Apparently you have no concept of personal rights, or law as it pertains to those rights for that matter.
Well, I am far from a lawyer, if I wanted to be a potato I'd just go stand on the corner and save my self from the mind numbing hell that must be reading encyclopedic amounts of case law.
Here's a little for ya...
The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.
That's a nice quote, but being unfamiliar with it I decided to see where it came from. Quite a surprise to find out that it comes not from an American work but from a French document "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen". We're discussing the Constitution of the United States of America here and how it pertains to Americans on American soil, not the finer points of the French revolution so I will respond with a quote I find appropriate.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Now, let's go into Mill's Harm Principle for a minute.
"If in fact the offense is profound enough to allow for prohibition...
If pornographers engaged in the same behavior, parading through neighborhoods where they were likely to meet great resistance and cause profound offense, they too should be prevented from doing so. It is clear, therefore, that the crucial component of the offense principle is the avoidability of the offensive material. For the argument to be consistent, it must follow that many forms of hate speech should still be allowed if the offense is easily avoidable."
That's actually some pretty good stuff, I enjoyed the bit of reading up on it I did. But has it ever been used in the context we are talking here?
Lets look at freedom of assembly for a moment. "The government may place restrictions on the right to assemble that will maintain law and order, facilitate traffic, protect private property and reduce noise congestion. The courts allow these restrictions,
as long as the restrictions are not aimed at squelching a particular group's free speech because it is unpopular or not liked."
The bold part is the important part. Any restrictions that you would put in place to try and silence one group has to be applied to others. Maybe a sly way around it would be to call an emergency city council meeting and ram an ordinance through that restores full property rights over sidewalks to the owners of said property, and then revert the law back once the storm has passed. In the end though I think the best way to shut these people up is with counter protest.
NOT at a soldier's funeral.
Couldn't agree with you more, what these people do is the pinnacle of tastelessness and disrespect. That said I am proud to live in a country where people are free to protest openly and express their views no matter how unpopular, and others are free to show up 200 deep on their Harleys and drown them out with a thunderous roar. The people of WBC are nothing more than the worlds greatest IRL trolls looking for reactions and headlines. Don't give them the satisfaction, just give them the finger and keep on trucking.
P.S. When old man Phelps kicks the bucket anyone wanna make some "Thank god for dead Fred" signs and take a roadtrip with me?
