One of my favorite scenes in Forrest Gump is when he gets pulled up on stage at the anti-war rally. An actor playing Abbie Hoffman convinces Forrest to make an impromptu speech. He then proceeds to give a tragic account of his experiences in Vietnam in front of an epic throng of protesters gathered around the reflective pool between the Lincoln and Washington memorials. Of course the microphone cuts out and we can’t hear any of the speech, but we can imagine it was typically homespun and simple-minded. So when I first heard that there was a campaign to stop renovations to the National Mall the first thing that came to my mind was: idiots.

First, a little background. The Mall has been the site of many of the most important protests and rallies in the 20th century, including the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at which Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I have a dream” speech. The National Park Service has recently begun plans to repair and redesign the logistical makeup of the park. Included in one of the proposed plans is a rally “pit,” which some believe will limit the congregating capacity of the Mall, and restrict participants to a specific area that is intentionally unobtrusive. They are also considering a policy of not granting back-to-back event permits so as to keep the grass from being continuously killed off by visitors. They have also provided a press release which states, “All proletariat are ordered to return to the factories. Any persons found outside past curfew will be flogged in proportion to their uppityness.”

The campaign to stop these renovations is being spearheaded by organizations like Partnership for Civil Justice, the ANSWER coalition (an anti-war group), and ImpeachBush.org. Their argument is that any plans for changing the National Mall are actually a conspiracy by the Bush administration to marginalize freedom of speech and diminish any future attempts at populist activism in the capital. For fear of being falsely accused of cartooning their stance, this comes directly from ImpeachBush.org: “If Bush gets his way, by the day he leaves office, cherished civil liberties will be eviscerated for decades to come.”

All right, fair enough. It’s safe to say that Bush probably ranks civil liberties just below correct pronunciation of words in terms of things he cares about. But really? He’s intentionally manipulating the policies of the National Park Service to screw leftists out of the right to peaceably assemble? Well that’s just 10 pounds of crazy in a five pound bag.

First of all, it seems pretty unlikely that the bureaucracy behind the renovation has been so infiltrated by Bushies so as to be deserving of the moniker, “Bush Administration.” More importantly, the plans currently being considered are open to public comment (until Feb. 15), and only a few of them have these objectionable components. Now, if the campaign consisted entirely in raising awareness about the public comment period, and the caveats of certain plans, I would be writing a very different column. Instead, they have composed a statement rife with hate rhetoric which has attracted such eminent signers as former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Cindy Sheehan, and author Howard Zinn.

Now, I don’t want to draw a superficial connection between the radical left and a fictional character with an IQ of 75, but actually that is exactly what I want to do. The tragedy of Forrest Gump’s speech is that it would have been exactly what that fictional version of the peace movement needed to hear: the truth. But in reality, there is no government agent poised beside the sound board, ready to pull out the wires and silence the voice of the people. The microphone works, but all we get to hear is the struggle between us and them. They are the faceless, worthless other and we are righteous. Although this is not endemic to the far left, it does appear there. And wherever there is a willingness to gloss over the details of the opposition, there is the seed of tyranny.

Justin is a senior in religious studies. Rabble rabble rabble.