As a witness to the forcible breakup of the RNC Demonstrations in New York in 2004 (where I had the dubious distinction of being struck by a police baton for the first and only time in my life), I am gratified to see mainstream media representatives like Chris Matthews finally beginning to pay attention to the illegal methods used to render public protest futile for the past six. damn. YEARS.

What I do not understand is why it has taken so long for him and others to start paying attention. Nearly every person at the protests was carrying a camera, and I'd guess about a third of them wound up taking at least one picture of an officer assaulting a helpless civilian. If even a tenth of that third sent copies of their pictures or written accounts of what they witnessed to media organizations (I know I did), then there must have been at least two or three hundred documents arriving at places like CBS and NBC and CNN, showing how unresisting protesters were encircled and attacked by armed and armoured police officers.

Why, then, has this only become a big issue long after it could have had any significant impact on, say, the 2004 Presidential Election? The 2006 Congressional Elections? Did it really take that long for them to sort through the pile? Or did the 1st Amendment just happen to luck out and become the flavor of the week?

The larger point bears some expansion: "Rather than blaming Bush for the overzealous cruelty of the Florida campus cops, he was addressing a subtler and more disturbing problem: the gradual diminishment of constitutional freedoms and, specifically, the freedom to assemble peaceably, to speak and to protest in a political environment dominated by war, terror and 'security.'"

I think we also need to look at a growing disinclination in all parts of our society to listen to people with whom we disagree. I know that I got so angry at the sound of President Bush's voice that I began to turn down the volume whenever I heard him; I worry that my brother or sister on the right does the same when he or she hears Clinton, Edwards, whoever.

We have to start listening to one another again. We don't have to like each other, but we have to live together. Turning the volume down, demonizing the Other: that's where democracy ends. We at least have to grant one another the right to speak.

It's too bad we can no longer blame just the Republicans for an aversion to free speech - how many "democrats" voted in favor of condemning MoveOn's ad? C'mon, what is sacrosanct about "the military", that they can't be criticized? It only depends on which side you're commenting that determines the offensiveness.

I'm kinda hoping the Mexicans reclaim the Southwest, soon.

approved of the tasering, said the man had it coming, or kept conspicuously silent about the affair.

Many of us liberals also took the position that this made news because the man was white, and would not have made the news if the man was white.

Three of the top tier feminist blogs (Feministing, Feministe) and Salon's own Broadsheet made no mention of the tasering at all. After all, why would feminists need to worry about free speech? Or is it because it was a man that was tasered....?

Pam Spaulding at Pandagon used the tasing to bash bloggers that apparently don't blog enough about racial issues:

That said, it's not just the Jena 6. Sitting in the comfort of their bedrooms/offices/kitches (wherever), progressive bloggers got more riled up about a student at the University of Florida getting tased at a Kerry speech than an equal, no worse case up in NYC — a young black man, the son of a police officer, who was tased four times at a community barbecue and beaten with a nightstick 15 times and choked. He wasn't even charged with a crime, btw.

If you visit Salon's Blog Report, you can see how the tasing didn't bubble up to "blogworthy" status.

I'd love to shock Chris Matthews but the gas bag of hydrogen that is his head would explode and kill innocent people. Oh the Huge Manatee!

Second, there's nothing political about it no matter how you precious blogging wimps want to pimp that. It's simple intolerance borne of BEING ABLE TO ZAP SOMEONE. No more no less. You give cops, even the non-asshole cops a taser and they will use it on everyone from a 6 year old to a 96 year old for pretty much any goddamn reason they want. And that pack of jackals you call people, even delicate flowers of the oh so liberal variety would happily shove one up someone's ass and drain the battery, just because.

You forget who you're dealing with. People. And who are we? Well we're the ones at the top of the food tree for the last million years. And it's not because of big brains or thumbs or females who don't go into heat. It's because of aggression and the unflinching desire to kill and eat all comers. There is nothing sweeter than drinking wine from the severed skulls of thine enemies and trampling their women and children under our horses hooves.

Repeat after me, folks:

This is an excessive force issue, not a free speech issue.

The utter lack of Constitutional knowledge demonstrated by many progressive bloggers overly the last few days has been, to say the least, astounding, embarrassing, and disappointing.

You don't have the right to violate an organization's rules, burst into their meeting, grab a microphone from another student, and begin rambling about your conspiracy theory. The University of Florida had every right to remove the student, and every time to get rough with him when he VIOLENTLY resisted arrest.

Of course, the use of a taser was excessive, but THAT IS A SEPARATE ISSUE ALTOGETHER. Yet, it seems that so many people are wanting to engage in alarmism that now, suddenly, it's okay to adopt Fox News' standard of critical thinking and respect for the facts.

Why are so few progressive bloggers concerned about the free speech rights of the students whose questions were stifled by the heckler?

Why are so few progressive bloggers not retroactively condemning Al Franken for body slamming a LaRouchie heckler at a Dean event in 2004? An incident in which they happily defended Mr. Franken against right-wing attacks.

Why do so few progressive bloggers realize that if they EXPAND free speech rights to meet the standard they are now advocating, it would mean that Republican thugs would be able to storm into any Democratic meet-up or campaign event, bully the other attendants and yell down speakers without any way to stop them (short on 'taking away their First Amendment "rights"', of course)?

Why do so few progressive bloggers note that this event was all about dissenting against the government and that the removal of Meyer could hardly qualify as 'squashing dissent against the government'?

No one is disputed that the taser was highly inappropriate and that the police officers should be held responsible for the use of excessive force.

However, police brutality does not immediately equate to the 'suppression' of free speech. Police brutality can apply to actual criminals too, such as those who violently resist arrest.

Of course, if you're all so desperate for a 'free speech martyr' that you'll take some heckler just looking to become a YouTube Star for laughs, I suppose the First Amendment is in pretty good shape.