Ain't sure if this belongs here or in 'isolated incidents'. Moderators, Please move accordingly.
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Houston Cops Handcuff, Assault Man For Posting Obama Joker Flyers

Giant pro-Obama murals are OK, but small anti-Obama paper flyers constitute “criminal vandalism”

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, September 17, 2009

A Houston man was handcuffed and assaulted by cops for posting anti-Obama flyers around his town, actions described as “criminal vandalism” by police and some local residents, despite the fact that giant pro-Obama murals are openly displayed in the same neighborhood for all to see.

21-year-old Mark Fuhre, an Alex Jones Show listener, decided to post the flyers even though the Infowars Obama Joker Poster Contest had ended, because he wanted to alert his neighbors to the cult of personality being manufactured around Obama and how the establishment is stifling any criticism of the President by constantly invoking racism.

Fuhre believed that he had a first amendment right to express his opinion, just as those that spray painted giant Obama “HOPE” murals in the same neighborhood had done without opposition. However, shortly after he began to post the flyers, a local resident voiced his anger that Fuhre had the temerity to exercise his freedom of speech and called the police.

“They slammed me against the hood of my car, cuffed me, threw me in the back of the car,” Fuhre told local news station KPRC.

He and his friend were later ticketed for criminal mischief and vandalism. The news report also quotes Kim Hammond of the Kingwood Democrats who slams the posters as “graffiti,” “vandalism” and an act of “criminal mischief”.

Watch the video clip here-
http://www.click2houston.com/video/20950804/index.html

What’s deliciously ironic about the news report is that KPRC correspondent Carl Willis, while discussing Fuhre’s dastardly crime of criminal vandalism for posting anti-Obama flyers, stands in front of a huge 12 foot mural wall painting of Obama. The authorities didn’t deem this to be “criminal vandalism” or “dangerous” despite the fact that Obama himself encouraged people to display similar images on stop signs and other federal property.

As we have highlighted before in the case of a Florida teenager who received similar harassment from authorities for posting the Obama Joker flyers, there is a flagrant double standard in place which dictates that only pro-Obama images are allowed to be displayed – a chilling indication that citizens of the United States enjoy the same level of free speech rights as those in Maoist China or Kim Jong-Il’s North Korea.

In the Florida case, authorities and the local media hysterically characterized the placement of Obama Joker posters as some kind of assault on the people of Clermont, creating “victims” and leading to demands for arrests and criminal charges against the teenager who posted them, a completely contrived outrage proven by polls that later showed the majority of residents supported the teenager.

“It’s the constitution of the United States, which is being forgotten,” Fuhre told KPRC. “Everyone should have their liberties.”

It seems that everyone is entitled to their liberties, so long as they don’t use them to dissent against the government, and in particular the contrived God-like untouchable facade being manufactured around negative depictions of Obama.

Fuhre’s friend sends us an e mail to tell us that Fuhre is still being “harassed by the local community and media”.

“I’m hoping you can reach out and let his story be known to the general public, because he’s a good, strong patriot and a little outnumbered in this situation,” he writes.

Just imagine what the tradition of hanging in effigy would get you.

The screenshot above reminds me of all the images of Saddam around Baghdad prior to the coalition invasion.

I've gotta assume - based on the size and 'quality' of the paintings - that the person / people responsible for putting up the pro-Obama crap on the building behind the reporter had permission from the property owner, whereas the person putting up the small poster likely did not. This obviously does not justify his treatment from the police, nor does it in any way justify what is clearly a double-standard in many, many other situations regarding pro- vs anti-Obama propaganda, but it does mean that the particular 'double-standard' being pointed to here is, in this case, not actually a double-standard. Unless of course the property owner didn't give their permission...