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Tag Archives: sign

Sadly, still the truth

29 Sunday May 2022

Posted by Michael Bersin in Josh Hawley, Roy Blunt, US Senate

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

gun violance, guns, Kansas City, missouri, NRA, sign, U.S. Senate, Virginia

March 24, 2018 – Kansas City, Missouri:

“The only thing easier to buy than a gun is a republican senator.”

WHICH SENATORS HAVE TAKEN THE MOST NRA MONEY?

Roy Blunt (MO) $4,555,722

Josh Hawley (MO) $1,391,548

[emphasis added]

Previously:

Until this changes… (March 25, 2018)

Cognitive Dissonance

22 Tuesday Sep 2020

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

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Tags

Donald Trump, missouri, sign

Today in west central Missouri:

Can’t do both.

Bad combover. Check. Too long red tie. Check. Orange spray tan. Check. Tiny hands. Check. Cluelessness. Check…

In the neighborhood

16 Tuesday Jun 2020

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

elementary school, free meals, missouri, public schools, sign, Summer

At the entrance to a local elementary school in west central Missouri.

Until this changes…

25 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by Michael Bersin in Roy Blunt, US Senate

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

#resist, gun violence, guns, Kansas City, missouri, NRA, protest, Roy Blunt, sign, U.S. Senate, vote

…nothing will get done.

Yesterday at the March for Our Lives in Kansas City:

“The only thing easier to buy than a gun is a republican senator.”

Register to vote. Get out the vote. Vote in November. If you don’t, you’re the problem.

Previously:

March for Our Lives – Kansas City – in Theis Park on Saturday, March 24, 2018 (March 20, 2018)

Another sign for the times (March 23, 2018)

March for Our Lives – Warrensburg, Missouri – March 24, 2018 (March 24, 2017)

March for Our Lives – Kansas City – Theis Park – March 24, 2018 – signs (March 24, 2018)

Again: “…Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard…”

11 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by Michael Bersin in Resist

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

#resist, missouri, sign, Supreme Court, U.S. Constitution

Along U.S. 50 Highway in west central Missouri:

Someone’s opinion.

In 1943, in a time of war, no less:

WEST VIRGINIA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION ET AL. v. BARNETTE ET AL., 319 U.S. 624

[….]

….To sustain the compulsory flag salute we are required to say that a Bill of Rights which guards the individual’s right to speak his own mind, left it open to public authorities to compel him to utter what is not in his mind.

Whether the First Amendment to the Constitution will permit officials to order observance of ritual of this nature does not depend upon whether as a voluntary exercise we would think it to be good, bad or merely innocuous. Any credo of nationalism is likely to include what some disapprove or to omit what others think essential, and to give off different overtones as it takes on different accents or interpretations. If official power exists to coerce acceptance of any patriotic creed, what it shall contain cannot be decided by courts, but must be largely discretionary with the ordaining authority, whose power to prescribe would no doubt include power to amend. Hence validity of the asserted power to force an American citizen publicly to profess any statement of belief or to engage in any ceremony of assent to one presents questions of power that must be considered independently of any idea we may have as to the utility of the ceremony in question….

[….]

….Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country have been waged by many good as well as by evil men. Nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon but at other times and places the ends have been racial or territorial security, support of a dynasty or regime, and particular plans for saving souls. As first and moderate methods to attain unity have failed, those bent on its accomplishment must resort to an ever-increasing severity. [319 U.S. 624, 641] As governmental pressure toward unity becomes greater, so strife becomes more bitter as to whose unity it shall be. Probably no deeper division of our people could proceed from any provocation than from finding it necessary to choose what doctrine and whose program public educational officials shall compel youth to unite in embracing. Ultimate futility of such attempts to compel coherence is the lesson of every such effort from the Roman drive to stamp out Christianity as a disturber of its pagan unity, the Inquisition, as a means to religious and dynastic unity, the Siberian exiles as a means to Russian unity, down to the fast failing efforts of our present totalitarian enemies. Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.

It seems trite but necessary to say that the First Amendment to our Constitution was designed to avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings. There is no mysticism in the American concept of the State or of the nature or origin of its authority. We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority.

The case is made difficult not because the principles of its decision are obscure but because the flag involved is our own. Nevertheless, we apply the limitations of the Constitution with no fear that freedom to be intellectually and spiritually diverse or even contrary will disintegrate the social organization. To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism [319 U.S. 624, 642] and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us….

[….]

Previously:

On “patriotic” pearl clutching (August 28, 2016)

“…Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard…” (September 24, 2017)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): jump on that publicity stunt bandwagon (October 8, 2017)

Gov. Eric Greitens (r): high or petty (October 11, 2017)

What passes for effective voter persuasion these days

28 Friday Oct 2016

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

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Tags

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, missouri, president, sign

This afternoon in west central Missouri.

20161028-img_2356

20161028-img_2356a

Looks like they put as much time and effort into it as Donald Trump (r) did for his field operation.

Is that an observation, hope, or a demand?

30 Saturday May 2015

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

New Mexico, sign

Outside Roswell, New Mexico:

A sense of proportion.

The First Amendment is for everyone

22 Friday May 2015

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

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Arizona, Doug Ducey, sign

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey (r) is a popular guy. Facing a main thoroughfare:

“Support public education. My child is an honor student, my governor is a lunatic.” – On Broadway, west of Columbus, in Tucson, Arizona.

Steller: Broadway wall sends political message, welcome or not

….Monday night, I talked to both of the neighbors across Broadway who have the most direct view of the wall. Neither of them wanted their full names used because they don’t want to get involved in neighborhood disputes. And neither of them like it.

One said he finds it obnoxious that he has to see the wall every time he sits down for dinner and looks out the window. The other told me she simply didn’t like seeing such a negative message day after day….

What do you bet the second neighbor watches the Faux News Channel all the time?

Previously:

Signs we’ll be seeing for the next ten years (May 11, 2015)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): an unhappy constituent in the 4th Congressional District

22 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

4th Congressional District, Constituents, missouri, Post Oak, recall, sign, Vicky Hartzler

Somebody in the 4th Congressional District is unhappy enough with Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) that they affixed a “Recall Vicky” sign to their building along a well traveled highway.

It could be buyer’s remorse. We don’t know.

In Post Oak, Missouri in rural Johnson County along Highway 13 just north of the Henry County line:

Approaching Post Oak, Missouri from the south on Highway 13.

Yep, there it is – “Recall Vicky”.

“Recall Vicky” – Someone took some care to attach the sign to the building. It looks like it’ll be up for a considerable amount of time.

We’ve noted that there haven’t been as many open to the general public town halls in the district with Representative Hartzler (r). We miss them, though we seriously doubt we’re a reason why there are fewer. Maybe it’s all those Benghazi truthers who obsessively respond to Represenative Hartzler’s (r) posts on Twitter.

Dogma

13 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

dogma, missouri, Pledge of Allegiance, sign

At a business in west central Missouri:

That line sounds sort of familiar. Oh, yes:

“I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Nope, not that.

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