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The Water Cooler
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Westboro Baptist Church - Protesting Oklahoman churches
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<blockquote data-quote="AC37" data-source="post: 1386247" data-attributes="member: 133"><p>Frequent oversimplification/misintrepration; you <em>do</em> have the right you yell fire in a crowded theater; what you don't have is a right to do it <em>falsely</em> (i.e. no fire), which is, ironically enough, what whole statement/crime hinges on. What a difference a single word can make! <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater</a></p><p></p><p>To further clarify, saying/making it illegal to yell fire in crowded theater would be prior restraint (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_restraint#Prior_restraint_in_the_United_States);" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_restraint#Prior_restraint_in_the_United_States);</a> which to paraphrase is to stop you from doing something/owning something before you do it/own it, on the basis you might do it/use it wrong. Easy example: making a law banning lawnmower ownership/possession because a person might use one to brutally attack a playground full of schoolchildren would be an illegal law.</p><p></p><p>IOW: you can't tell a lie causes lots of people to kill/injure one another unnecessarily. Along the lines of slander or libel - it's not illegal to say something damaging to a person or company, it <em>is</em> illegal to do so when that statement is factually incorrect. IOW: the truth is its own best defense.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>While I would agree with you that on a societal level that a funeral is a <em>semi</em>-private event and WBC protests are at best in very poor taste, AFAIK, from a legal and practical perspective most funerals are held in at least a semi-public public place outdoors with limited or even nonexistent restricted access; making them in practice a semi-public event. </p><p></p><p>I think of a lot of people misunderstand the 1A; from my studies how it seems to be intended is, "this is a completely gov't (fed, state, local) hands-off topic, not open for debate." No addt'l laws respecting or denying the 1A, one way or the other. Let things sort themselves out - but without violence, one way or the other (which is all the law is, by definition - situations that gov't-sanctioned violence has been deemed OK).</p><p></p><p>The problem is when people don't and convince themselves that one exception to the 1A is OK is extreme circumstances, then two, then three; next thing you know, another fundamental right has ceased to exist in practice, and we have yet another limited, revocable privilege managed by an inept, top-heavy bureaucracy made up of "leaders" unfit to run their own lives, let alone direct the lives of over a quarter billion people. </p><p></p><p>"Somehow the notion of unalienable liberty got lost. It's really become a question of what liberties will the state assign to individuals or rather, what liberties we will have the strength to cling to." Paul Denton</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AC37, post: 1386247, member: 133"] Frequent oversimplification/misintrepration; you [I]do[/I] have the right you yell fire in a crowded theater; what you don't have is a right to do it [I]falsely[/I] (i.e. no fire), which is, ironically enough, what whole statement/crime hinges on. What a difference a single word can make! [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater[/url] To further clarify, saying/making it illegal to yell fire in crowded theater would be prior restraint ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_restraint#Prior_restraint_in_the_United_States);[/url] which to paraphrase is to stop you from doing something/owning something before you do it/own it, on the basis you might do it/use it wrong. Easy example: making a law banning lawnmower ownership/possession because a person might use one to brutally attack a playground full of schoolchildren would be an illegal law. IOW: you can't tell a lie causes lots of people to kill/injure one another unnecessarily. Along the lines of slander or libel - it's not illegal to say something damaging to a person or company, it [I]is[/I] illegal to do so when that statement is factually incorrect. IOW: the truth is its own best defense. While I would agree with you that on a societal level that a funeral is a [I]semi[/I]-private event and WBC protests are at best in very poor taste, AFAIK, from a legal and practical perspective most funerals are held in at least a semi-public public place outdoors with limited or even nonexistent restricted access; making them in practice a semi-public event. I think of a lot of people misunderstand the 1A; from my studies how it seems to be intended is, "this is a completely gov't (fed, state, local) hands-off topic, not open for debate." No addt'l laws respecting or denying the 1A, one way or the other. Let things sort themselves out - but without violence, one way or the other (which is all the law is, by definition - situations that gov't-sanctioned violence has been deemed OK). The problem is when people don't and convince themselves that one exception to the 1A is OK is extreme circumstances, then two, then three; next thing you know, another fundamental right has ceased to exist in practice, and we have yet another limited, revocable privilege managed by an inept, top-heavy bureaucracy made up of "leaders" unfit to run their own lives, let alone direct the lives of over a quarter billion people. "Somehow the notion of unalienable liberty got lost. It's really become a question of what liberties will the state assign to individuals or rather, what liberties we will have the strength to cling to." Paul Denton [/QUOTE]
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