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Scott Walker Wants to Charge for 1st Amendment Rights

By: Sarah JonesDec. 2nd, 2011more from Sarah Jones

King Walker Following in Bush's footsteps

 

Oh, Governor Walker. Does your hubris know no end?

The destroyer of Luntz’s Orwellian meme “shared sacrifices” wants to charge protesters for police and clean up of the Capitol. Now, aside from the larger issue of charging for first amendment rights, there are several other layers of crap piled onto this Walkerstan Freedum Policy.

The Journal Sentinel reports:

The policy says:

Groups of four or more people must obtain permits for all activity and displays in state buildings and apply for those permits at least 72 hours in advance. The policy requires permits for 100 or more people outside the Capitol. The policy does provide some leeway for spontaneous gatherings triggered by unforeseen events.

Groups holding demonstrations could be charged for the costs of having extra police on hand for the event. Costs associated with a counter protest could be charged to that second group. The costs would be $50 per hour per Capitol Police officer – costs for police officers from outside agencies would depend on the costs billed to the state. The police could require an advance payment as a requirement for getting a permit and also could require liability insurance or a bond.

Demonstrators may not tape or stick signs to Capitol walls not intended for signs. During the protests hundreds of signs were posted at the Capitol.

Any damage or cleanup after a demonstration could be charged to organizers. During the court fight earlier this year over access to the Capitol, Walker’s administration said the demonstrators had done $7.5 million in damage to the building with the signs and other wear and tear. But almost immediately the administration sharply backpedaled from that claim, conceding the damage was significantly less.

 

First, since Walker himself violated the law by sending police out after state legislators, who would determine just how many police were actually needed for public safety and how many were used for intimidation of said protesters? Call me stingy, but I don’t like to pay for being bullied. It’s just how I roll.

Second, way back when Walker lied about the amount of damage to the Capitol and Fox News got their walking talking points to wheel their mobile carts in poutrage over the nasty union members soiling the perfect Capitol Home of Silencing Dissent, the painters union offered to clean the Capitol up for free, but Walker turned them down. Fiscally conservative he is not. And it begs the question: Why would Walker turn down experts at paint tape removal? Why would he rather pay money for something when it was offered for free?

It appears Walker is simply trying to punish the protesters and inhibit future protests.

Just who would determine the cost, who would be in charge of hiring the clean up crew, and why would anyone trust Walker when he lied about the cost and then, while screaming bloody murder about cutting spending, turned down free labor?  Let me guess. Walker would “privatize” this mission and hand out government contracts to the Koch brothers for clean up of 1st Amendment rights and then charge the protestors for his fiscal failings (it’s not as if he hasn’t done this before).

Nifty trick.

You see the problems with his idea, and we haven’t even gotten to the constitutionality of the thing, but then we seldom do when Walker the college drop out is involved. We are usually stopped along the way by the pure impracticality and the outrage of his suggestions, and that’s before we pause to take in just how dense this latest policy reveals this man to be.

Legal experts of course have problems with his policy, because imagine being charged $50.00 per police officer per hour when Walker had the entire state troopers lining the Capitol to protect him and the Republican legislature from being busted during their closed meetings.

He chose to have those troopers there in order to protect him and his secret agenda, not the public. But anyone who wants to protest their government would have to pay for Walker’s whims.

See, it might make sense if you don’t care about the constitution and our freedoms. Sure, you think, if you want to protest you should pay after all, why should tax payers fund that? But flip that logic around: Only those who can afford to pay whatever a dictator like Walker decides to charge  them are afforded the freedom to protest their government.

It comes down to means testing people who might want to protest the government, one could even suggest it might be a tax of sort on expression. Yes…..now we see one reason why we started our own little form of government in the first place.

From the Bill of Rights, Amendment I:

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.

Do we really have to go re-fight every single fight our founders addressed?  It appears that we do and the reason why is because the Republicans keep running people who literally do not know why these laws are in place. They expect to not only inflict their ignorance upon the rest of us and cause us untold dollars (far exceeding the costs of a protest) to fight them in court until finally someone explains to them that NO, they can not do this, but they also expect us to pay to educate them while they are in office.

Walker is a male Palin; he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, he’s mean and he abuses his power. He thinks he’s entitled to do all of those things just because. And I’ll bet you he still has NO idea why the recall organized by United Wisconsin against him is going so well.
The words of mayor Sarah Palin sum up Scott Walker the best, “I’ll do whatever I want until the courts tell me I can’t.”

It won’t surprise you that a recall was also started against Palin until she figured out that she wasn’t actually Queen of the World and there were these pesky things like rules and laws that even she, as mayor of 5,000, had to obey. Ironically, Republicans call dictators like Walker and Palin “keepers of freedom,” which is sort of clue one that they don’t see America like the founders intended but rather like the royalists did.

King Walker rules his Kindgom as he pleases and the Fox crowd cheers him for it while waving their flags. Seriously, just how unexceptional are these people?

How long will it take Walker to have the same come to Jesus moment as even Sarah Palin finally did?

I fear he may be even more arrogant and emotionally disturbed than Sarah Palin. And that is really saying a lot.

Scott Walker Wants to Charge for 1st Amendment Rights was written by Sarah Jones for PoliticusUSA.
© PoliticusUSA, Dec. 2nd, 2011. All Rights Reserved

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