An NBC news report informs us that a group of young conservatives, standing before the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, spontaneously began singing the national anthem.  They were immediately confronted by the Park Police and told to stop singing.  (To their credit, the group ignored the order and kept singing!)  What was of greater interest, however, was the statement by the Park Police that such a spontaneous performance amounted to a demonstration in a setting that was required to be “completely content neutral.”

The Lincoln Memorial as a facility that is “completely content neutral”?  A memorial to the man who, more than any other, was responsible for creating the foundations of our modern tyrannical state; a monument no better suited to any city in America than the one that has been the principal beneficiary of his vicious policies; all of this merits the protection of some twisted sense of impartiality and content neutrality?  Shall we next hear the system insisting that such cities as Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden be spoken of in “content neutral” words?

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