Political Science

The arrest of Republican couple Jeffery and Nicole Rank during the 2004 Presidential Fourth of July State Visit of former President George W. Bush in Charleston, West Virginia for simply wearing anti-Bush shirts was indeed unjustifiable and irrelevant.

In a country that puts prime importance on civil liberty and greatly upholds freedom of speech, the act was basically inexcusable which made citizens wonder that their basic constitutional rights were breached by the government itself.  The arrest was likely deemed as governments way of putting a halt to civil protests and rallies which is an important aspect of every democratic country.

Furthermore, the negative response from the government suggested a fascistic approach wherein government used suppression through terror, violence and censorship in putting a stop to any opposition (Payne, 1983). It suggested an idea that even in a democratic country like America, civil liberty is still not established and freedom of speech is still in jeopardy since government can easily exercise extra constitutional practices and methods of fascism to gag civilians and civil unions from their silent protests, that is, in the Ranks case, their wearing of anti-Bush shirts which government viewed as an act of civil disobedience.