jmog;511065 wrote:1. If you think Canadians are "freer", you are not a very smart person (nicest I could say it).
2. These people are idiots, but have the right to be idiots.
FairwoodKing;511888 wrote:1. I'm a very smart person. I don't have to defend myself to you.
2. Yes, these people are idiots, but they don't have the right to hurt others through their idiocy.
FairwoodKing;511888 wrote:1. I'm a very smart person. I don't have to defend myself to you.
2. Yes, these people are idiots, but they don't have the right to hurt others through their idiocy.
queencitybuckeye;512008 wrote:I find the idea of the government "limiting" our freedoms far more troubling than this group of fleas shouting filth at a funeral. Far more.
there are hurts and there are hurts. that dress makes your ass look fat hurt and then what was said to these families of the dead service people.CenterBHSFan;511954 wrote:Every person that has ever lived on this planet has said things that have intentionally or otherwise hurt other people's feelings. How should we all be punished?
I Wear Pants;512023 wrote:Jmog is correct.
I Wear Pants;512023 wrote:Jmog is correct.
And would make these snide comments about the people putting their lives on the line for usI wear pants wrote: So we have the right to just run roughshod over anyone and they are automatically the bad guys for using gorilla/brutal tactics that are their only real way to fight.
from the Are our Troops overpaid thread.I wear Pants wrote:Almost anyone can do it. I go sign up right now and I have a job. Don't know of any other profession or business that works like that.
isadore;512712 wrote:there are hurts and there are hurts. that dress makes your ass look fat hurt and then what was said to these families of the dead service people.
join the marines, die in service, so people can spit on your family and your grave
The government also has an obligation to protect free speech even if that speech offends.isadore;512711 wrote:lets completely trivialize what these people have done. it is so easy for us to diminish the harm done to them. it is only words.
they have attacked this private family at a time of unbelieveable emotional pain. The worst fear of parents has been realized as h child has been lost and they are told that his service for his country have damned him. the parents are told they raised him to be damned.
A governent has a responsibility to protect the innocent from harm, these people are innocent, what was said caused them harm.
I Wear Pants;513041 wrote:Is it inaccurate? The troops aren't overpaid but they aren't really underpaid either. About right.
You're the one who doesn't like the first amendment.
I am unaware at the time of the death of their son and his funeral the Snyder family had taken public positions. This is not an attack on people who had personally involved themselves in the public discourse.believer;513105 wrote:The government also has an obligation to protect free speech even if that speech offends.
Do I think what WBC does is despicable? Yes. Do I defend their right to spew their venom? Yes. Can local authorities protect the military families by keeping groups like WBC from getting near the funeral ceremonies/cemeteries? Yes....and they should.
But the authorities also need to permit WBC to say what they want to say even if it offends. When we limit someone's right to free speech because it's offensive to someone else, all of our freedoms and liberties go down the crapper.
WBC's "protests" are ignorant and hateful....but I'll defend their right to be stupid as long as I'm still at liberty to freely say they are ignorant and hateful.
I am unaware at the time of the death of their son and his funeral the Snyder family had taken public positions. This is not an attack on people who had personally involved themselves in the public discourse.believer;513105 wrote:The government also has an obligation to protect free speech even if that speech offends.
Do I think what WBC does is despicable? Yes. Do I defend their right to spew their venom? Yes. Can local authorities protect the military families by keeping groups like WBC from getting near the funeral ceremonies/cemeteries? Yes....and they should.
But the authorities also need to permit WBC to say what they want to say even if it offends. When we limit someone's right to free speech because it's offensive to someone else, all of our freedoms and liberties go down the crapper.
WBC's "protests" are ignorant and hateful....but I'll defend their right to be stupid as long as I'm still at liberty to freely say they are ignorant and hateful.
I imagine that nearly any jury would find picketing of soldiers’ funerals, with signs such as “Thank God for dead soldiers,” to be outrageous. But the law would potentially cover much more than such speech — and, if upheld under the First Amendment, it would apply even in cases where juries aren’t involved, such as university expulsion decisions under campus speech codes and the like. Say a university bans posting the Mohammed cartoons on the grounds that they are so “outrageous” that they recklessly inflict “severe emotional distress” on Muslim students (who aren’t, of course, public figures). Or say it bans speech that’s harshly critical of race-based affirmative action, and suggests that people admitted under such programs are not adequately qualified to be at the university.
Or say a plaintiff sues a newspaper that published a letter to the editor stating, “We can stop the murders of American soldiers in Iraq by those who seek revenge or to regain their power. Whenever there is an assassination or another atrocity we should proceed to the closest mosque and execute five of the first Muslims we encounter. After all this is a ‘Holy War’ and although such a procedure is not fair or just, it might end the horror. Machiavelli was correct. In war it is more effective to be feared than loved and the end result would be a more equitable solution for both giving us a chance to build a better Iraq for the Iraqis.” (I should stress that I find this view repugnant, but it seems to me that it must be protected by the First Amendment.)
In all these cases, a reasonable factfinder could indeed conclude that the speech is “outrageous” and recklessly inflicts “severe emotional distress” on some private figures. You or I might disagree, but we should expect some government actors, whether jurors or university officials, to take such a view. And if the intentional infliction of emotional distress could apply to such speech, then the speech would be effectively stripped of constitutional protection.
fan_from_texas;514230 wrote:Isadore, I think you're missing the point on some of the practical implications of your position, and you're either misunderstanding or deliberately ignoring SCOTUS' public/private distinction. For a good overview of the legal ramifications, you should check out Volokh on the issue.
E.g.
Most said they should be limited as to how close they could get to a funeral. Most from what I read would limit them to being out of site. But when you perceive someone to be in disagreement with you out comes these blanket unfounded accusations. Perhaps you missed my posts? Some may IMO misunderstand the purpose the freedom of speech. But I know damn well it is not because they are in any way unsympathetic to the loss of military families.isadore;514154 wrote:^^^^
What I find at this site, is one person after another trivializing what these military families suffer.