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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:19
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Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow!
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX WED MAY 04, 2005 12:01:02 ET XXXXX
Arrest made at Coulter speech; Student arrested, charged with disorderly conduct after offensive question
Wed May 04 2005 11:57:58 ET
Incessant heckling and shouting culminated in an arrest Tuesday night during a speech by controversialist Ann Coulter at the University of Texas at Austin.
THE TEXAN reports: Shouts became so pervasive during the question-and-answer session that Coulter informed the organizers she would no longer take questions if the hecklers were not silenced. For a time, the shouts were considerably lessened, until the issue of gay marriage was broached.
Coulter said she supported the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman on the basis that a good woman civilizes and inspires a man to strive for something better, leading to a question that was met with a stunned silence.
"You say that you believe in the sanctity of marriage," said Ajai Raj, an English sophomore. "How do you feel about marriages where the man does nothing but f*@k his wife up the ass?"
UT Police officers approached Raj to arrest him, resulting in a mass exodus of protesters chanting, "Let him go."
"The person had been disruptive the entire event," said Matt Hardigree, former Student Events Center president. "He took the opportunity to say something lewd and offensive and then made masturbatory gestures as he exited."
Hardigree said that Cheryl Wood from the Office of the Dean of Students spoke with some of the protestors before the event, and assorted members of the Distinguished Speakers Committee asked them to sit in the back if they had signs and to leave quietly if they wanted to leave.
According to Jeffrey Stockerwell, a friend of Raj, officers violently seized Raj and illegally searched him after his question.
Police have charged Raj with disorderly conduct, a Class C misdemeanor.
Representatives of the Austin People's Legal Collective were taking statements from everyone at the scene, in case it should be taken to court.
The booing began early into Coulter's speech, when she issued a joke to pro-choice advocates.
"I wonder why those 'I Heart Partial-Birth Abortion' T-shirts aren't selling better," she said, followed by a combination of cheers and jeers.
One student asked Coulter why universities and institutions place microphones in front of Coulter when she advocates terrorism against liberals, prompting Coulter to mention the strength of her book sales. Coulter has had four New York Times best sellers.
The $30,000 event was co-sponsored by the Texas Union Student Events Center and Student Endowed Centennial Lectureship Committee.
Developing...
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Lancer
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Oregon Coast, USA! or Bohol, Philippines!
Apr 1999
time: 05:19
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How rude and yes, knowing her opponents she should have expected something like this.
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Lancer
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Oregon Coast, USA! or Bohol, Philippines!
Apr 1999
time: 05:19
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"Regardless, the ACLU is going to be all over this."
Not protecting Coulter's freedom of speech rights I assume.
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JimmyCracksCorn
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Macedonia - Sovereign country north of Greece.
Dec 2002
time: 05:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Lancer
How rude and yes, knowing her opponents she should have expected something like this. |
More like knowing Ann Coulter she should have expected something like this.
Regardless of her politics, she's a smug, arrogant jackass.
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Lancer
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Oregon Coast, USA! or Bohol, Philippines!
Apr 1999
time: 05:19
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Whether you agree with her or not, she still has a right to speak, yes?
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Gamecube64
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of Persia
Apr 2004
time: 23:19
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I think Raj's right to free speech is more important to discuss right now, as it was the one violated. How come Coulter can go off spouting anti-liberal shat whenever she likes, but Raj gets arrested when he asks a relevent question? Coulter can spout her anti-liberal shat all she wants, but Raj shouldn't have been arrested. Some of you are making it sound like Coulter is the victim here...
Last edited by Gamecube64 on 05-05-2005 at 02:51
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Admiral
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of the peace and coexistance movement
Feb 2001
time: 00:19
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I'll see your Drudge Report, and raise you a Daily Kos.
Here is a first person account of the incident from one who was there.
quote:
Just coming from the last official Amnesty International meeting of the year, in my newly established position as publicity coordinator, I was filled with a sense of hope, community, faith in humanity and good, honest people ready to work, strike and fight for the cause of Human Rights.
Needless to say those hopes were all but smashed after about 35 seconds of listening to Coulter speak. But, what really got me was the applause.
Deep in the Heart of Texas is just about the only place in this expansive red state that anyone with a more liberally-inclined disposition is remotely welcome. Travis County did vote overwhelmingly for Kerry, after all. So, of course it was very frustrating to hear roars of laughter and the droning cheers of most of the audience in response to Coulter's description of the Middle East as a "swamp" or her call for "Conservative women" to perform their traditional roles in the home as a means of furthering the conservative movement. These people would be better suited at a Night Rally.
There were a few rational and compassionate individuals with political philosophies that amount to more than a series of cheap one-liners in the audience but hardly as many as there should have been at a University. For an institution that prides itself on truth and is purported to be overrun by liberalism, it sure didn't seem that way tonight. The only consolation I could rationalize was that most people just shrug Coulter off as the far-right lunatic that she is. That they don't give her the time of day, and definitely not time out of theirs to acknowledge her presence by protesting and asking tough questions for her to dodge. But, it struck me as outright contemptible for Ann Coulter to be speaking at my campus as part of the same "lecture" series that features such speakers as the Dali Lama and Paul Rusesabagina, the inspiration for the film Hotel Rwanda.
So, we were a minority vocally enduring Coulter's homophobic, racist, sexist, fundamentalist Christian brand of hatred--fascist propaganda by another name. We sat through every ducked question shouting for her to answer. We shook our heads, sighed, and externalized our consternation through various hand gestures and motions. We sarcastically laughed and gasped at every attempt she made to distort the question asked into something that painted the questioner as an incomprehensible, inaccurate idiot-there were three. We shouted back in anger at every question shrugged away with mere character asssassination-there were too many to count.
My blood boiled a bit. Less masochistic progressives had enough and stormed out at various times. Coulter herself threatened to leave on two occasions for all the heckling. One man was cut off at the microphone for denouncing Coulter's McCarthyist bent. And, then, one of us had had enough.
It was in response to Coulter's bizarre explanation that marriage was in place not to "make people happy," but to further an outright incomprehensible notion of some type of patriarchal system that she wasn't able to articulate very well (she mentioned something about men caring for women uber alles, but offered little more of substance) and eventually abandoned to get to her point that gay marriage is evil. It was after this that a question was posed "What about marriages where men just **** their wife the ass?"
Some in the audience laughed. Some quite probably rolled their eyes. I myself was a bit taken aback and left wondering if the questioner couldn't have expressed himself differently before he sauntered away from the microphone.
And, then, I heard a cry: "Hey! What are you doing? Let him go!"
The police (who were there in full force that evening to protect Coulter from the fatal threat of banana creme) had taken the questioner by the arms when he attempted to leave the auditorium after signaling to his friends that he was leaving. Two officers grabbed him and with an undeniably excessive amount of force pushed him out of the very same auditorium that he was exiting on his own.
I immediately jumped out of my seat in the back and was near the front of a crowd of 20 or 30 students and activists that were shouting "LET HIM GO!" at the two police officers, only one of which whose name and badge number I remembered-Gabriel 427. We rushed out of the auditorium following the man who was being detained for exercising his first amendment right and surrounded the officers, all the while shouting and attempting to un-arrest our newly discovered friend.
He was eventually led out of the building, with the crowd right behind. We were more enraged and vocal about his detention than he himself. He did not resist arrest in the slightest.
They led him around to the back of a van where he was pinned face down on the cold, dirty concrete, away from the eyes of his concerned compatriots and the lens of the television camera that arrived. What they did to him for the five minutes that he was isolated from the rest of us is a mystery.
We demanded that the officers explain what he was being charged with. None of them replied. We asked politely. They stood steadfast. We threatened bad press and lawsuits with professors at our side. They didn't flinch. We asked them who they were serving and protecting by arresting an invited, ticket-holding guest, who was told to ask a question and then did. They didn't have an answer.
He was eventually put into the back of a squad car and driven away. We followed as far as we were allowed by the suddenly vocal police officers. Following us was the local CBS affiliate's camera crew.
At one point I explained to an officer that his action this evening was in direct contravention of the United States of America. I told him that he was duty bound to respect law and order and that by arresting someone who had acted in accord with the Constitution of the United States of America, he had abrogated those very same principles. I stood directly in front of him, stopping his stride and asked to his face who he was protecting and serving by arresting a man who had not broken any laws.
He walked on by. |
Now tell me, should we feel sympathy for Coulter or for Ajai, who was arrested for voicing, perhaps strongly, one of the fallacies of Coulter's argument? I, frankly, am scared.
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05-05-2005 02:13
HOLY ****. hillarious. she shoulda known that something like this woulda happened.
Apolyton wouldn't be the same without you.
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