On the Fourth of July, President Bush gave a speech at a ceremony where people were about to be sworn in as American citizens.
What you won't find in the transcripts of the speech are the interruptions made by a few hecklers screaming "WAR CRIMINAL" and "FASCIST" at the president, some of them carrying signs to accompany their outrage.
Now, I believe in free speech. If you want to say the president is a war criminal, you should have that right in this country.
But there's a difference between protesting and heckling.
Protesting is a freedom we can share to demonstrate our displeasure with an organization, ideology or even our own government in a peaceful manner.
Heckling may be trying to achieve this, but all that ever comes out of a heckler's mouth is noise.
The biggest problem is always the context. No matter what the situation is, you will lose. If you went to a Flat Earth Society meeting and screamed out "THE WORLD IS ROUND," you would be booed out the door.
I think the way hecklers are often responded to is the right way. You find the person, remove him or her from the event and call it a day. I don't think anything hecklers ever say should be met with any sort of a punishment (of course, as long as it's non-threatening), but there's a reason people should stop going to political, sports, or family events and heckle.
You become "that guy."
Everybody knows "that guy." He –sometimes she — is an everyday person. He may be a really nice and caring person who regularly donates part of his paycheck to charity, does volunteer work at a local hospital and would never gossip.
But the second you put him in a giant gathering, "that guy" suddenly thinks it's an invitation to make himself as much of a disruption as possible.
I can only imagine what the Fourth of July hecklers were thinking the day before.
"I'm going to the Fourth of July ceremony that Bush is speaking at."
"Oh yeah? That's pretty cool."
"Yeah. But that's not even the best part — I'm going to yell 'WAR CRIMINAL.' It's going to really tick him off and get people to pay attention. It will be sweet."
"Oh …"
What a great plan.
As I said, I believe in freedom of speech. People should be able to say what they want without fear of retaliation. They should be able to publicly protest if they don't agree with something.
But to be a heckler is to be "that guy." That person who's loud and obnoxious like a bratty four-year-old in the grocery store who's upset that his mother won't buy him that new GI Joe he saw on TV.
And just like any responsible parent, we should not cave into these hecklers. Do to hecklers what you can't do to a whiny kid: Throw them out on the street.
Greg Ralbovsky is a broadcast journalism senior. Reach him at: gralbovs@asu.edu.
