University of Virginia Library

David Giltinan

Free Speech? In A
Bunny Rabbit's Eye

While collecting money for Tom
Doran last week, we were approached
by a budding Oliver Wendell
Holmes.

"You radical-liberals just don't
understand," he burbled, drooling
on the lit table, "If it weren't for
our country's great love of freedom
of speech, you wouldn't be allowed
to agitate and carry on like this."

Having never composed an original
(read: dangerous) thought,
young Oliver doubtless enjoys
'complete freedom' of speech, a
blessing he shares with bunny-rabbits,
deaf-mutes, and Young Republicans.
Others are less fortunate.

Bearded, 'subversive' Tom 'The
Curser' Doran was unfortunate
enough to disagree with a stolid
Charlottesville jury this summer.
Now he's in jail for perjury; STILL
in jail because the judge hasn't 'had
time' in the last week to approve
Tom's bondsman.

If Tom is released today and the
charges are dropped tomorrow he'll
have nonetheless served ten days
and lost $500-forever-to the
bondsman, but Tom's encounters
with 'free speech' predate the perjury
charge.

The story goes that when Doran
was first arrested last spring for
breaking windows in Cabell Hall he
was asleep in a friend's room on the
lawn. Tom awakened to discover a
cop thumbing through his wallet,
seeking bomb recipes, codebooks,
copies of Pravda, filthy pictures
...

Exercising his 'freedom of
speech' (with considerable restraint
when one notes the context) Our
Hero said, "Goddamn it, gimme my
wallet." He was then charged with
'cursing and abusing a police
officer' and later convicted and
fined.

One has visions of the gentle
constable, pale with shock; staggering
beneath this savage torrent-his
fingers thrust frantically in his ears,
stomach churning with horror,
backed into a corner as he begs for
a reprieve.

'Freedom of speech' may be an
issue at the National level when the
Knox County grand jury meets
next week to consider indictments
against 17 people from the University
of Tennessee charged with 'disturbing
a religious service' last May
28.

Religious service? The 17 are
accused of heckling Nixon while he
spoke at a Billy Graham Rally in
Knoxville, all of which proves that
Billy Graham is God in Tennessee
which we knew anyhow.

What's frightening is that there
were originally some 300 hecklers,
of whom about 50 later specifically
identified from photographs as
"people to get". Indeed, Knoxville's
secret shutterbugs were so
eager to arrest these students that
they bypassed the 'red tape' of
warrants for all but 17.

(Meanwhile Nixon issued a condescending
little note to the local
authorities, whining that the hecklers
had been 'rude' and trusting
that they'd be dealt with 'firmly'
but hoping, in his gallant Presidential
way, that matters could be
delayed until after finals. The press,
ever obsequious, played the release
like an Imperial Pardon)

Those 17 people 'legally'
arrested were forced to post $1000
bond each, which amounts to a
$100 fine just for getting one's
picture taken. Presumably, they
could each go the jail for a year.

Internationally, consider America's
frenzied attempts to 'bestow'
all sorts of freedoms on that Citadel
of Democracy, South Vietnam.

South Vietnam, as we all know,
has a President, Nguyen Van Thieu.
'President' Thieu was 'elected' in
1967 after (1) shutting down the
newspapers (2) exiling his chief
opponent Duong Van Minh (3)
'permitting' the Army to vote twice
and (4) putting the 'legislature'
under armed guard until it agreed
that Thieu could keep his General's
commission for the duration of the
campaign-a violation of the Constitution.

When it was all over, Thieu's
runner-up, an anti-war candidate
named Dzu, was promptly sentenced
to five years in Conson
Prison.

'Freedom of Speech', South
Vietnamese style, isn't limited to
politicians. Anyone writing 'Communist'
or (get this) list leaflets
is liable for prison or death.
The Government, of course, decides
what is 'neutralist'.

Tin Sang, South Vietnam's answer
to the Washington Post, has
failed to appear some 70 times thus
far this year; all of its copies seized
by the Government.

Tin Sang's Editor, National
Assemblyman Ngo Cong Duc, is
presently in trouble for stating last
week that, while Communism is
deplorable, 'President' Thieu is
hardly the George Washington of
South East Asia and could perhaps
be left out of a "Provisional
Government", not to include Communists,
as a "first step to peace."

Thieu has suspended Tin Sang
indefinitely, begun a petition in the
House to eliminate Duc's 'Parliamentary
Immunity' and Promised to
prosecute him for treason as soon
as possible. Newspapers in South
Vietnam are forbidden to discuss
either Duc's suggestion or Thieu's
reaction.

The question begs itself-If America
will sacrifice $170,000,000,000
and 50,000 lives to spread 'freedom'
in South Vietnam, what price
will she pay to free us here at
home? The good people of Knox
and Albemarle Counties seem already
confused by liberty, and
clamor for an end to it-especially
when someone else's liberty is being
ended.

Hard times are coming. The
police, with their machine guns and
Minox cameras, beg to be unleashed.
That funny-looking freshman
who 'freely speaks' about
smoking dope, are his pimples
plastic? He's an agent.

Freedom of Speech is when no
one can hear you.