And yet another first amendment issue surfaces. The contributors on ‘Howlings have been discussing freedom of speech for weeks. Here is yet another example of different points of view:
Henry Gasparian must have reached his boiling point. He got into a shoving match with LaRouche supporters who had the infamous idiot pictures of President Obama sporting a Hitler mustache.
Mr. Gasparian, an Armenian, has family who were killed or maimed by Hitler. He doesn’t feel someone so evil should be used for political gain, so he attempted to take the papers. People need to think about other’s feelings when hurling around careless rhetoric.
As a child in Armenia, Henry Gasparian witnessed firsthand the horrors of Nazi Germany. Two uncles were killed, his father wounded and a brother starved to death during the German invasion and occupation of the Soviet Union. So when Gasparian, 70, of Edmonds, saw a poster of President Obama with a Hitler mustache near the entrance to the Edmonds Farmers Market on Sept. 5, he admits that his reaction was “personal and emotional.””>Seattle Times:
As a child in Armenia, Henry Gasparian witnessed firsthand the horrors of Nazi Germany. Two uncles were killed, his father wounded and a brother starved to death during the German invasion and occupation of the Soviet Union. So when Gasparian, 70, of Edmonds, saw a poster of President Obama with a Hitler mustache near the entrance to the Edmonds Farmers Market on Sept. 5, he admits that his reaction was “personal and emotional.”
He tried to grab the fliers being passed out by supporters of Lyndon LaRouche, a perennial presidential candidate who has likened Obama’s health-care proposals to the Nazi extermination of Jews and other “undesirables.”
Two young LaRouche supporters told police that Gasparian repeatedly pushed them and grabbed one of their arms. Gasparian said it was they who first pushed him.
Now Gasparian is charged with two counts of fourth-degree assault in Edmonds Municipal Court for what he describes as an attempt by “an old man to say you cannot insult the president with this outrageous campaign.”