Posted on 03/06/2003 7:19:50 AM PST by Indy Pendance
Edited on 04/22/2004 12:35:42 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Nope. Private is private, and only socialists try to blur the distinction. Malls have developed as private enterprises and largely replaced "Main Street" because that's what free market consumers want. One of the things they want is to shop in a place where a private security force enforced stricter standards than are enforced on Main Street.
Socialists tried to make the same sort of arguments about the Boy Scouts, bringing up all sorts of reasons why they should be classified as subject to laws which are only applicable to public entities, and should lose the right to set their own membership requirements, just because they got very big and successful.
If they were only wearing these shirts and shopping, I can think of at least 1,000 other messages and/or images I've seen on t-shirts at our local mall recently that I'd consider considerably more offensive than these.
I guess the mall has every right to oust someone they view as a disturbance (it is private property after all), but it seems like a huge over reaction to me. I think this is one of those things that requires the intellectual honesty test: If these guys were wearing pro-war shirts and received similar treatment, how would you feel? I'd be pretty outraged myself (again, if all they were doing was wearing a t-shirt).
While I think these guys are fools for their opinion, we've got at least 250,000 of our best and brightest ready to fight to the death for their right to express it. Given that, I think the mall's security way overreacted.
Aieeeee!
While I think the t-shirt thing is stupidity, your post sent shivers up my spine. Private businesses are private.
I definately don't disagree. Yet, I think we all should find it troubling that citizens no longer have a public place for political speech. Where *is* the public square?
One of the most precious of our freedoms is our unalianable right to criticize the government and to tell our fellow citizens about it. The internet has done a good job with sites like these to help air national issues, but where do townspeople criticize town politics. How do local watch dogs get the word out to local people that the mayor is scoundrel? Often the local press is nothing more than an ad rag. Government scrinker suggests that main street died because of free market forces. That is not true. Main street was assasinated by local planning boards and modern traffic engineering policies. The malls didn't replace main street because of private security. Indeed, the lack of security at malls will be one of the many reasons why they will die in a few years. Where would you rather be in a fire, in a mall or on main street? How about a gas attack, or a bomb? Did you ever think about how you would evacuate from a Mall. That's a scary thought.
The malls can't hire enough cops to patrol those huge, desolated parking lots. Also, since malls attract people from a large geographic area, they're more likely to have people in them that don't live in your own town and that you'd rather not have your kids associating with. I won't allow my kids to go to my local mall in the evening when they're teenagers.
My town, on the other hand, is a safe community. Now if the planning board would simply relax some of the silly zoning laws, we could actually have a nice commercial center right in my town. Currently, we can't have a nice center because the zoning laws and the county's traffic engineer won't allow it. So if you own property, you con't open a nice cafe, or movie house or shops with apartments on top; even though it's your private property that you own. The only thing you're allowed to build is a single family house.
The mall has a government monopoly, because it's the only place where the zoning laws allow such a concentration of commerce.
Do you still think the mall owners have no obligation to allow political speech?
I do disagree with you on this statement, however.
There are plenty of public places he could have used such as a sidewalk, on a road, or in a public park.
Sidewalks? Many towns don't have sidewalks. Roads? That's suicide. Parks? Okay, but many parks are deserted, so if your purpose is to communicate a political message, you'll be giving it to the squirels.
That would be correct. I wouldn't choose to spend my money at a place of business that censors non confrontational speech but I also don't want the government telling me how to run my business or what rules my club can set.
Private property and liberty is a two way street. Public means public and private means private.
Simply not so. When I want to get my message across in my small town, I take my sign down to the busiest intersection and I stand there.
Schools are public, libraries are public, town halls are public.
My place of business and my home aren't.
I'm impressed. That's admirable
The kind of speech I'm referring to is actual dialogue, like the kind you can impagin used to go on in front of the general store, in the local barber shop, in the town green or just walking down the street. The government has zoned out these kinds of public places and they have been replaced with private shoping malls.
I think that since the shopping mall is permitted by the government zoning laws, and main street no longer is, then the mall becomes the main street and is quasi-public.
But this is a difficult question. Does the mall owner by virtue of his zoning permit tacitlly agree to giving certain rights to the public in his space?
I don't really know the answer. But I think this would be a better country if we got rid of the zoning laws and traffic engineers and restored Main streets.
Indeed not. My point is this: the mall *is* the public square and the people have a right to hold and express unpopular opinions in the public square. Not to shout or to be disorderly, but to have the freedom to speak their mind or to wear a t-shirt with a political message.
The debate here has been that the mall is a private place and as such people have no rights.
I say that the mall is different from a private accountant's office or a private residence, because it has received a government monopoly to operate and to effectively replace the traditional "town square" where political dialogue could be held. Do you think your local government would allow you to build a mall across the street from the existing mall on your own property? No way. You wouldn't get the building permit because there already is a mall. Therefore the existing mall is a government sactioned monoply. By virtue of benefitting from the government monopoly, the mall has an obligation to respect the same rights that a citizen enjoys in the public square.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.