Equal Free Rent.”

• Anonymous

  So now if ten people want to get together an go to the park to hang out they are losers now. So the same can be said that if you have 10 friends that came over to your house than they an you are losers. What makes the diffrence if they hang out at a park or at a house  ??

• Anonymous

  The best thing is to have a flat income tax on all income over say 20,000 dollars. Now if you make say 100,000 you get to deduck 30,000 . for every 100,000 the deduckions go up 10,000. Even companys would pay a flat tax. Look at all the people in the goverment  that could be gotten rid of at the state a federal level

• Anonymous

  Even shovel ready jobs that you call them will require a collage education before long

• Anonymous

  Ok if thats the way you feel Why isn’t the government in Augusta an DC held accountable  ??

• Liberal Soup N Crackers

  They should be charged with vandalism.

• Liberal Soup N Crackers

  There is no fear of tents and camping. What a moronic suggestion.

• Liberal Soup N Crackers

  I think you should stay out of parks until you learn to craft a grammatically correct sentence.

• Liberal Soup N Crackers

  Charge them with vandalism.

• Anonymous

  Because if 10 people come over to my house to hang out, they go home at the end of the night.  Not set up camp in my backyard for an indefinite amount of time.

• Anonymous

  The difference between 10 people coming over to my house, and asking 10 of them to go to a park is that one is normal and one is stupid.   “Hey guys, wanna go to tha park? – to do what you ask… oh I don’t know, just hang out, be with each other, enjoy the open space”.  As a typical guy I can’t even imagine asking people that.  Not that this is the point of your question, your point is a weak attempt at implying that the occupiers have the same rights as anyone else who might assemble at the park for whatever reason.  But this argument fails because nobody else stays overnight in tents and lights fires, kills grass, sets up storage, and prevents others from enjoying the park.  This is what makes the occupiers relatively obnoxious, wrong, irrelevant, inept, and completely out of place.

• Anonymous

  I bet they also don’t take dumps in your living room, welcome wayward teen runaways or transients in, or smoke bongs behind the sofa.

• Anonymous

  Sweet words to this Sixties protest organizer; couldn’t have said it better. 

• Anonymous

  Sounds like you’re packing for Cuba or Canada?

• Anonymous

  that’s college; but I like a ‘collage’, ie. art school education. 

• Anonymous

  Actually, the media hid the ‘reasonable restraints’ on the exercise of these First Amendment rights that have been upheld by the Supreme court. This judge obviously did her homework and her decision is fully in line with previous court decisions.

• Anonymous

  I missed the part in the Constitution about ‘squatter’s rights’…..why not a military base, DOD owns millions of acres of public land?  Camp Keyes has some Marines waiting for you and your tent. Go for it. 

• Anonymous

  What dose that half with 10 people going to the park  ??

• Anonymous

  Did i say any thing about camping ?? I said if 10 of us want to go to the park an hang out . What part of that don’t you understand  ??

• Anonymous

  ok say some one brings a football of a frisbree along 

• Buzlno

  I tried to deduck my back pond once, but so many kept flying in that I came to the deduction that it wasn’t going to work.   :)

• Anonymous

  Or else you’ll end up sleeping in a park protesting how it’s the governments fault you don’t have what you feel you’re entitled to instead of realizing it’s due to your own lack of education or desire to be a productive member of the human race.  LOL

• Anonymous

  well that happens ( smiles )

• Anonymous

  LOL, yes, we should tie up SCOTUS  with this case.

• Anonymous

  The idea that China is ascendant is pure hogwash. Obviously we came out of WW2 as the dominant power because the rest of the planet’s industrial nations were either destroyed or bankrupt. Having no real capitalist competition made it easy for the United States to dominate industrial production and sales. As globalization and competition from others became more common in the 1970′s and 1980′s our position was bound to diminish. The financial crisis here is not only here Spruce, it is a world wide fact that is negatively affecting all nations and is in no way singular to our investment community. I will now address China. The concept that they are the replacement for the United States that rises as we “fall” is absurd. They have HUGE demographic issues due to the one child policy that will make the nation very unstable in the immediate future. They have a closed political system that is corrupt FAR beyond what you rail against here. The Chinese have environmental pollution what would literally kill you and a peasant population in the hundreds of millions. I do not doubt that China is an economic competitor and a military rival, but as a dominant superpower with the ability to project long lasting values or strength it is extremely doubtful that they have the ability given their problems. Would I take our problems over theirs..yes in a heartbeat.
  Stop beating the China drum, unless of course something about their system appeals to you.

• Anonymous

  Gaily, generally I’m pretty radical, but I  agree with much that you say here. 

  I question some minor points like your use of TEA Party “math” but I’m not going to be petty about that, it’s very common, now. 
  Rather I just mention it, because if not accurate it could ruin your otherwise very credible point of view and so might tend to cast you as something you might not be.  

  But what I really what know is; n

  “ If you’re a Mother with kids and no husband…” 

  What are the family values, ” Christian ” ???… may-be, … but surely we all can agree on the word “right” as in: 

  What are the right things for the richest Nation on earth to do, not only relative to its children’s well being,
  but for Nation’s best interest, as well ? 

  What are the options, especially if she and her kids can’t camp out in the park ?

• http://twitter.com/NorthernRants Bill Buck

  BDN has an agenda and all the posting in the world will not change it.  Why else does this ‘movement’ that you can measure the amount of people on one hand end up as the lead story for weeks.

• Anonymous

  “You folks keep saying things like how others are afraid of you like that gives you some sort of power over them. People aren’t afraid of you. I have heard more ridicule than fear”

  Who’s moving the cheese, here ?
  Don’t you  act like we should, if not be very afraid of, at least respect your groundless authoritarian pronouncements, generalizations and insults,
  Cheescakes ?    

  If you could just explain why, I might even agree with you about how come 
  people should should treat you differently than you treat others.

• Anonymous

  The difference is one group  comes, enjoys then leaves. The other comes …. Oh, and tents.

• Anonymous

  Sorry, but no one is going to believe you on this one.  And they shouldn’t:

  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/24/pentagon-china-closer-matching-modern-militaries/?page=all

  Time to stop buying “Made in China” stuff at Wal-Mart. 

  To Readers: please read the article for yourself, don’t take mine or countryguy’s word for it.

• Anonymous

  Luckily  you do not get  to decide what is reasonable. Nor do these protesters get to decide the use they intend for the park is of more important  than that of others.  You have  spoken  the truth of this matter. You, and  the  protesters think yourselves brighter, more important, more enlightened than the rest of us, your views superior. This is rarely, if ever the case . Accepting that they are not always  the smartest kids in the class will be the their first step to their recovery.

• Anonymous

  The police  and civic officials understand, even if you do not, Crackers, that for many, the point of political direct action is to get arrested. 
  It makes  a statement. 

  To explain it to you, as best as I can, sir, if the worse thing you can think to do does not matter to someone, you loose. 
  If it costs you money to jail them, because often, as part of their political statement some activists will not make bail, you loose twice.
   
  Then the weakness of the State  (generally speaking , given we are talking  revolutionary theory, here) …. so the (POLICE , in many cases , may-be ???) State is shown to be ineffectual.

  Ineffectual , both relative to finding real solutions to the root issues 
  AND at the same time unable to  suppress citizens into obedience. 
  It is exactly what the Boston Tea Party was about, isn’t it ? 

  At the end of the day, as we are seeing, here, is just as with the real Boston Tea Party. 
  It results in a  few people changing the discussion and motivating many people to demand changes that the government and the whole establishment that it represents is too ineffectual to facilitate.

  So Crackers,  does it surprise you to learn that I agree with you and hope everyone that wants to get arrested finally will be ? 
   
  …. AND that I think that making it about camping out in the park being political expression is as numb as  a pounded thumb, now.

  It is just die hards who have lost sight of the point… conscientiousness raising… 
  who now just are fighting City Hall, which has alredy figured them all out.
   
  Not that is a bad thing for kids, of all ages, to learn how City Hall really works, 
  but , don’t you see that “City Hall”  did good for their best interests, by not just arresting them ?    

  Now, those that need it, for personal reasons, not really so much for the sake of the movement,  need to figure out how to both get arrested and look good doing it.   
  Good luck to them. 

  So Crackers,  YOUR demands are arrest them!
  So helping the naive and/or diehards out ! 
  Cool. 
  That is fine with me and those that want to get arrested, too. 

  I want to know what more reasonable people are demanding, 
  now that they feel  more free to express themselves.

  But thank you, Crackers,  for providing me with the opportunity to express myself, 
  not only to you but all the others who might read this and see things differently as a result. 

  Don’t you think that well may be people on both sides of the issues, too, Crackers ?

• Anonymous

  So put up your own money, hire a real lawyer (one admitted to the USSC), prosecute your civil rights claim, lose ,  appeal to the First Circuit, lose again, appeal to the USSC and convince that Court your case is worthy of their time; again on your own dime.

  That’s what it takes just to get to the point procedurally where the Court can make some of those frequent mistakes you so glibly reference.  Me thinks you’d rather stick to your video games than actually put your money and time into acting on your slogans.

• Anonymous

  No it said if they want to protest in the park they would need a permit. I mention nothing about camping in the park did i ??

• Anonymous

  Okay, that’s cool. 

• Anonymous

  send him over to Quimby’s land. ????? 

  Are you too la TEA da to do your own political work ? 
  Why doesn’t  that make you just like  a welfare drama queen ?   

• Anonymous

  sorry this is the land of free rides unless you are stupid enough to work to support yourselves or the people you love then your just evil

• Anonymous

  if only but then there comrades would think they were being responsible and that would get them kicked out of the do nothing and complain about it club 

• Anonymous

  thanks for the dissertation but wouldn’t  it have been easier to just say that what you all really want is to get your 15 min of fame 

• Anonymous

  thats the biggest mystery about your movement why are you not protesting the crooks in washington thats where the problems start and stop wallstreet is just what happens in between

• Anonymous

  freedom of speech doesn’t give you the right to pitch a tent on the common why is that so hard to understand

• Anonymous

  you said it yourself  if you want to pitch a tent there are 18,999,999 3/4 acres go and have at it

• Anonymous

  Are you projecting your desires ? 
  That just so cunnin’ . 

• Anonymous

  yeah your pathetic excuse 4 a cause  1 that nobody knows what u really want is going to make it to the USSC yeah a little grandiose aint we

• Anonymous

  thats exactly the point its your park to and who knows whats going on in those tents im glad you and many others have their park back

• Anonymous

  Just one among you. 

• Anonymous

  nobody cares if u wanna camp out just do it where you are not impinging on other peoples rights the parks are for everybody not just the .99% please take notice of the decimal point 

• Anonymous

  Ok folks.   The First Amendment was ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court,  except for a few obscenity cases, did practically nothing about free speech until World War I (you remember reading about Eugene Debs who spent a decade in prison for publicly contesting the draft ?).  Therefore, First Amendment law on free speech is effectively a 20th century creation and does not have 200 years of effective precedent.

  So – fast forward to 1968 (a personal least favorite era because of a little conflict in the jungle).   One David O’Brien got arrested for burning his draft card on the steps of a courthouse in Boston.  The Supreme Court upheld his arrest under the excuse that he was a bad boy for setting a fire outside a public building, not for what he was trying to say about the war. And the test that came out of that Court decision is most likely the basis of Judge Torreson’s decision. It is:

  1. Does the regulation serve an important governmental interest ?

  2. Is the government interest served by the regulation unrelated to the suppression of a particular message ?

  3. Is the regulation narrowly tailored to serve the government’s interest ?

  4. Does the regulation leave open ample alternative means for communicating messages ?

  I’ll leave it to readers and posters to apply the test to the regulation(s) used to shut down the Occupiers protest and camp site in Augusta.   As for me, I still support O’Brien. The Supreme Court was wrong.

• Anonymous

  Didn’t take ‘civics’.  Took Social Studies.  Most of your statement is obvious.  What is controversial is the use of a local regulation to stifle free speech when it isn’t completely obvious that that regulation is being applied for other purposes.  And, that in applying it, free (and controversial) speech isn’t being unduly impeded.

• Anonymous

  I have NOTHING to do with the movement

• Anonymous

  Just get your dividend from GE ?  Or your payoff from Corzine’s hedge fund ?  What wrong drum ?  That we’re all being ripped off by the 1% ?  Read the signs written on Paytreot’s “dirty cardboard”.

• Anonymous

  Gee – mine came from Coleman, and was made in and imported from Eau Claire, WI.  L.L.Bean sells some nice ones also.  Should I write them a nasty letter ?  I think they are sent from Freeport.  Just imagine – imported from Maine !

• Liberal Soup N Crackers

  They should be charged with vandalism after they are arrested.

• Anonymous

  Okay. 
  Fine. But they should be arrested for what, then ? I m sorry, but your  biases or on your general principles are not probable cause, yet. 

• Anonymous

  In Syria, someone like you would say it was Americans and Israelis behind the protests there, too. 

• Anonymous

  Actually the laws have changed hundreds of times over the past 230 years because people have contested laws they thought were wrong. In doing so they have changed the laws … The Constitution and law are not static but are always morphing … You’re confused about how the SC works.

• Anonymous

  I do every year …. Many nights on BLM land.

• Anonymous

  As you mention this i want to tell the readers a story.  A good friend of mine was in the Vietnam War.  He lost a lot of friends and relatives who gave everything god gave them to fight for freedom for all of us in a war we never should have been in, much like the wars we are in today.  This past Veteran’s day he was sent a POW baseball cap, given to all veterans to wear at the upcoming Veteran’s day parades.  He actually showed me it this morning all covered in dust.  The reason it was all covered in dust was when you looked inside the cap, it very clearly said..MADE IN VIETNAM….how is that for irony.  Disgusting and only one of , i am sure, many other ways that this country has SOLD OUT to other countries and put money and political power ahead of thier OWN people.

• Anonymous

  The OWS encampment takes up about 5% of that park, the other 95% is open for you to exercise your rights whatever those are …. Your right to frisbee, or have your dog crap on the grass ? Just what is it that you’re being denied? Some vague notion in your warped mind that some people might be on some public space you’ve probably never been and never will. Sometimes the parking space is full or the movie sold out, or they’re out of your favorite dish at a restaurant. Grow up, we’re talking about people’s rights here. What’s your beef with that?

• Anonymous

  That’s funny! lol. I do not give Wall Street a thin dime of my money. Our problems all stem from a total lack of patriotism at the cash register and we are the engineers of our own demise. The top 1%, Wall Street, and big corporate America could not do any of this without a lot of help from us and our lust for cheap Chinese crap. Every time someone walks out of Walmart, Kmart, or Target with another bag of cheap Chinese crap, the top 1% get a little richer, Wall Street makes a little more, another American loses their job, and we go in a little deeper to a COMMUNIST regime. Buy American, pay your taxes, and stay to hell out of WalMart. That is the drum they should be beating.

• Anonymous

  Are you sure that it is not Coleman in name only? Most products these days have the old American brand names on them, but they are not made here. Our brain dead politicians have passed laws that allow them to make their products in China and put them in a package here and call them “proudly made in America”. 

• Anonymous

  The USSC doesn’t “change” or enact law.  They apply the Constitution to measure the validity of the laws that the Congress and Legislatures pass.  Someone is VERY confused about our government and the court in particular and it isn’t the guy with the JD. 

• Anonymous

  Support who ever you want but don’t tell us that a still valid 53 year old decision of the USSC must be “wrong” because YOU disagree with it.  In the real world, people don’t get to pick, choose and interpret the law the way they want.  That is done by the courts.  You and the OWS are bound by those decisions and are subject to punishment if you violate them.

  Law is not a personal choice, its application to all is a legal and  social mandate.  The result of applying your test of personal approval to every law before it is valid is nothing less than anarchy.  Anarchy is an odd goal for a group that wants the government to take from one segment of society and redistribute its property to another, to provide free higher education, and to provide (again free) healthcare and housing as well as to “equalize” the economic condition of an entire nation.
  You see the slogans the OWS throws aroound are not an ideology.  They are much more akin to a child’s Christmas list to Santa and made with as much thought as to how it is to be accomplished.

  ________________________________
  From: Disqus
  To: chspurl@yahoo.com
  Sent: Thursday, December 8, 2011 8:18 PM
  Subject: [bdn] Re: Federal judge tells Occupy Augusta to get a permit, stop camping

  Disqus generic email template

  50srock wrote, in response to paytreot:
  Ok folks.   The First Amendment was ratified in
  1791 as part of the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court,  except for a few obscenity cases, did practically nothing about free speech until World War I (you remember reading about Eugene Debs who
  spent a decade in prison for publicly contesting the draft ?). 
  Therefore, First Amendment law on free speech is effectively a 20th
  century creation and does not have 200 years of effective precedent.

  So – fast forward to 1968 (a personal
  least favorite era because of a little conflict in the jungle).   One
  David O’Brien got arrested for burning his draft card on the steps of
  a courthouse in Boston.  The Supreme Court upheld his arrest under the
  excuse that he was a bad boy for setting a fire outside a public
  building, not for what he was trying to say about the war. And the
  test that came out of that Court decision is most likely the basis of
  Judge Torreson ‘s decision. It is:

  1. Does the regulation serve an
  important governmental interest ?

  2. Is the government interest served by
  the regulation unrelated to the suppression of a particular message ?

  3. Is the regulation narrowly tailored
  to serve the government’s interest ?

  4. Does the regulation leave open ample
  alternative means for communicating messages ?

  I’ll leave it to readers and posters to
  apply the test to the regulation(s) used to shut down the Occupiers
  protest and camp site in Augusta.   As for me, I still support O’Brien. The
  Supreme Court was wrong.

  Link to comment

• Steve Anderson

  We’d be much better off if we were run like a socialist country. The fact that we aren’t is one of the reasons our country is such a mess. 

• Steve Anderson

  The OWS haters are some of the most pathetic cowards I’ve ever seen. 

• Steve Anderson

  Actually, it’s you who keep making Spruce’s point ;)

• Anonymous

  They can declare laws unconstitutional … Thus voiding existing statutes …. Obama care is up this spring and they either say it’s OK or not … If not then that’s a change in the law, it was one day and not the next.

• Anonymous

  One game of packman in 80s so far, but I’ll consider your suggestion….

• Anonymous

  The mixed economy, pretending it is  free market,  does not work. 

  Who said you can not serve two masters ? 

• Anonymous

  So what r your demand to improve public education ? 

• Anonymous

  Then you would see the homeless ? 

• Anonymous

  Ok I understand that you are so much smarter than I but please explain what desire it is that i projected .O so wise one .

• Anonymous

  once again you are so smart you leave us of small intellect utterly perplexed  with what the heck your point is .  

• Liberal Soup N Crackers

  I have demands to remove the Federal Government from the affairs of local education and return full control of local schools to the communities that they serve. This also requires the removal of public employee unions in our local schools and a return of professional respect for educators. Reverse the hideous growth of administrative positions in the schools and restore the curriculum presented to students to ensure our students receive a strong classic education in the natural sciences, mathematics, languages , and civics & history.

• http://pulse.yahoo.com/_X6WTHVP3BMVVSNCI2K7KGYY3DY Ben

  Wall Street own Washington. Ever heard of lobbyists?