To be clear, I wouldn't really get pissed enough to call the cops on the guy. I'd be mildly annoyed, and that's about it.

Then again, if I was at the BMV (that's what it's called in Ohio, as Zanardi already pointed out), I'd probably already be pissed off... combine that with waiting for hours... Yeah I might get pretty pissed off about it. At least pissed off enough to go scream "hey man, do me a favor, and kindly shut your god damned mouth."

1. None of us were. I'm only making judgements from what was shown. None of us has anything else to go by here.
2. Sure there was. Aparantly it is something he feels strongly about. Probably the most legitimate reason to give such a presentation.
3. It just doesn't appear that he disrupted anything other than whatever the cop was doing.

Allow me to explain again. He was not in the proper place to do such a thing. This has already been explained repeatedly. At this point it's just beating a dead horse trying to get you to understand that free speech does not mean the same thing as it would in an Anarchy.

1. No, but only you are making judgments as if you were there. The rest of us are simply stating facts.
2. Feeling strongly about something isn't a reason. There is absolutely no good reason he couldn't read that Scripture elsewhere, where people would not only be more apt to listen, but he would not be disturbing business. Instead, he chose to read in a place where people are trying to get work done, where they can't just "leave" to get away from it. People were there for a reason, be it a new license, registration, etc., not to be preached to.
3. "It doesn't appear". As soon as you state that you automatically aren't qualified to speak on it.

1. "Facts"? None of us were there. Everyone here is stating opinion. At least with regards to our opinions on this and related issues.
2. I guess standing in a parking lot waiting for the state to actually do it's job might be considered what you describe. I consider myself mature enough to enjoy the opportunity to listen to a view a might not normally be exposed to. Or mature enough to simply ignore it.
3. By that reasoning you should close the thread because none of us were there. Nobody here is qualified to comment.



The question is who should be able to qualify what the "proper place" is. According to the courts current interpretation of the first amendment it shouldn't be the state.

Well, if someone tells you to stop, you should probably understand that you're being a dick. And if it's some sort of state establishment, you probably don't have the right to do that. Hell, even most public places you'd need a permit.

For example, do you think that last year Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert just held rallies at the National Mall without permits? Same concept, just on a smaller level.

Another problem is that a lot of the people that don't want to be exposed to this type of nonsense ARE familiar with it & that makes it even twice as difficult to tolerate. We shouldn't have to hide in our homes to avoid this type of idiocy. It's reasonable to assume that people could be harassed from the time they leave their front door to the time they come back through it if there were no safe places for them to do any type of business. Lines must be drawn somewhere & where they're currently drawn is quite reasonable.

Same tired arguments over and over...

Just because people "smarter than us" or even people "more familiar with the constitution" think it's more convenient to ignore our constitutional rights than to respect them, doesn't make those rights invalid.

I promise you the people that wrote those laws were not considering the bill of rights in any capacity other than how close they could come to violating them and still get away with it.

I can't believe you guys are content to roll over and play dead because the big heads in office say that's how it should be. Or maybe you just don't care about your freedoms.

Benjamin Franklin said "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

No they're trying to explain to you the laws you don't seem to understand.

You also never responded to my post. Why do you fear the end of freedom of speech when the Westboro Baptists are still technically allowed to protest funerals? Why not debate them rather than this man who was clearly asked to leave?

If you'd apply that to the Patriot Acts, I would agree.

Sarn: The First Amendment is not an absolute and literal command. It never has been.

Edit: For that matter, the only Supreme Court justice who ever believed that it was an absolute and literal command still didn't think it protected the right to protest wherever and whenever you want.



As I understand it, you're trying to argue that when we punish defamation or perjury, we're not really punishing speech, we're punishing the "secondary effects" of the speech. Do I have this right?

I think I see what you are getting at. I don't even think "secondary effects" need to occur and I'm not referring to truthful or accurate speech. When you commit perjury you have lied under oath, done something you have sworn not to do, and possibly obstructed or attempted to obstruct justice. When you slander or libel someone you have intentionally spread misinformation in order to, presumably, cause damage to them. So I think you generally have a combination of intent to cause damage and "false" speech. If you want to describe that as punishing speech, I'm okay with that but there certainly is a distinction between that and the sort of government infringement of speech we have been talking about here.



Sarn, I don't believe as others do that the First Amendment grants us freedom of speech. My interpretation is that it restricts congress' authority to infringe upon it. By my interpretation the state of California can regulate speech as it is legal to do in that state however courts have found that, despite the actual text of the amendment, it restricts lower governments as well. By the current interpretation what we saw in the video should probably be "unconstitutional" however we here are unable to resolve our opinions on whether or not he was disrupting business or allowed to be where he was.

At this point we're beating a dead horse on all sides, at least with regards to the incident in question.

Yeah, and Thomas Jefferson said that organized religion was the most dangerous force this planet has ever seen.

See, I can quote the founding fathers too.

I don't like what the Westboro Baptists are doing any more than I like that this man was arrested. I like even less that this man was arrested while the WB's have not been (afaik, correct me if I'm wrong). But just because I don't like something doesn't mean I think our Constitutional rights should be violated to prevent it.

I would, and in fact did if you'd bothered to read my posts. The difference is, I don't pick and choose where I want to apply our rights and where I want to ignore them, like everyone else seems to want to do.

Only because we haven't taken it as such. But that's our failing.


"Justice Douglas authored a dissenting opinion in which Chief Justice Warren and Justices Brennan and Fortas concurred. Douglas argued that the protesters did not engage in or threaten violence or block the entrance of the jail. Public officials should not, according to this vision of the First Amendment, be given discretion to decide which public places can be used for the expression of ideas."(from your link. This is my opinion in a nutshell. Did those 4 judges suffer from the Dunning–Kruger effect also, mb?

By the wording of the 1st Amendment, it shouldn't just restrict the government's authority to infringe upon it; it should eliminate it. Congress shall make *no law* ... abridging the freedom of speech. It's there in black and white. How can you not take it at face value? It's not written to be ambiguous.

I completely agree. What's your point?

fwoooooosh


I asked you why you fear that freedom of speech is in danger if the Westboro baptists are still allowed to do what they do.

No. It's because it's logically impossible to take the First Amendment as literal and absolute and still give any effect force to the Intellectual Property Clause, and also because it's impossible to reconcile a literal and absolute First Amendment with the Framers' acceptance of defamation laws.

Hay guys. I heard the second amendment says im allowed to carry a gun wherever i want to! is that rite?

Or am I just a moron who doesn't understand the Bill of Rights?

I dunno, you kinda sound like a terrorist who wants to murder innocent FREEDOM loving Americans.

WHAT? I have FREEDOM! You can't make laws that say I can't do things! I'M FREE!

And now you're distrustful of people who are smarter than you? Will your prejudices never end?

No. I'm distrustful of lawmakers who make laws that subvert my constitutional rights.

And I don't automatically trust people who are smarter than me.

No, you seem to do the opposite. You don't comprehend more intelligent arguments so you throw them out.

You don't comprehend that someone can comprehend and still disagree with your retarded arguments.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Pot, Kettle, Black.

Some assembly required.

This seems very reminiscent of...something...

↓

Bad posting?

you know what? you can go to hell

this thread is now about why Wookie06 is a bad person for not liking The Big Lebowski

I wasn't going to say anything, but yeah, Jesus Christ.

I've never seen the Big Lebowski, but this thread contains a peer review that has most certainly tainted my opinion so now I do not like it.

"Forget it, Alan, you're out of your element." --Walter Sobchak

Shut the **** up, alan.

Yeah, well, yknow that's just like-ah, your opinion, man.

The NetBIOS name of my file server at home is Walter, which I gave it because it's big, loud, and obnoxious.

The latter. It clearly says you're allowed to carry an arm everywhere you want to, nothing about guns. I love the Bill of Rights so much that I carry two!

Bear arms!?

Gee, it couldn't have something to do with the fact that WB actually respects laws and rights, could it? Just because you hate them doesn't make it illegal.


It's the opposite. You're the only one who wants to ignore rights. See, it seems to be that you forget that people have OTHER rights, which no man's right is allowed to interfere.



I'd say the funniest part about this is that you think that free speech is what the issue is here.

I find it sad that Sarn still thinks free speech means you can say whatever you want whenever you want, and then whines when people tell him he's stupid.

That's not even the issue, seriously. Yes, Sarn doesn't get that either, but it had nothing to do with what the guy was saying, and everything about where he was saying it. Which is something freedom of speech does not entail at all. Sarn seems incapable of comprehending this.

I know that, CM... my point is that... ****.... Sarn seriously manages to be so wrong about this that he's literally being wrong about things that he's not even trying to say. This is stupid on a level that we've never seen before.