Legislators quick to limit Free Speech to protect Grieving Families
POSTED BY: AnthonyT
UPDATED: Monday, January 24, 2011 02:36
VIEWED: 6327
PAGE 2 of 9
Hello,
Any private property owner can do what they wish in terms of restricting property access and regulating entry- except where discrimination can be claimed against a business owner. However, the legislation in question does not lean on that fact, and does have an arbitrary distance figure on it that extends past private property.
It's a lot like the rules about how close you can get to a school with a weapon. It's possible to live at a house within the restricted zone. It's possible to be forced by virtue of geography to drive through the restricted zone.
100 yards is a long ways, and it means that if there's a funeral in progress, you can't be on any nearby public or private land with a protest sign or perhaps not even a protest on your lips.
The counter-protest wall-of-humans idea was a good solution to this problem that used freedom to stand against freedom. This law just dismays me, even if it proves to be temporary.
--Anthony
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Saw a piece in the paper yesterday- bunch of locals are organizing an " Angels' wings" thing- gonna build giant ( like 8 x 10) angels wings out of white cloth, carry them between the Westboros and the funeral parties. It aparrently started out as 1 college girl suggesting it online, she got 1000's o volunteers and some corporate backing.
If it happens-- if it works-- will be an elegant solution, and prove that the gov't doesn't have to do anything, that good people can stand up and do a right thing, solve a problem for themselves and others.
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I'm with Cuda I'm afraid; anything that keeps the Westboro from their hideous, hateful activities is fine with me, and I don't find 300 feet from a funeral any problem. I don't see it as a slippery slope, especially if it won't last...I just hope EVERYWHERE the Westboro 
show up, the state does the same.
It's pure insanity (well, we already know they're insane)...a nine-year-old girl?!?!?! 
Let's get real; this isn't about free speech, this is about the unconscionable acts of the Westboro 
only.
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off 
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"anything that keeps the Westboro from their hideous, hateful activities is fine with me"
Hello,
Those are the precise words that allow the government to strip our freedoms away. A lot of times we like to imagine the theft of our freedoms as a top-down effort, but I think seeing things that way is a terrible mistake.
Laws that strip our freedoms away seem to be bottom-up most of the time. Someone, somewhere, does something repugnant and awful. Then we DEMAND that the government do something about it. Anything that keeps X from performing their hideous, hateful activities is fine with us. Just get it done.
And so it gets done.
And that's always just fine, till it gets done to us.
A seed is not an Oak tree. But you don't get an Oak tree without the seed.
When we surrender to impulses like this, we are nurturing the seed and growing the tree that will cast us all in shadow.
--Anthony
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didn't a lot of protesters get rounded up before some Republican conventions too...I think I remember this
no charges were filed because no laws were broken, and there was nothing really legal about the detainment...but it happened, and it didn't really set any precedent for the rest of us exactly...
but it did what they wanted it to do in the short term.
Using such tactics for specific cases and then saying, "oops, that wasn't constitutional, or legal?" seems like a bad way for us to let our legal system run...even if we don't like the target.
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Quote:Yep.
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
When we surrender to impulses like this, we are nurturing the seed and growing the tree that will cast us all in shadow.
At least, that is what my head said. My heart is saying, "Thank God." Happens sometimes.
(And no, I'm not Anthony.)
Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.
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Righteous, I agree, about a bad way to run a legal system.
Anthony, I don't live in a world of black and white. Westboro can still do it's unconscionable protesting 300 feet from a funeral, they're not being censored. Given the legislation pertains specifically to FUNERALS, I do not see it as a slippery slope.
There are some things in which fears of government abuse versus common sense come down on the side of common sense, in my opinion. It is just my opinion, but I don't think this instance is a forewarning of things to come, of slippery slopes.
Our laws are misused in many ways, by lawyers, by legislators, by police and others who use them to shield things which are wrong, but allowed by law. I find that much more disconcerting than a law to keep people from disrupting the ability of people to grieve at a funeral for the "protesters'" own filthy agenda.
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off
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Hello,
It is no small irony.
In a post about free speech, I've found my thread title changed.
The slippery slope isn't just in the law. Sometimes it exists within the individual as well.
--Anthony
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This whole thing is an obvious ploy.
Someone who opposes free speech, probably the media, but some arm of the powers that be, has been backing supporting securing and protecting these morons in the hopes that some family will get so upset they will sign on to some court case that will kill the first amendment.
The fact is that the phelps have broken many many laws in their protests, and they are being protected, so that this can become about Americans opposing free speech, also, the govt, provides them with security so no one will stomp them. We have a rit to free speech, but not free taxpayer funded security to harass others.
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Hey, Sockpuppet. Who are you again?
Did you just misspell "right" on purpose as part of your disguise? 
Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
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Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.
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