Posted on 11/17/2011 11:33:49 PM PST by expat1000
The First Amendment does not give Occupy Wall Street protesters the right to take over private property and engage in illegal activities, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani says.
“You have no right to pitch a tent in the middle of New York City, I’m sorry,” Giuliani said on Sean Hannity’s radio show this afternoon. “That is not the First Amendment.”
President Barack Obama’s empathy for the 2-month-old movement and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s lack of action to stop it are an embarrassment to the nation and the city, Giuliani said.
Giuliani’s comments came on a day when police and the protesters had squared off as they marched through the city in an effort to fulfill their promise to shut down the New York Stock Exchange.
“The minute you have any place where you have to put up a place [to] protect a woman against rape, then you’ve got to come in and get rid of those people,” Giuliani told Hannity. “You can’t tolerate that in a civilized city.”
Giuliani said he delivered a speech at a high-level economic conference last week in China, where the first question posed to him involved the protests.
“This thing has gone around the globe, and it’s beginning to characterize us,” he said. “This is what they think we’re about.”
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Giuliani is right; this should have been stopped as soon as it started. The First Amendment does not give you the right to squat on private or public property, harrass people who are not with you, attempt to shut down businesses or destroy public or private property. It gives you the right to speak.
If they wanted, they could have come back every day to chant their silly slogans (but that would have been too much effort and they would never have done it). But they should have been forced to follow NYC law to begin with. If this had been done, the thing would never have turned into the destructive circus (and enormous loss of money to NYC) that it did.
Bloomie should be drug through the 5 Burroughs behind a yellow cab
The media interviewed these clowns every day and every interviewee stuck to the script: "We represent 99% of the country" and "This movement is growing and growing dramatically."
Several hundred self-absorbed morons were allowed to wreak havoc and disrupt a city of more than 8 million people for two months while the mealymouthed mayor just watched.
A serious failure of leadership.
Gingrich/Guiliani 2012
+1
I can imagine the scene now....Jefferson talking with Ben Franklin. Some dude walks in and talks to the two guys over the right to be added to the list....the right to camping. Jefferson is standing and just wondering what camping has to do with the Constitution. Franklin? He’s probably never camped in his life and wondering why a guy would make such a big deal about camping.
What we need is a broad based support agenda....the right to camp....to be added to the Constitution. A guy should be able to camp anywhere, anytime, with any possible set-up. It’s an American dream....camping.
I heard from some friends who go there regularly that this was pretty consistent at that point in time, but now it's kind of reverted back to where it was before. I don't know personally, but I'd hate to think it changed from the place we experienced that trip.
The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation, Edited by Edward Corwin
>
FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND PRESS IN PUBLIC PARKS AND STREETS
Notable also is the protection which the Court has erected in recent years for those who desire to use the streets and the public parks as theatres of discussion, agitation, and propaganda dissemination. In 1897 the Court unanimously sustained an ordinance of the city of Boston which provided that “no person shall, in or upon any of the public grounds, make any public address,” etc., “except in accordance with a permit of the Mayor,”[144] quoting with approval the following language from the decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in the same case. “For the legislature absolutely or conditionally to forbid public speaking in a highway or public park is no more an infringement of the rights of a member of the public than for the owner of a private house to forbid it in the house. When no [Pg 785]proprietary right interferes the legislature may end the right of the public to enter upon the public place by putting an end to the dedication to public uses. So it may take the less step of limiting the public use to certain purposes.”[145] Forty-two years later this case was distinguished in Hague v. C.I.O.[146] (See p. 808.) And in 1948 in Saia v. New York[147] an ordinance forbidding the use of sound amplification devices by which sound is cast directly upon the streets and public places, except with permission of the chief of police, for the exercise of whose discretion no standards were prescribed, was held unconstitutional as applied to one seeking leave to amplify religious lectures in a public park. The decision was a five-to-four holding; and eight months later a majority, comprising the former dissenters and the Chief Justice, held it to be a permissible exercise of legislative discretion to bar sound trucks, with broadcasts of public interest, amplified to a loud and raucous volume, from the public ways of a municipality.[148] Conversely, it was within the power of the Public Utilities Commission of the District of Columbia, following a hearing and investigation, to issue an order permitting the Capital Transit Company, despite the protest of some of its patrons, to receive and amplify on its street cars and buses radio programs consisting generally of 90% music, 5% announcements, and 5% commercial advertising. Neither operation of the radio service nor the action of the Commission permitting it was precluded by the First and Fifth Amendments.[149]
[Pg 786]
Under still unoverruled decisions an ordinance forbidding any distribution of circulars, handbills, advertising, or literature of any kind within the city limits without permission of the City Manager is an unlawful abridgment of freedom of the press.[150] So also are ordinances which forbid, without exception, any distributions of handbills upon the streets.[151] Even where such distribution involves a trespass upon private property in a company owned town,[152] or upon Government property in a defense housing development,[153] it cannot be stopped. The passing out of handbills containing commercial advertising may, however, be prohibited; this is true even where such handbills may contain some matter which, standing alone would be immune from the restriction.[154] A municipal ordinance forbidding any person to ring door bells, or otherwise summon to the door the occupants of any residence, for the purpose of distributing to them circulars or handbills was held to infringe freedom of speech and of the press as applied to a person distributing advertisements of a religious meeting.[155] But an ordinance forbidding door to door peddling or canvassing unless it is invited or requested by the occupant of a private residence is valid.[156]
We do have instructions for that ...
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
It might have made a difference if he had said his mind at the onset.....just saying
At the point when multiples of millions of armed American citizens believe that death is equal to or better than living with whatever the conditions are that cause that belief.
We ain't there...yet.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani: He wears pants.
Current New York City Mayor little mike: He gave his pants to his live-in girl friend and now wears a cute dress.
(1) the right of the people peaceably to assemble There is no right to assemble in a non-peaceful way. Nor is there a right to create a public health hazard, riot, or make threats of violence. None of these fall under "peacably".
(2) The 1st amendment applies to the government Zucotti park is private property. There is no constitutional right to use someone else's property to exercise your free speech rights. Had OWS chosen a publicly owned park, they might be on firmer ground here.
(3) assemble Assemble does not imply a permanent condition. I'll admit the time frame is fuzzy here, but declaring you will be camping out indefinitly (possibly years) stretchs the meaning of assemble beyond the breaking point.
There should be some sort of time limit on those "assembling" and "petitioning" thingees. This is so that government can't be indefinitely distracted from the vital work of governing.
Also, there should some verbiage in there stating that the government and the media should have the final say on the definition of "peaceably", so's the People don't get any wrongheaded ideas about who's really in charge.
assemble Assemble does not imply a permanent condition. I'll admit the time frame is fuzzy here, but declaring you will be camping out indefinitely (possibly years) stretches the meaning of assemble beyond the breaking point.
Exactly. Why should a government have to tolerate endless antagonization from a malcontented group of its subjects?
If they wanted, they could have come back every day to chant their silly slogans (but that would have been too much effort and they would never have done it). But they should have been forced to follow NYC law to begin with. If this had been done, the thing would never have turned into the destructive circus (and enormous loss of money to NYC) that it did.
So, as a government, what I do is allow you to speak, and/or to assemble.
I then proceed to make it illegal to speak anywhere, or assemble anywhere. But it's still all good!
Guess you don't remember the holding pens around the corner from some of Clinton's appearances, where the protesters were allowed to "demonstrate" all they wanted..
Note: this topic is from 11-17-2011. And that's future VP nominee Rudy Giuliani to you. ;') Thanks expat1000.
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