Judge OKs camping ban near Bush ranch

[deadparrot]

CRAWFORD, Texas - Roadside camping and parking bans are constitutional, a federal judge ruled, blocking protesters from pitching tents or placing portable toilets in ditches near President Bush's ranch.

Protesters sought to make a smaller makeshift campsite than what Cindy Sheehan set up a year ago off the winding, two-lane road leading to Bush's ranch, said attorney David Broiles, who sued on behalf of Sheehan and four other anti-war demonstrators.

But less than a week after asking the protesters and McLennan County officials to try to reach a compromise, U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith ruled unexpectedly late Monday that the county ordinances enacted last fall are constitutional.

"I can't speculate about why," Broiles said, adding that his clients may appeal the ruling or continue trying to reach a compromise with the county.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060809/ap_on_re_us/peace_mom

[badgervan]

1. Freedom To Dissent - Not In Texas

Gee - what a surprise! So much for free speech in Texas.

[Porcupine]

2. Coming soon: standing, sitting, walking and breathing bans.

your protest is allowed as long as you are making a single, one-way, pass through the county while not breathing. Should you be caught breathing near Bush's ranch the county sherriff will enforce the ban.

[BrightKnight]

3. translation: The judge is a Repug and does not believe in free speech.

The law was written specifically to prohibit assembly an speech near the president.

Go to a free speech zone and STFU.

[Boondog]

4. I wonder if anyone got sick from the poop houses? Was there any...

"imminent threat of immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check required to save the country" ?

Holmes, US v. Abrams (dissent)... Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition. To allow opposition by speech seems to indicate that you think the speech impotent, as when a man says that he has squared the circle, or that you do not care whole heartedly for the result, or that you doubt either your power or your premises. But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas-that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment. Every year if not every day we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge. While that experiment is part of our system I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country.