Topic awaiting preservation: WHAT?!! (Page 1 of 1)

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast/03/04/iraq.usa.shirt.reut/index.html

I'm speechless, I'm dumbfounded, I just don't know how to react to this.

Wow, I was at that mall around that time, watching a movie. Weird. Jerks.

Well...techincally he should have done what the guards asked...they are the security representatives of the Centre owners...and it is the owners property...whether or not they were authorised by those owners to throw out anyone advocating peace is another matter...and they were most definatley not right to charge him with a criminal offense for expressing his opinion in a non-violent, non disruptive manner. It's just a T-Shirt for God's sake! Don't like it? Don't look at it!

times like this you really hope that they're not serious, yet fear that they are.



strange strange world we live in.

That's insane!!!

WTF???

Has the US gotten that bad? Man, I remember talking to my Mom on the Telephone the other day, discussing the Iraq/Bush thing, and she warned me not to say anything bad, because they might be listening...I thought she was joking...

That article gives me pause to think...it's getting as bad as the McCarthy days...and to those who don't know what they were like, Google it.


WebShaman

That is sick, and annoying, freedom of speech is a vital part of this country. and I agree with Skaarjj, when he said, "don't like it, don't look at it!" I mean jeeze, why would they sell somthing you can't wear. I hope the security guards are fired, or somthing.. bah that disgusts me. -.-

-Ruleith

I'm going to the moon, I cant stand it here anymore.

All of a sudden, anyone in the US advocation peace is somehow anti-american.

truly a frightening, saddening, disgusting environment.

Because I don't want to blindly run in and kill foreigners I'm unpatriotic???

~shakes head~

Perhaps if the shirt were tasteless or featured an offending way of saying what it said (eg "Give Peace a Chance, God Dammit."), I could understand him getting merely involved with the guards. But it didn't. And they didn't just confront him, they arrested him. In front of his son, no less, what a lesson to teach a new generation of Americans.

And that he could get up to a year? My... oh... my...

njuice42 Cell # 551
icq 957255

Corporations are scared to death of controversy. This was about Macy's thinking they had a protest on their hands and I would be willing to bet they would have done the same thing had he been wearing a "Nuke Baghdad" shirt.

I just saw this guy and his son on the O'Reilly Factor this evening. The son said the guards told them that Macy's had made the complaint about them. And O'Reilly was on their side on this one

. . : slicePuzzle

*janis flashback*

~ freedom is just another word for nothin' left to lose ~

i just wonder ... if it was a woman wearing it ?

FTW

free the whales

Um, I still don't get it. How can they do something like this?

This is indeed a rather frightening trend...

Although it appears that people in the US treat them as such malls aren't public spaces they are owned and they can do what they want (as they said its like someone coming into your house being asked to leave and them refusing). I'm afraid this is only the start (and possibly as it is so newsworthy it is only the tip of an iceberg) unless people put a stop to it.

[See also:
www.ozoneasylum.com/Forum17/HTML/000739.html ]

I think it is a beautiful irony that he was arrested for wearing a T shirt he bought there - this is OK for you to buy but you aren't actually allowed to wear it in here (Consume Here, Express Yourself Elsewhere).

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,80413,00.html

The mall wants to drop all charges in the matter. I think they are horrified that this got national... international coverage. Hee hee.

If you think freedom of speech is in trouble in malls, it's far worse on university campuses and even worse in America's workplaces of large companies. I wish enough people would get outraged with this and put a stop to it.

found this comical......

quote:

---

....about a hundred demonstrators marched through the mall to protest Downs' arrest and told a mall manager they wouldn't stop until charges were dropped.

---

Good for the demonstrators. The best way to fight this foolishness and to make sure it got on the news.

WS: You need to chill out a bit there buddy. Because a couple security guards at a mall freaked out doesn't mean that things in the U.S. have declined to a point of McCarthyism again.

Ease up there Hoss.

:::krets.net:::

This article http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,80292,00.html makes it look a little more like they were being disruptive to other customers.

Funny how much less alarming these stories are with fewer details left out.

He wasn't arrested for the t-shirt he was wearing, he was arrested for refusal to leave private property. The reason he was asked to leave was the t-shirt but whether you agree or disagree with their decision, the guards had the right to ask him to leave.

IMHO he deserves the arrest; he refused to leave private premises when asked to do so. He broke the law. I also think the guards deserve to be suspended or fired if it is decided their actions were unreasonable.

:::krets.net:::

In case no one was aware, mall security is a bunch of twits. They're worse than any other sort of hired security.

In high school, my friends and I would randomly be told to quiet down while having a low-level conversation in a noisy food court. They pick fights because they're dissatisfied with their careers and there's nothing else to do.

I'd bet you anything the guards' dissatisfaction with the T-shirt was entirely personal and they knew they had the power to make him leave.

And, incidentally, Fox News isn't the place I'd go for the "real story."

quote:

---

In case no one was aware, mall security is a bunch of twits. They're worse than any other sort of hired security.

In high school, my friends and I would randomly be told to quiet down while having a low-level conversation in a noisy food court. They pick fights because they're dissatisfied with their careers and there's nothing else to do.

---

Michael, did you do the mall security gig at one point?

:::krets.net:::

Wes, what are you talking about? Fox News is fair, balanced, and unafraid. They report the story and let you decide! What more could you possibly ask for in a news source?

But seriously, can you name a news organization that doesn't have a bias? It's nice to have at least one that doesn't lean in the same direction as the rest.

Yep, sorry guys, but Matt's right on this one....to an extent.

The man did break the law, in the same way a protestor is breaking the law during a sit-in. Security is a hired agent of the proprietor, and by that fact has every right to ask you to leave and get compliance. It's Amerika, you don't have the inalienable right to shop.

HOWEVER...(as I have a bit of a personal perspective here) Wes is right as well: Mall security are usually power-tripping egomaniacs that couldn't pass the entry exams for polics training.

They were assholes. And just because you wear a sign and carry cuffs doesn't mean you can become an asshole.

Luckily I was an asshole far before I ever started carrying cuffs.

~cough~