Posted on 03/12/2003 9:32:49 AM PST by Phlap
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - A former city worker who was fired for refusing to remove a Confederate flag license plate from his truck is suing the city of Tampa.
In a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, Larry A. Carpenter, 47, said his First Amendment right to free speech was violated when he was fired over the dispute.
Carpenter was ordered in January 2002 to remove the license plate or park his truck off city property. He refused to do either, was cited for insubordination and was fired from his job as a traffic maintenance specialist in the Public Works Department.
Carpenter's attorney, J. Benton Stewart II, said his client, a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, is proud of his heritage and merely wants the city to develop a written policy that is uniformly applied.
Stewart said other city workers who drive vehicles with bumper stickers bearing political slogans and offensive statements are allowed to park on city property.
Messages left with City Attorney Jim Palermo were not immediately returned. Carpenter declined to comment on the lawsuit Wednesday.
In point of fact, Christianity does not condemn slavery.
Slavery is unAmerican, however. (Unless you count my having to work for six months out of the year just to pay taxes.)
But, inhumane? Not all slave owners mistreated their slaves. Many slaves stayed with their former owners after the war.
But who said anything about the Jews and the holocaust? Yours is a logical fallacy of comparing apples to asphalt shingles.
You need to take a deep breath and repeat after me, "Not everybody is my enemy. Some people actually like me....."
If I had a black skin I would have gotton a full ride to MIT with my grades. Being white, I didn't have a chance.
If I had a black skin I would have gotton that internship with NASA while a sophmore (I was informed that ONLY minorities were being accepted that year... fact.).
If I had a black skin I wouldn't have been sneered at, jeered and threatened several times in various places (New Orleans, 5th ward Houston, and others) while doing nothing to deserve that behavior.
Frankly, it has been my personal experience that African-Americans are far more racist than whites.
Well, as long as we're wishing, I wish slaves had never been brought here in the first place. I wish the truly unfortunate souls living in third world countries were not in bondage to unenlightened and repressive governments.
I wish that the rest of the world had the opportunities Americans enjoy, without having to travel thousands of dangerous miles to sneak into our country.
And I wish that America would not rush headlong into destruction by the perpetuation of atheism and humanism.
Of course, if a pig had wings, he could fly.
No, you're probably right. I'm sure that most of them enjoyed being slaves under the enlightened authority of their Southern masters.
The answer is an un-equivocal YES. It's called "free speech", and no matter how offensive someone else finds it, that is a freedom we have. Those "offended" should simply "sit down and shut up". If they want to counter, then let'em fly the "Rainbow Flag" or some other symbol of THEIR ethnicity--in which case it will be MY responsibility to "sit down and shut up". THAT is the "Golden Rule" in this kind of situation.
"It's the generally accepted idea that your rights stop where mine begin."
Only when referring to property or person. "Thought crime" is NOT one of the categories--though not for lack of effort in trying to make them so.
Excuse me, but I think you're missing a critical point, here. The objection is not to a mere attack on the flag. The objection is to people who say one cannot display that flag.
There is a double standard, here. A gentleman is fired because he has a confederate bumper sticker on his truck. He broke no laws.
Yet, in LA, some liberal street trash can destroy a flag (which flag was erected as a monument to 9/11), in full view of castrated cops, and she simply exercising her freedom of speech.
Where's the equity in that?
You keep saying the attack is on the flag. You're wrong. The attack is on john reb's right to display the flag. And if susie-dope-head-kalifornia-trash can destroy the flag in LA, then certainly john reb can have his bumper sticker.
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