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Termyn8or -> RE: Legislation against Westboro? (4/16/2011 1:58:07 PM)
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"Let's suppose you have serious disagreements with Obama's fiscal policies and you wish to address him personally on the matter in the oval office. Not gonna happen. Have your rights to freedom of speech been denied? Nope. "
Actually that's debatable, but let's not.
"If you think the WBC's constitutional rights to free speech are being denied ..."
Technically they are, but.... I am not fond of the idea that in most places you need to get a premit to have a demonstration in public. However rights are curtailed for all by the ones who abuse them. For example if the KKK and the NAACP wanted to demonstrate one block from each other, a city in it's right mind would deny one of them a permit - for that day. This is logical because it's liable to cause a dangerous situation.
Having funerals on private property would not be a bad idea, but it is not practical usually. Let's say I got a bunch of people who want to protest - Obama's fiscal policies. In almost any city I would have to get a permit. This is not even something that is likely to incite a riot, in fact the crowd would be likely to grow. Why do I need a permit ? Because there might be something else going on, and if someone else has that time and place alloted to them, I just have to wait until the next day or something.
Why doesn't WBC need a permit ? Surely no city would issue them a permit, ON THE GROUNDS that they are likely to cause trouble.
Now if someone is wrongly denied a permit, they can fight city hall. And as much as I hate to say it, enacting a federal law against certain types of protest is plain old unconstitutional. So are alot of things. If you understand the Constitution this type of shit should creep you out.
So tit for tat. Perhaps the greiving are not considered dangerous, but there are other people. Feel strongly about this ? Get over there and protest the protest. If they can protest a funeral, we can protest them.
The fact is that Constitutional rights have been curtailed, and unfortunately it was necessary. I would need a permit to organise a protest against the price of corn. Perhaps the biofuel proponents would show up at the same time and start trouble ? I think not.
No matter how much we would love to throw the WBC's whole lot into a tree chipper, this legislation is as unconstitutional as the Sedition act, and that was when ? Sorry, I don't read between the lines, I read the lines. It was wrong then and it is wrong now.
Other methods should be employed to keep these assholes away from places where they do not belong. It's been done before. It just shouldn't have to become a federal case.
In the final analysis, Constitutional rights are eroded because of stupidity. "The idea of freedom is impossible of realisation because no one knows how to use it with moderation." . Sad but true.
T^T
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