Meltdown over a burning issue: Ex-grocer sets ice cream ablaze in protest of 'PantsonFire-Mobile'
We've got a great country -- thousands of men have died so we can stand here today and speak our minds but not bad-mouth the leader of the free world.
- Chuck Bradley
Free speech is free speech. It's not free speech (as long it agrees with your point of view). Of course, our Mr. Bradley seems to have failed to grasp this basic concept- hence he has had bestowed upon him the supreme "honor" that is the DUMB@$$ AWARD.
You'd think a good scoop of Cherry Garcia, Caramel Sutra or Phish Food would transcend politics.
Chuck Bradley doesn't think so. Yesterday he set fire to almost 30 pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream to protest statements by the compa-ny's co-founder, Ben Cohen, who has publicly called President Bush a liar.
The pints were taken from the Midway Corner Grocery, which Bradley owned for 21 years before he sold it to one of his sons.
The protest drew an amused response from Cohen.
"What a waste of some really great ice cream," Cohen said in an e-mail statement yesterday.
"I didn't think you could burn ice cream," he added....
The Corner Grocery, at 301 North Winter Street, will now sell Haagen-Dazs, which Bradley views as "more American."
Charlene Harris brought her two sons,-Cheney, 2, and Jay, 4, to the protest after learning about it from a Scott County Republican Party e-mail.
Harris said she was happy to bring her children to the ice cream burning, but she knows they didn't understand what was happening.
"It was kind of hard to explain to them why the ice cream was bad," she said. "We do support the president, but they like ice cream."
It would seem that our intrepid Mr. Bradley was too busy foaming at the mouth to remember that Ben & Jerry's was sold to Unilever in 2000, and that Cohen is merely exercising his free speech rights as any private individual is allowed to in our free country.
Mr. Bradley would do well to remember that disagreeing with or criticizing Our Sainted President is NOT a crime, nor is it un-American. What IS un-American is his desire to curtail speech in the name of ideology. Bradley is right about one thing- thousands of Americans have died "so we can stand her today and speak our minds". That means that someone is going to occasionally say somthing that will thoroughly piss you off. Welcome to the wonderful world of free speech, Mr. Bradley. It's either free speech or it's not; you can't pick and choose.
A wise man once told me that the biggest problem with our political system is that stupid people elect stupid people. Hey, it's not a perfect system, but it's what we've got, and I would challenge anyone to devise a better one.
Yes, there is even plenty of room for DUMB@$$E$ like Chuck Bradley. It's a big tent, after all....
