Freedom of Speech

• FairwoodKing

  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.

  
  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.
• CenterBHSFan

  

  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.

  
  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?
• queencitybuckeye

  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.
• jmog

  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.

  
  1. If you think Canada is freer, then again, you might want to "read up".
  2. I have every right to say about anything I want to you, even if it "hurts" your feelings. It doesn't mean I would be "right" in doing so, but I still have THE right to do so.
  
  There is a fine line, but it is very clear.
• I Wear Pants

  Jmog is correct.
• isadore

  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.

  
  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.
• isadore

  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?

  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
• isadore

  I Wear Pants;512023 wrote:Jmog is correct.

  
  given your attitude toward our troops and their killers, your dismissal of the pain of the service people's family is hardly a surprise.
• isadore

  I Wear Pants;512023 wrote:Jmog is correct.

  
  Of course you would down play the loss to the family, trivialize it. What can you expect from someone who would say about the terrorists

  I 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.

  And would make these snide comments about the people putting their lives on the line for us

  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.

  from the Are our Troops overpaid thread.
• I Wear Pants

  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.
• CenterBHSFan

  

  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

  
  I know the difference, Isa.
  
  But, do we really want to start a precedence where the government can legislate a protection of feelings at will? We've already had that going on to some extent I know... but how far should we take it?
  
  Personally, I find the WBC absolutely despicable in their convoluted dealings. Doesn't mean that the rest of America has to be the polar opposite.
  
  I kinda like my idea where they can protest... 15 miles away from the event they want to protest.
• believer

  

  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.

  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.
• isadore

  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.

  
  $1748 a month
  the pay of an E-4 in 2006
  according to you what matthew snyder's putting his life on the line was worth
  http://www.militaryfactory.com/2006_military_pay_scale.asp
  hardly a surprise you would unvalue the life of an American serviceman
  undervalue them, and make excuses for our enemies
  the first amendment was never an unlimited right
  and it never intended to be used in this way.
• isadore

  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.
  They were people trying to live through the greatest loss family can have. The attack on them and their son was an exercise in sadism. It is past the point of despicable.
  Phelps and crew had many other options to show their twisted views that did not involve harm done to an innocent family.
• isadore

  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.
  They were people trying to live through the greatest loss family can have. The attack on them and their son was an exercise in sadism. It is past the point of despicable.
  Phelps and crew had many other options to show their twisted views that did not involve harm done to an innocent family.
  
  It is so easy for us to dismiss the pain of these families. They have done nothing but suffer the greatest hurt a family can have. Before the death and burial of their children they have not entered into the political discourse in our nation. Can you imagine someone broadcasting to the world while you are burying your child that he/she is damned to hell and that you have sent them there. That these people who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation should go through this added agony. It is something I hope you never have to feel.
  US courts have already made the separation between private and public persons. They have applied a higher standard of protection from defamation to the private figure
  “He plainly did not thrust himself into the vortex of this public issue, nor did he engage the public's attention in an attempt to influence its outcome.”
  That definition should be extended to protect private individuals in their most intimate and painful moments when they are burying their child.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertz_v._Robert_Welch,_Inc.
• BGFalcons82

  

  isadore - you will not find one person on this thread that agrees with the WBC group's tactics. You don't need to keep campaigning for them, as everyone on here is in agreement on the point that what they're doing is hateful.
  
  The argument before the SCOTUS is: Are they allowed to protest in a peaceful manner or should their right of free speech be curtailed. This country is the only one that allows freedom of speech and with that right, comes buffoons, illiterates, hateful groups, and lunatics. If the court decides that some forms of speech are hateful and should not be allowed, then we are no better than China, Russia, and the aforementioned Canada. It is a slippery slope to tyranny that has no end....just new groups of "offended" people. I think the motorcycle group drowning them out is an American form of protest against hate and appropriate. On another point....why is it everytime somebody gets "offended", they run for lawyers and courts? It's no wonder the amount of attorneys in this country have skyrocketed in the past 15-20 years. The motorcycle gang is the proper response to shut these idiots up...not more lawsuits and victims.
• isadore

  ^^^^
  What I find at this site, is one person after another trivializing what these military families suffer.
  Lets take you on in particular with your rave about frivolous lawsuits. I wonder if you would find it so trivial if your child had been killed in service to his country. When you buried him people had claimed he was damned to hell and that your raising of him had caused it. You and the rest of the supporters of the westboro church on this site all have no idea of what the Synder family has suffered. You personally spit on the Snyder family for being offended.
  In civil cases our Supreme Court has already made a separation between those involved in public discourse and those who are private persons That decision did not lower us to the level of totalitarians. It allowed those like the Snyders to live their lives and bury their son without being condemned to hell in public with the support of the media, several others on the website and you.
• BGFalcons82

  

  ^^^ I don't think you understand the issue. I don't think you understand what the majority of posters and I wrote. You are either just instigating or refusing to see the other side.
  
  I'm not spitting on anyone and I've said it a few times on this site that I find the WBC reprehensible and disgusting. I also put the KKK, skinheads, Nazi-youth, communist-sympathisers, and NAMBLA in this group of hateful scum. But....in America...they have their right to be dispicable. If we lose this right as a country, we are destined to be ruled by those we hate most.
• isadore

  ^^^^^
  What a laugh if it was not so pathetically sad and cruel. You and your accomplices supporting and making excuses for the WBC. What a bunch of BS you generate as you and your fellow haters provide mitigation for the WBC. Obviously you can not imagine or do not care in the slightest for the suffering of these families of servicemen. Their children have died in service to our country, which you obviously do not care about, and then they are assaulted with comment that their children are condemned to hell, which you do not give any significance to. Our courts have already provided a division which you in your indifference to the suffering of these parents ignore, The courts have declared a difference between public persons and private persons. They have given greater protection to those who chose not directly to be involved in public discourse. It could easily be extended to these parents, but of course you enjoy their suffering. Private persons and the burying of their children deserve protection no matter what you and your accomplices thinks.
• fan_from_texas

  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.
  

  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.

• isadore

  the feelings of the families of these dead service people are consistently undervalued in this thread.
• isadore

  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.

  
  Gosh texas I realize your complete indifference to suffering of these parent. I do not accept your analogy.
  These parents did not enter into the wider debate on the issues of our involvement in the war in Afghanistan. All they wished was to bury their children who had died in service to our nation. You and your fellow haters may wish to discount their wish. But they are private individuals who are not involved in the discussion of the war. The court has already given a separation between between the public and the private. Let us i protect the Synders and other families who have lost their children.
• DeyDurkie5

  

  Living life based on a god, real smart move in general...
• majorspark

  

  isadore;514154 wrote:^^^^
  What I find at this site, is one person after another trivializing what these military families suffer.

  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

  At most a little lip service but not one real attempt to understand the pain that the incident caused the Snyder family. They are so quick to dismiss it. The family was burying their son and they are being told he is damned to hell. That the way they raised him and his service to his country brought on that damnation. As you correctly pointed out earlier on the thread freedom of speech was guaranteed to allow criticism of the government. I am sure the Framers never considered it would be used for such a heinous purpose against private individuals at such a tragic time.