Parade of Strawmen

The Curmudgeonly Clerk – currently guest-blogging at Crescat Sententia – disagrees with both myself and PG of En Banc regarding a parade in Florida, in which parade organizers kicked out Veterans for expressing “patriotically incorrect” opinions about the war on Iraq.

Wait, no, that’s not true. The Curmudgeonly Clerk didn’t disagree with me, or with PG, for the most part; he just made up some strawmen to disagree with. From CC’s post:

I entirely agree with all of that. And I never said or implied otherwise.

Of course the VFW is entirely within their rights to kick veterans out of their parade for expressing “patriotically incorrect” views. Of course this is an essential free speech right – just as newspaper editors have an essential free speech right to choose not to publish an article.

Nothing I or PG wrote can fairly be read as advocating forcing “the VFW to involuntarily adopt, associate with, or distribute a political or moral message with which it disagreed.” For CC to imply that either I or PG would advocate such a thing is unfair and untrue.

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Here’s the thing.

The VFW, as a private group, has a first amendment right to organize a parade.

They also have a first amendment right to kick Veterans who state “patriotically incorrect” opinions out of their parade.

I in turn – as I’m sure CC would acknowledge – have a first amendment right to criticize the VFW for their decision.

CC apparently believes that if I utilize my first amendment right to criticize the VFW, I am advocating taking the VFW’s first amendment rights away. But CC is mistaken; just because I criticize how the VFW used their first amendment rights, it in no way follows that I think they shouldn’t have first amendment rights.

* * *

Unlearned Hand (also of En Banc) has also replied to CC. Unlearned attributes CC’s strawman reading to “the dangerous tunnel vision that comes from spending too much time with law and legal arguments.” Or, as the cliche goes, to someone holding a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

* * *

Also on Crescat Sententia, Will Baude – responding to Unlearned Hand’s response to CC – stages a defense of the parade organizer’s actions. (Unlearned Hand has also posted a response to Will, which I wholeheartedly endorse).

I’m afraid I’m unmoved. Baude points out that there are ways in which the parade organizers could sincerely believe that allowing a group called “Veterans Against the War” to march would be disrespectful to veterans.

I don’t question the organizer’s sincerity. I do question their views, and their methods.

Adina, in the comments to my previous post, stated it very well:

As I said earlier, I feel the parade was organized in bad faith; it’s not about honoring veterans, as it claims to be. It’s about honoring veterans with “patriotically correct” opinions.

Will writes “In other words, kicking people out of a parade because they don’t support what the parade does is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.”

I disagree. The reasonable thing for the parade’s organizers to do – if they really couldn’t abide a veteran’s parade which included a diversity of opinion – would have been to turn down the marchers when they applied to be in the parade. After all, it’s not difficult to infer what a group called “Veterans against the War” might stand for. How it is reasonable to accept their money and their application to march, only to kick them out once the parade had begun?

It’s not just that the organizers kicked out these veterans (although I find that bad enough); it also appears they went out of their way to do so in the most humiliating and hurtful manner imaginable. And that, to me, is not a “reasonable” act.

Nor do I accept Will’s implied assumption that using political ideology to select which veteran groups will or won’t be able to march in a parade honoring veterans is reasonable. Veterans are not being honored for their support of George Bush; they are being honored for their courage, and for the sacrifices they made for the sake of the nation. Since it is not reasonable to suppose that liberal veterans were not courageous and did not make sacrifices, I don’t think it’s reasonable for parade organizers to exclude people for expressing liberal views.

(Note that I am not denying that the VFW has a right to act in a way that I consider unreasonable.)

Will points out that the VFW didn’t kick out all anti-war Veterans, only those who spoke out. However, I don’t find “you can march with us, but if you disagree with our politics you better keep your damned mouth shut” to be a reasonable attitude.

On the contrary, I think that a better Veteran’s Day parade would want to honor all veterans for the sacrifice they made. And understanding and respecting that even honored veterans hold a diversity of views is, to my way of thinking, a far better way of honoring not only the veterans themselves, but of honoring the American ideals that veterans fought for.

POSTSCRIPT: Two further thoughts.

One, I should clarify that the title of this post – “Parade of Strawmen” – was a reference to CC’s post, not to Will’s.

Second, in my comments, The Arbitrary Aardvark wondered if the kicked-out veterans might have a breach of contract claim. I have no idea, but since so many bloggers of legal experts are watching this debate, I wonder if any of them have an opinion?.