100,000 Protestors... Angry mobs of students...

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by tracilicious

I'm not sure when, that's just how it is. Students can't distribute written materials without school approval, they can't wear what they want, teachers can't teach whatever they want, school libraries can't carry whatever books they want. I'm not saying that's how it should be, I'm just saying that's how it is. I think that makes the free speech issue here moot because free speech doesn't exist on school property.

Well, I might interpret that differently. In many ways the same thing applies to me in the workplace - that is there are restrictions on my exercise of free speech that are conditions of my employment. I could still exercise free speech, but my employer could fire me. I suspect I could do the same in a public schoool - though I might be charged with tresspass, if I actually entered the school grounds.

[tracilicious]

Yes, I suppose that's true. But if you can do something with consequences attached, then you aren't really free to do that thing.

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by tracilicious

Yes, I suppose that's true. But if you can do something with consequences attached, then you aren't really free to do that thing.

But everything has consequences, and exercising freedoms should have some responsibilities attached for what some of those consequences might be - fire getting out of control and gutting the school building for example.

[tracilicious]

Originally Posted by Nephythys

Link



Ok, so these people tear down his flag, then come back to take it again? They want this country to welcome immigrants, they came here for some reason and this is how they behave?

Get the fvck out!

First of all, you are assuming that the people that did this are illegal immigrants. This may not be true. Second, a few people did something jerky. They are not representative of the millions of immigrants in this country. I suppose the reason that most of them come is that they want to make the best life that they can for themselves and their families.

Using the "their using our services without paying taxes argument" is true of many very poor people, white, Mexican, or otherwise. If they did file income taxes, it's likely that they would get refunds even if they have no tax responsibility. And they do pay taxes, just by shopping at American businesses.

[tracilicious]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

But everything has consequences, and exercising freedoms should have some responsibilities attached for what some of those consequences might be - fire getting out of control and gutting the school building for example.

You can hold a protest and burn whatever flags you want without consequences if you aren't on school property, so I would consider that a freedom. I would not consider breaking and entering a freedom, because you'll be thrown in jail. I think it's more semantics than anything else.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by tracilicious

I think that makes the free speech issue here moot because free speech doesn't exist on school property.

Yes it does, for the most part. The Supreme Court has ruled that public school administrators must show a substantial disruption to school operations prior to making content-based restrictions. They are given broader leeway in creating general policies but they can very rarely prohibit specific speech.

Originally Posted by tracilicious

Students can't distribute written materials without school approval,

The SC has addressed this specific issue in Papish and ruled exactly that students could distribute written materials without approval so long as the method distribution did not disrupt school operations (for example they could stand in the hallway between classes handing it out but they couldn't barge into classrooms during session to do so).

But again this is a difference I don't necessarily have a problem with (that is the school having administrative punishments for certain speech) vs. the criminal justice system punishing certain speech.

[innerSpaceman]

Well, then I would suggest the matter of whose property the flag was is very salient, as Alex previously suggested. Because if the property burned did not belong to the kid lighting the fire, whether in protest or not, it was a case of arson. Lighting fire to someone else's property in protest is not free speech. It matters not if the property has some symbolic meaning that burning conveys.


I think criminal prosecution of this particular matter is absurd. But I can see where it clearly falls into criminal jurisdiction.



edited to add:

Also, it need not be your own ignited property to protect you from criminal intent. I suppose the KKK brings its own crosses. Where does the Supreme Court stand on that?

Is speech protected when it's hate speech? When it's initimidating speech?

Is flag burning merely a political statement? Or can it be hate speech and/or threatening?

[Alex]

In my opinion intimidating speech and hate speech should be protected but I apparently lost that argument a long time ago.

As soon as you create special criminal categories for those two things then it is all just a fight to define which hate is worse than other hate and it is in the best interested of the targeted group to at least pretend to be intimidated.

[innerSpaceman]

Is bribery ok then? Jury tampering? Yelling "fire" in a crowded nightclub?

How absolutist is your free-speech desire?

[Alex]

Offering a bribe should be fine, for if it is rejected then there was no negative impact. Giving a bribe and taking a bribe are different.

Yelling fire in a crowded nightclub should be legal. Contributing to 200 people stampeding and thus killing two people should probably open you up to certain criminal consequences and definitely a lot of civil ones. Have you committed a crime if you should "Fire" in a crowded nightclub and nobody reacts? I don't think so.


Attempting to shape the verdict of a juror (purely through speech) outside of the appropriate channels is a situation in which I think content-specific prohibitions on speech are apparopriate. But attempting to engage in such speech should not necessarily be illegal (writing a letter to a juror but accidentally addressing it to the wrong person, for example, should have no penatly).

Pretty absolutist. Essentially, there are situations where speech can reasonably result in actions or behaviors that should be controlled but the speech itself should not, ipso facto, be illegal.