Gunslinger
Regular Member
I hate to be the odd man out, but as a former Marine I have standing to comment.
The First Amendment is not suspended at shrines.
Giggling and joking is far, far from deliberate, calculated disrespect, such as, say, the preacher who was going around to military funerals saying dead soldiers were God's wrath for America's tolerance of homosexuals.
It is one thing for the guard to request--which he did. And, the noisy ones shut up. But, they could just as well have continued--and we would be very wise to support their right to do so.
Majority opinion and majority speech needs no protection in a democratic republic.
Who is the government to decide to seize our tax dollars under threat and then assert that all must be silent and respectful at the locations it chooses?
Especially when the demanded respect helps glorify the dead the government helped get killed? Glorification, honoring the dead? These play right into the hands of the sociopaths who lie us into war, I suspect. Below is a link to a very interesting video--a clip from an old movie. When taken together with Gen. Smedley Butler's (USMC) book, War is a Racket, the clip is definitely food for thought.
So, while we may or may not be personally affronted by the giggling and laughing, I would recommend against supporting too strongly the government (guard) shutting up the "offenders"
The mother has been pretending her husband and son are still alive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIeYppX-lRg&feature=related
This one, particular memorial wasn't paid for by the government. It was 'paid for' by our most precious commodity: the blood of one who rests in honored glory. "Glorifying the dead" in this case is justified completely by what they died for. Without this justification, the other topics we discuss on this site would be moot.