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Posted on 03/08/2006 9:05:30 AM PST by StarCMC
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I humbly disagree.
I do not have to put up with this crap under the guise of free speech.
I also have a right to own property, and so do others. When I'm at a cemetery, I've rented it if they've accepted my cash, and I can keep others out. It is no longer a "public" area.
In fact, many cemeteries are privately owned in the first place. Even when they're not, once they've accepted my cash for a given event, then I get control.
Happens all the time in public parks. If you rent the big pavillion for a family reunion, your contract enables you to kick squatters out.
I think there is an extra room in the Armory. If ya dont mind sleeping next to the Howitzer. LOL
Why not address the points I made, instead of making personal attacks?
The only point you made is that you would have laws do what you as a man should be doing yourself - defending the defenseless from verbal assaults. A point I have already addressed. Now go lecture someone else, sonny.
You are absolutely right. If you own a piece of property, or if the owner of a piece of property grants you control over it, you should have the right to restrict admittance or behavior on the property however you want. I support property rights just as much, if not more, than as I support free speech.
The problem then becomes, what if the message isn't being sent from your property? For instance, suppose someone across the street from the cemetary is holding a protest sign. How should the law address that situation...or should it even try?
Personally, I think it might be permissible to enact certain "place" restrictions on these protests. I could see a law requiring protesters to stay back far enough so that they could not drown out funeral services with their shouting. People at a funeral service can choose not to look at the protest signs, but they can't turn off their hearing, especially if they want to hear the eulogies. Such a restriction could be seen as protecting the cemetary owner's/renter's right to the enjoyment of their property, while still allowing the protesters to put out their message to the public and to those attending the funeral (on the way in and out). It would be the same as restrictions on "disturbing the peace" in a neighborhood.
You can defend against verbal assault without using violence.
I think we'd both agree that scamming the elderly is a despicable thing to do, and something that would make our blood boil. If I came upon someone trying to scam one of my elderly neighbors, would you advise I physically assualt the person rather than using the law?
Or what if I overheard someone using a hateful racial slur? Should I just hit them over the head with the nearest heavy object?
Now go lecture someone else, sonny.
No thanks, pops.
Same principle as in the public park.
If I rent the pavillion for a family reunion and some yahoo comes along and starts megaphoning obscenities at me from a distance, then he is harrassing me and is not exercising anything except a violation of the air space that I had rented.
In renting that area, I have an expectation of control of the environment for that time and place....to include sound and scenery.
Agreed, that is why I am willing to consider the kind of "place" restriction I described in post #65. I would go beyond just considering a restriction to outright support if I was confident that the restriction would not be abused to prevent ANY protest.
Thank God for the Patriot Guard Riders - these guys have been really helpful.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/21/funeral.motorcyclists.ap/index.html
Actually, I believe enough in property rights that if someone I don't like rents a county ballpark, then it's theirs for that event. They shouldn't have to put up with me interfering with their event.
I'd like to picket the idiots at the Oscars, but I don't think I've got to be alongside their dinner table for my free speech rights to have been upheld. (Actually, I think they're upheld every time I'm allowed to say what's on my mind. I don't think free speech requires that I get to speak any time I want at whatever location I want.)
If the hotel or restaurant owns outside and down the block, then I can't start picketing until I'm beyond their property line.
Okay, my standard speech on rights. Rights involve responsibilities. Is the law unconstitutional? I don't know. Maybe. However, when people continually abuse rights, laws will be passed to protect others from those abuses, and the constitution is only as strong as our willingness to support it. The protests are disgusting to an overwhelming percentage of the public, because they believe that the freedom of speech does not additionally imply a freedom to impose on a family's private grief.
The Constitution of the United States of America and our freedoms as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are more important than the life of any particular soldier or the feelings of a grieving family.
I disagree with the polling law because I think a polling place is EXACTLY the place for political speech. Seems odd to me to disallow it.
Polling places in our early history were sites of political activity.
The Bill of Rights applies to the state through the 14th Amendment.
I ask this question in ALL seriousness...
So then you think it would be ok for some overzealous electioner to get right behind me while I'm in the voting booth and harass me while I am attempting to cast my vote?? What that would set up, in today's world, is some big old ape standing there intimidating everyone who is coming to vote, and thus, influencing folks who disagree not to bother voting. I don't think that would be very constructive.
As a citizen, I research and know who I am voting for before I get there. I know exactly where to park at my polling place so that I can avoid the people standing out front -- whether or not I agree with them, I don't want to talk to them at that point.
No, I don't think getting right up behind you would be okay. But I can imagine, instead, a situation in which a polling place is set up much like a coffee house, i.e. a public space for discussion in the center of the room and voting booths to the outside of the room. In other words, what I imagine is a regularized, socially-regulated, public space in which one may choose to participate or not in political discussion prior to or after casting a vote. Voting used to be a far more social act than it is today. I'm wondering if we would be better off getting back to such a practice. The boorish behavior you describe could be handled rather easily by a stern reminder of simple manners and the evolution of a social stigma against such behavior.
Continuing to draw the same ideas from one discussion (funeral protests) and apply them to the other (polling places) -- what would be the resonable amount of force that could be used, should someone engage in harrassment of voters who would prefer not to discuss their voting? Who would enforce the "rules" (and aren't those really just laws?) should the harrasser not bow to the pressure of social stigma? What are the real consequences of his behavior? Do you really think a person who behaves in a harrassing manner is going to change simply because people think he's a horse's patoot and maybe even tell him (or her) so??
I am assuming that violence is out, as it should be. And in a fantasy world, a social stigma would be great. But in reality, all I can think to say is "yeah, riiiight!"
Right now no one is more socially stigmatized (if that's a word) than Fred Phelps and his gang of harrassers...and that's pretty universal across the political spectrum. There are very few people in this country who believe that what he's doing is acceptable behavior. (Thank God!) And a stern reminder about manners would only get you a diatribe about God punishing this country by killing it's warriors because we aren't rounding up gay people and executing them. (Gag me -- that hurts to even type.) Honestly, that's what's pretty much been done up to this point. When these people continually cross the line, it is only a matter of time until law abiding citizens want a law so that they have legs to stand on when they challenge the behavior.
Xzins is absolutely right. The reason I say this, is that he is BIBLICALLY Right (and really, there is no True Standard of Morality apart from the Bible).
God positively sanctifies every Human Being's Right to Life in the Sixth Commandment ("Do Not Murder"), and positively sanctifies every Human Being's Right to Property in the following Seventh, Eighth and Tenth Commandments ("Do Not commit Adultery; Do Not Steal; Do Not Covet/Abuse/Despoil* thy Neighbor's Goods").
The Seventh Commandment against Adultery, incidentally, does not imply that Wives are "property" (anymore than Husbands are "property"); but it DOES Sanctify the Divine Ordination of Voluntary Binding Contracts, of which the Marriage Contract is the most Socially-Fundamental of all (my Evolutionist rival, "Right Wing Professor", says that Marriages are not Voluntary Binding Contracts. Ha! My wife would disagree with that, and so would I. I suspect that he is either not married, or has not really studied Marriage as a societal institution, or both).
The Ninth Commandment is thence included in the Decalogue primarily to Protect Life and Property Rights, and to Enforce Voluntary Contracts. (At the extreme, a Perjuror in a Murder Trial could be put to death himself, so severe is the Biblical Law against False Witness).
And then, ULTIMATELY, AFTER the Right to Life and the Right to Property (together with the commensurate Right to Voluntary Contract) are fully established and defended by Law (allowing only the Exception for Tresspass on private property to prevent Aggression, such as the actions of "Operation Rescue" and the "Underground Railroad") -- THEN Human Beings enjoy Liberty upon their own Property, and also in the few remaining "Public" spheres (such as Law Courts and Village Councils).
Thus, according to Biblical Law, a Private Property-owner (provided that he erected an inclusive fence or wall, Exodus 21:29,36) could allow such Vices upon his own Property as pornography, gambling -- even intoxication and prostitution, which (generally) are Biblically considered Sins, not Crimes... but NOT Abortion, which actually kills a Human Life.
HOWEVER, Public Harm upon the Public Commons is regulated by normative Biblical rules of Property, and is thus (as long as "Public Property" exists) therefore Corporative -- and Corporate Owners (the Community) have the Right to Prohibit Drunk Driving, Public Intoxication, Pornographic Displays, and indeed all kinds of Public Nuisances upon their own Corporate Property.
The Supreme Court has ruled, for example, that Prostitution may be prohibited upon Private Property, and also that Christmas Displays may be prohibited on the Public Commons... while at the same time upholding the supposed "Right" of the Ku Klux Klan to march down city streets, and upholding the "Right" of Fred Phelps' repugnant "God Hates Fags" Cult to defile the Burials of dead US Servicemen.
Personally, I think that the USSC have got it all wrong (just like they've been getting it Wrong all-too-often ever since Roe-v-Wade).
BIBLICALLY, the State has NO Right to regulate Private Vices upon a Fenced-in Private Property (even including Voluntary Sins such as intoxication and prostitution); HOWEVER, as long as TaxPayer-Owned "Public Property" exists, then the Community has EVERY Right to allow Christmas Displays, prohibit Ku Klux Klan marches, and prohibit the Defilement of Military Burials upon our own TaxPayer-owned Corporate Property.
Ultimately, "Biblical Law", as commissioned by God and recorded by Moses, is PROPERTARIAN, not LIBERTARIAN.
It all comes down to whether you believe in PRIVATE PROPERTY, or NOT.
According to the Bible, Private Property is Sacrosanct -- BUT, as long as "Public Property" exists, you must acknowledge TaxPayer Sovereignty thereof.
That is the Virtue of "Biblical Libertarianism" -- by correctly ordering Basic Human Rights on the basis of Life-Property-Liberty, the Bible strikes the proper balance between Private Liberty and Community Rights.
And Biblical Wisdom... is the Only Wisdom.
best, OP
I was responding to your #61; sometimes I compose my response posts on MS "WordPad", and by the time I was finished, I did not even flag you.
Please see my #77, with apologies (and no wisecracks, I'm sorry for the oversight!).
Thank you for your response, OP.
The notion that I have to put up with some nut defiling the death of my loved one just because of some bizarre superiority of "I can say any damn thing I want anytime I want" over all other rights is simply idiotic.
As you say more appropriately, it is unbiblical and unpropertarian.
I especially enjoyed your changing the "life, liberty, property" formula to its proper order: "Life, property, liberty."
Who can deny that encroachment on the "right of life" renders all other rights moot....you'll not be around to enjoy the others? And who can deny that the "right to own property" must be the basis for freedoms of speech, assembly, security, etc.
I DO NOT have a RIGHT to "assemble" on YOUR property.
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