Westboro to protest 9-year-old's funeral

[NRAMARINE]

Go check which portion of which post I bolded, and see if you really believe that I took issue with ANYTHING you had posted.

I think you misunderstood my intention. I don't believe you took exception, nor did I. I was essentially agreeing with you in principal, and trying to clarify what I meant earlier. Sometimes my mind moves faster than I can type and I don't explain myself correctly.


These "protestors" are supposed to be adults. And as such should know better and understand decency, if they do not, they need to be taught a lesson in manners.


"Oh, you're not a freakin nazi? Excuse me, how about a human being? You one of those, or are you gonna tell me you never smelled the bodies!?!?" Private Charles Webb, Easy Company, WWII

 

[nonameisgood]

Grapeshot: I'm only pointing out that what the "good reverend" is doing is free speech, repulsive and possibly disengenuous, but unless his folks break a law (and not one made special for them) we have no reason to silence them.
Many on this board seem to think that having to go without a sidearm for an hour is the end of their rights, but they don't seem the least bit concerned about infringing on someone else's "rights" for a couple of hours.

Wrightme, there is no right to privacy in a public place. The Phelpsians would be on public property (or possibly on private property with permission) along a street. No privacy issues at all. All of the hostility folks feel toward them is them manipulating the public (maybe for a payday, maybe to get the publicity.)

Many of these discussions end up with people trying to enumerate rights that are not rights. There is no right to say or do what you want while on someone else's property, even if it is open to the public. And the Constitution applies to government not to property and business owners.

 

[Grapeshot]

Grapeshot: I'm only pointing out that what the "good reverend" is doing is free speech, repulsive and possibly disengenuous, but unless his folks break a law (and not one made special for them) we have no reason to silence them.

Wasn't intending to make personal remarks to you.

These people and their business ventures do frost part of my anatomy.

 

[marshaul]

See, you DO understand the point I was making. You just seemingly propose that it isn't applicable to one case, but for YOUR example, it is applicable.

That is exactly my point. So you should be agreeing with me, as opposed to disagreeing with me.

I agreed that protesters have the potential to violate the right to privacy of funeral goers.

I did not agree to the necessity of an arbitrary 300' no-free-speech zone.

 

[palerider116]

The first and second amendments do not give a person carte blanche to do as they please. There are limitations that are reasonable though we may disagree with them - for example, a person not wanting weapons on their privately owned property. If someone doesn't want me to carry a firearm on their property, their right as a property owner outweighs my second amendment right in that regards. Now I may choose not to wave that right and not step foot on their property, but my right is not superior to the owner's.

The same goes for the first amendment. My right of free speech does not give me the right to stand up in the middle of a church service and start shouting over the minister's sermon. It does not give me the right to stand in the middle of the movie theater and start singing (horribly) at the top of my lungs. It does not give me the right to incite a riot or call for violence against another.

Granted, it is a slippery slope when making a law against any fundamental right. The reasonableness and aim of the law must be evaluated. Protesting a 9 year old's funeral? I'm sure the founding fathers were concerned about the citizens' right to make a spectacle at a 9 year old's funeral. /sarcasm off

Redressing grievances against the government = fundamental right

Acting ignorant and making a scene at a 9 year old's funeral = makes a mockery of that fundamental right.

Unfortunately, the Common family is nearing extinction... common defense, common sense, and now common decency.

 

[marshaul]

Acting ignorant and making a scene at a 9 year old's funeral = makes a mockery of that fundamental right.

And what if the parents wish there to be a protest? Are they now to be prohibited from having it within 300' of themselves during the funeral?

 

[NRAMARINE]

The first and second amendments do not give a person carte blanche to do as they please. There are limitations that are reasonable though we may disagree with them - for example, a person not wanting weapons on their privately owned property. If someone doesn't want me to carry a firearm on their property, their right as a property owner outweighs my second amendment right in that regards. Now I may choose not to wave that right and not step foot on their property, but my right is not superior to the owner's.

The same goes for the first amendment. My right of free speech does not give me the right to stand up in the middle of a church service and start shouting over the minister's sermon. It does not give me the right to stand in the middle of the movie theater and start singing (horribly) at the top of my lungs. It does not give me the right to incite a riot or call for violence against another.

Granted, it is a slippery slope when making a law against any fundamental right. The reasonableness and aim of the law must be evaluated. Protesting a 9 year old's funeral? I'm sure the founding fathers were concerned about the citizens' right to make a spectacle at a 9 year old's funeral. /sarcasm off

Redressing grievances against the government = fundamental right

Acting ignorant and making a scene at a 9 year old's funeral = makes a mockery of that fundamental right.

Unfortunately, the Common family is nearing extinction... common defense, common sense, and now common decency.

Well put.

 

[wrightme]

And what if the parents wish there to be a protest? Are they now to be prohibited from having it within 300' of themselves during the funeral?

If they are the ones doing some action in concert with the funeral service, it isn't a 'protest.'

 

[nonameisgood]

As far as I can tell, mockeries are still legal. I'm not saying we support these people, only that we defend their right to speak in public (and not within the context of other people's private function.). Nothing says we can't acknowledge their right while telling them they suck for disturbing people in a time of mourning. It's legal, not socially acceptable.

And if they are just trying to make money and not a "moral" point, the facts need to be broadcast far and wide.

 

[marshaul]

If they are the ones doing some action in concert with the funeral service, it isn't a 'protest.'

How do you figure? In no case is anybody protesting the funeral itself. They are protesting what, in their minds, lead to the funeral.

What if the parents wanted to have a Brady Bunch anti-gun protest at their funeral? Or right outside the area of the funeral service itself, but within 300'?

What you're trying to say is that they, being "in concert" with the funeral, wouldn't be disrupting it, which is what I've been saying a proper law would address in the first place.

It would still be a "protest", however, if they were explicitly protesting something, regardless of if it were "in concert" or not.

 

[crisisweasel]

I can't believe any gun owner would support a restriction on the First Amendment on the grounds of "reasonableness," which is the basis by which people attempt to infringe the Second. "Common sense" gun laws. "Reasonable" gun laws.

Secondly, those who really like to trot out the fire in a crowded theater argument ought to read up - if they haven't - on what this argument was used to justify.

I have always argued that it would be worth it to put up with jackasses yelling fire in a crowded theater, if it meant that people couldn't use this argument to attempt to infringe any and all rights and freedoms which make this uncomfortable.

"Fire in a crowded theater" was used to justify censorship.

I hope you are comfortable with that, if you are using this as justification to infringe the rights of others. Further, I trust you won't protest when the same logic is used to shut you up, when your anti-government language is suddenly twisted by some miserable court into "incitement."

There is nothing reasonable about restricting the Westboro Baptist Church's freedom to protest. Nothing. Yes, they're a vile, nasty organization. But as with burning a flag, this is the price of freedom. We insist on a rugged conception of rights when we insist on the right to carry pretty much any small arm wherever we damn please.

We should feel obligated, by the same logic, to be equally consistent on the First Amendment. The damage done by once again granting power to the state to go ahead and infringe someone's rights because we don't like what they have to say, outweighs any damage done by an already marginal group of nuts at a funeral.

A free society will not always be a polite, antiseptic, non-threatening one. People will insist on publishing vile crap, offending people, and sometimes scaring them.

I'm good with that. There are countries all over the world where you can defer to the state -- where the state will protect you from vile bigots at funerals, pornography...or the spectre of people like yourselves carrying guns.

We're supposed to do things different here. If Westboro isn't a key test of our resolve and our principles, I don't know what is. It is because they are as offensive and nasty and unlikeable as they are that we ought to insist on their First Amendment rights here, because it is on the fringes where you find the state hacking away at liberty. The big calibers. The automatic weapons. Abusive hardcore pornography. The "extreme." It always starts there and spreads.

If I ever wind up dying in a shooting massacre, invite Westboro up to gloat about my death onto the stairs of the church. Build them a platform with money from my estate, and give them a megaphone as well, and a security detail to make sure no one tries to shut them up. Provide them with all the photographs of me they want so they can make their absurd and sad little placards of me, burning in the flames of hell.

Because there is nothing Westboro can say or do that is more offensive to me than inviting the state in to silence or otherwise restrict the rights of other human beings on my behalf. Nothing.

I continue to be surprised at the number of supposedly freedom-loving people who do not share this point of view.

Statolatry to "reasonable" infringements of rights...it's all statism to me.

 

[Grapeshot]

No one has been made King for a day.

Your rights stop where my rights begin.

 

[crisisweasel]

No one has been made King for a day.

Your rights stop where my rights begin.

Which would be the property line of wherever the funeral is being held.

 

[marshaul]

Which would be the property line of wherever the funeral is being held.

Yup. Good post above, crisisweasel. I agree completely.

And the "fire in a crowded theater" has never once, since its inception, been used to justify something legitimate, likely because real instances of rights superficially appearing to overlap are either far too easy to resolve, or far too complicated for this to be of any use.

Rights cannot overlap. Properly understood, each right is defined and limited by the sphere of others' equal rights. One never has a right to impede a contract between a theater owner and his patrons, nor to endanger the lives of the patrons were he to cause a stampede.

This is a far cry from the right to free speech being "limited". The right to free speech is unlimited. But actions which infringe on others' rights are never within your own right in the first place.

The argument is akin to arguing that my right to open carry a handgun is limited, because I cannot draw on people and scream at them while pointing my gun at them. The simple fact is that the latter act is in no way an element of the first right, even though I may have open carried in order to then brandish and threaten.

The theater example isn't an instance of a right needing to be abridged before it is taken too far. It is an instance of something which was never even an element of a right, being conflated with that right, in order to weaken and debase the right.

You may think it's two ways of expressing the same idea, but I beg to differ. Look at the ramifications: Schenck v. United States was used to restrict something which clearly falls within the domain of right. How would that be justifiable under my analysis? Answer: it wouldn't.

Be careful whose precedent you spew!