What do you consider freedom of speech?

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000

Originally posted by beezzer
reply to post by Trexter Ziam

 

So let me get this straight. You don't think this is a violation of their (Westboro) 1st Amendment right because they can still exercise that right "sometimes" in pre-determined places.

Right?

Funny... We called that a pretty serious violation of our rights in Occupy. That curfew sign the cops pointed to a few times, got pointed to by us too....we just didn't use all the fingers to do it.

The time restrictions this law brought is what makes all the difference in my mind....

That's why I brought it up. That Occupy "law" prohibits protests @ federal "areas".

Now I'm no fan of Occupy, but. . . . . when is the Tea Party (that I do participate in) going to be next?

Originally posted by Trexter Ziam
reply to post by beezzer

 

Correct.

They still can spew their hate speech and can even target funerals.

And they still are not restricted from destoying the funerals of victims of the Batman movie shoot-out in any way whatsoever.

So you're all for that "Occupy" law as well?

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by jimmyx

 

the supreme court ruling in "citizens united" is unconstitutional, but, was ruled the opposite anyway..."money" is not speech, a "corporation" has no constitutional rights, it is a business entity decribed in writing, that is structured to reflect on how it will function...nothing more.

That is a rather stunning thing to hear someone say. The Supreme Court ruling is unconstitutional? Okay, exactly who defined it from a level above those who define what is constitutional? It's more than simple choice of wording, it's a fundamental point of how the United States is structured. If the Super Court says this or that is Constitutional, then there is the new Constitutional reality until/unless another case comes along that addressed it down the road.

Almost equally important though. Here is a point I just kept my mouth shut on while with Occupy because we sure didn't agree on everything. If Corporations cannot give money to support the political outcome those who form the corporation believe best benefits them......Okay.. Let's think that through?

Exactly how do you see UNIONS as being different? Free speech for all or free speech for none. There are no gradients. The Corporation issue is often beneficial to the Right side of politics....right now. That can sure change quick though, by simple board room changes in enough of them around the same time. I have to accept it either way the cookie crumbles.

actually the head of the AFL-CIO has agreed with it...for this very narrow reason....
influencealley.nationaljournal.com...
i however, realize that if EXXON, whos profits alone are 10 billion dollars every 90 days, wanted congress to end subsidies for a cleaner and cheaper fuel that could be massed produced and distributed....they have the right to spend all of that or more on congressmen and their re-election. with 100 senators and 435 congressmen, EXXON could give each and everyone over 18 million dollars for that one 90 day profit intake...which would make union money irrelevant.

Originally posted by beezzer

So you're all for that "Occupy" law as well

No, not at all! As I was explaining to my hubby when a particular "dignitary" was to give a so-called "surprise visit" to his place of employment ... if there are secret servicemen and you are within a certain proximity of this ahem 'digitary' ... you can be put in prison for 10 years. As far as I know, the law applies even if you didn't even KNOW this 'dignitary' was going to be in the area!

That's worse than the the common entrapment tricks the police and FBI use!

It's unfair all the way around it. A person cannot even AVOID breaking that law unknowingly!

Freedom of speech needs no definition....because it speaks for itself....it is in those very words...the freedom to speak....How come it even needs defining...what is the point in that...Even in a communist country you have the freedom to speak....It is the consequences of that speech which becomes a problem....It is when a majority does not like what is being spoken...or sometimes it is the out spoken minority that decides when the speech has over stepped the bounds.....Freedom of speech is only for the masses that really agrees with what is being said...For instance...i could freely ask everyone in this thread to shut up....but i am sure that would not go down well...As the masses might step and say...we have the freedom to speak....and therefore what you just said is not accepted by the masses of this thread...so my speech has now just been discounted from having any validity.

So just because we might think we have the freedom to speak...it does not mean the speech will be taken freely...It might cost you and others dearly for the remarks that have been made....Just as we used to be able to call someone black....we can no longer do that freely...and in school now i believe the song ba ba black sheep is no longer acceptable...It is now bah bah sheep of multicolored coat ....so we have no freedom of speech in the full sense of the words...FREEDOM OF SPEECH.....we are now allocated to FREEDOM OF POLITICALLY CORRECT SPEECH......Also soon it will be do we have freedom of thought...we all know the thought police are on their way....we are at risk of just being persecuted for thoughts....like if one just puts out a thought on say twitter.....you can be held accountable for those thoughts that you put out there for the world to see.

So lets think about what freedom of speech really means .....It means you have the right to say what you want as long as it does not offend the vocally flamboyant few....In other words...say what the heck you like until it pees off the one person who is willing to take you to task on what you have stated.

Originally posted by Trexter Ziam

Originally posted by beezzer

So you're all for that "Occupy" law as well

No, not at all! As I was explaining to my hubby when a particular "dignitary" was to give a so-called "surprise visit" to his place of employment ... if there are secret servicemen and you are within a certain proximity of this ahem 'digitary' ... you can be put in prison for 10 years. As far as I know, the law applies even if you didn't even KNOW this 'dignitary' was going to be in the area!

That's worse than the the common entrapment tricks the police and FBI use!

It's unfair all the way around it. A person cannot even AVOID breaking that law unknowingly!

Okay.
So you think it is a violation of OWS's first Amendment rights with this new law that ONLY states that they have to protest at a different location.

Yet

You are FOR the law that prohibits Westboro from protesting at a specific location and time.

Care to explain that discordant harmony?

Originally posted by plube
Freedom of speech needs no definition....because it speaks for itself....it is in those very words...the freedom to speak....How come it even needs defining...what is the point in that...Even in a communist country you have the freedom to speak....It is the consequences of that speech which becomes a problem....It is when a majority does not like what is being spoken...or sometimes it is the out spoken minority that decides when the speech has over stepped the bounds.....Freedom of speech is only for the masses that really agrees with what is being said...For instance...i could freely ask everyone in this thread to shut up....but i am sure that would not go down well...As the masses might step and say...we have the freedom to speak....and therefore what you just said is not accepted by the masses of this thread...so my speech has now just been discounted from having any validity.

So just because we might think we have the freedom to speak...it does not mean the speech will be taken freely...It might cost you and others dearly for the remarks that have been made....Just as we used to be able to call someone black....we can no longer do that freely...and in school now i believe the song ba ba black sheep is no longer acceptable...It is now bah bah sheep of multicolored coat ....so we have no freedom of speech in the full sense of the words...FREEDOM OF SPEECH.....we are now allocated to FREEDOM OF POLITICALLY CORRECT SPEECH......Also soon it will be do we have freedom of thought...we all know the thought police are on their way....we are at risk of just being persecuted for thoughts....like if one just puts out a thought on say twitter.....you can be held accountable for those thoughts that you put out there for the world to see.

So lets think about what freedom of speech really means .....It means you have the right to say what you want as long as it does not offend the vocally flamboyant few....In other words...say what the heck you like until it pees off the one person who is willing to take you to task on what you have stated.

Well said and thank you for your input.

I can only hope this trend reverses itself.

i would define freedom of speech as the remit to express ones opinion(s), on any given subject, without fear or threat of censorship.
this definition, of course, is fine in principle but problematic in practice. like much in life.

reply to post by beezzer


First, I never said I was FOR the Westboro legislation. I said it was a proximity issue rather than a freedom of speech issue. Again, the secret service protected person legislation is ALSO a proximity issue, rather than a freedom of speech issue. They are MORESO restraining our location than our speech.

Furthermore, the Westboro idiots DO know under what conditions they would be arrested ... whereas in the secret service man's legislation ... you have no idea whatsoever if a particular dignitary will make a surprise visit and you get locked up for things as simple as doing your normal job.

So, no, the two are not equivalent ... Westboro has the knowledge it will be committing a crime ... whereas the other law can entrap an unaware and unsuspecting person unfairly.

Neither are directly PRIMARILY a restriction on speech. Both are restrictions on location.

Originally posted by Trexter Ziam


Neither are directly PRIMARILY a restriction on speech. Both are restrictions on location.

edit on 4/8/2012 by Trexter Ziam because: (no reason given)

Whether the cause is primary, secondary, tertiary, a violation of ones Constitutional rights still exists.

That is something you can't escape from, or explain away.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
reply to post by jimmyx

 

the supreme court ruling in "citizens united" is unconstitutional

Sigh. It doesn't even take a careful reading of the First Amendment to understand why the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act - at least a portion of it - was struck down as unconstitutional. The First Amendment is not a grant of rights, it is an express prohibition on Congress and begins as such: "Congress shall make no laws..."

The First Amendment is not a vague legislative act that is left open for all sorts of absurd interpretations. Congress shall make no laws means what it means, and no where in that First Amendment is their any implicit language suggesting that Congress can get around this prohibition by legislating restrictions on speech if it is a corporation.

really?? absurd interpretations?? you mean that the constitution was written for individual human beings, and not business entities?...the absured interpretation is that it applies to a un-democratic, anti-liberty, business entity. i think it's quite implicit that the constitution, along with the bill of rights, applys to human individuals, and not to a profit making business.

Originally posted by beezzer

Originally posted by Logarock
reply to post by beezzer

 

Westboro isnt a peaceable assembly when they unload at a funeral. Its provocative. In some states its againts the law to disrupt a lawfull assembly like a church or other meeting so this just extends to assholes that disrupt funerals. Its a lesser form of say what the Co shooter did in his disruption of a lawfull gathering of people watching a movie. He moved outside the protection of the 2A when he started shooting just as westboro moves outside the freedom of speech when they bring a blowhorn to a funeral.

Provocative. Like when the NBP calls for the deaths of white people? Or how about the KKK, when they call for the deaths of everyone else.

Yet, it is allowed.

Their is something odd about say the KKK being allowed to walk through black areas blasting on a blowhorn about race hate. I personaly dont consider that a free speech issue. The same goes for assembly of these groups on public property like say a state house. All this crap is theater and not a vaild reason for assembly on public property with police protection. Has nothing to do with redressing the government or patition of same.

reply to post by jimmyx

really?? absurd interpretations??

Really! Beezer quoted the First Amendment in his O.P., why don't you go back, actually read the text, come back and explain how that express prohibition on Congress gave them wriggle room in regards to corporations.

reply to post by jimmyx


Quite Implicit is open to interpretation. I personally don't think it says any such thing, or meant to. I don't think the Founding Fathers would have considered using the money generated from their Plantation, for instance, which was their version of the corporation.....for support of a local candidate, to be something to forbid.

Honestly, the way some of the decisions almost did go removes any doubt in my mind, but I'll stick to what it says, not what it might have or we'd like it to.

Shall pass no law....... There are no buts, asterix's or other forms of footnote markers. It's even #1, which wasn't entirely by happenstance for ordering, as I learned in the course last year.

Corp or not...That would be a law about expression. Any expression. The document doesn't differentiate, and I'm glad. My definition wouldn't make many others the least happy...and theirs are just as bad to me. Total freedom on expression is the only SANE path.

Originally posted by RealSpoke
reply to post by Logarock

 

I didn't know guns could spread complex ideas

The noise of gunfire demonstrates a breakdown in human communication, the clashing of ideas about the way things are going to be brought to a head.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
reply to post by jimmyx

 

the supreme court ruling in "citizens united" is unconstitutional

Sigh. It doesn't even take a careful reading of the First Amendment to understand why the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act - at least a portion of it - was struck down as unconstitutional. The First Amendment is not a grant of rights, it is an express prohibition on Congress and begins as such: "Congress shall make no laws..."

The First Amendment is not a vague legislative act that is left open for all sorts of absurd interpretations. Congress shall make no laws means what it means, and no where in that First Amendment is their any implicit language suggesting that Congress can get around this prohibition by legislating restrictions on speech if it is a corporation.

Political gatherings at "churches" being restricted simply becouse of a violation of a tax statute is a law that is unconstitutional. Tax or no the government found a fancy way around the ability for regular lawfull gatherings of citizens, and the pulpit, to be used as a platform......as it was with great effect during the days of the revolution.

reply to post by Logarock

Political gatherings at "churches" being restricted simply becouse of a violation of a tax statute is a law that is unconstitutional.

It is actually not unconstitutional. The 501c3 of which churches most imprudently make a contract with the IRS is a part of contract law, and Constitutionally speaking, all people have the right to contract. Indeed, the real question in regards to churches and the contracts of 501c3's is why do churches seek tax exemptions for a tax they are not even liable for?

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
reply to post by jimmyx

 

really?? absurd interpretations??

Really! Beezer quoted the First Amendment in his O.P., why don't you go back, actually read the text, come back and explain how that express prohibition on Congress gave them wriggle room in regards to corporations.

simple...the written INTENT was for HUMAN freedoms...not animals, trees, rocks, or corporations...
they ruled the way they did simply because they had the numbers ...5 to 4 in the court...and 0 on the intent

by the way, if you are so convinced the court did the right thing...then the entire constitution should equally apply across ALL THE RIGHTS as well as the restrictions.

reply to post by jimmyx

simple...the written INTENT was for HUMAN freedoms

The internet is chock full of links to The Federalist Papers, The Anti-Federalist Papers, and countless writings by the Founders in regards to INTENT, yet you, not surprisingly, declined to offer up one scintilla of evidence to support your contention that the Founders INTENT is what you say it is. Gee, I wonder why that is...

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

Excellent point about supporting documents. I wouldn't expect people outside the U.S. to be familiar with our history, but people inside it sure ought to be and better than they sometimes are. As you say, it doesn't take a Ouija Board to know their intent and the documents on display at the National locations in Washington are only a fraction of what they all wrote.

If all the rest of their writings supported the way some would twist the meaning of what is there, we'd know the names and details of things like the Federalist Papers by heart. I'm sure. As it is, most can't even say without looking it up, what they are.