Free Speech Pay-In

On Friday, February 24, members of Charleston Peace joined SC Progressive Network Director Brett Bursey In Columbia for a Free Speech Pay-In to pay his $500 fine and join people from around the state who are as angry as he is about what George Bush is doing to our country to bring a dollar and join him to pay what he calls "the rising cost of free speech." For background on the case and why we were there see the previous post US Supreme Court Refuses SC Free Speech Case. To see pictures of the Free Speech Pay-In, visit the Charleston Peace website.

The Cost of Free Speech, by Ed Madden:

A man holds up a sign. He stands beside a public road in a public place. Around him are thousands of people, many holding up signs.

The man holds up a sign that protests the ongoing war in Iraq. He thinks the president and the people in power are responsible for this war.

Half a mile away, in a muddy depression near another road, the man's friends hold up their signs, also handmade, also protesting the war. There is no parking there. The only people aware of their protest are the police who direct them there and forbid them to park.

The man is told that he must put down his sign and go to a specially designated "free speech zone," that muddy depression half a mile away — away from the media, from the gathered crowd, and from the president, whose plane will be landing shortly.

The crowd waiting in line to see the president — more than 6,000 people show up — surrounds him.

The man holds up his sign and explains to the policeman that he is standing in a free speech zone — it is called the United States of America.

He is told he must put down his sign or leave, or he will be arrested for trespassing.

A man holds up a sign on a public road in a public place. And he is arrested.
...
South Carolinian Brett Bursey's conviction stands, and on Friday he had to pay a $500 fine for holding up a cardboard sign on a public roadway in a public space, at the Columbia airport.

I stood in line in the courthouse on Friday with other folks who showed up to pay $1 toward Bursey's fine. I was there because he stood up for his — and my — right to speak freely. How many people in South Carolina think free speech is worth a dollar? What is free speech worth?

A man holds up a sign.

-Columbia Free-Times, 3/01/06