The quote, “I despise what you say, but will defend your right to say it,” has been miss-attributed to Voltaire, but I am a strong believer in free speech. Speech should be as free as possible, even if it annoys people. You cannot put forward good ideas (or even lousy ideas, but lousy idea can inspire a good idea). A secondary goal of free speech is it makes it easier to figure out who is a bozo. Exercising your First Amendment rights should not be an excuse for losing one’s Second Amendment rights.
Thursday, 20, January, 2011
I am TJIC
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William The Coroner's Forensic Files 
I THINK that threatening speech is not protected, according to some Supreme Court ruling I learned about in high school. That said, whether this guy’s words actually constitute a threat is an entirely different manner. I haven’t read his blog, but I do think we’re going too far in terms of what we consider “threatening” speech.
Comment by Meagan — Thursday, 20, January, 2011 @ 12:53 |
Well, even if those words were threatening, which I do not believe they were, EVEN SO, there are legal penalties for uttering threatening words. This involves things like due process, indictments, proceedings in court, legal counsel, and all that good procedural stuff. One, appointed, not elected individual decided that TJIC’s words were enough to revoke his enumerated right to self-defense. With no due process, and no appeal. That is not a legal consequence, that is harassment, and bullying under cover of office.
If TJIC committed a crime, charge him and try him. No problem.
Comment by williamthecoroner — Thursday, 20, January, 2011 @ 13:01
Hmm, yes. That is pretty shady. As someone who is anti-gun personally, but pro gun rights generally, I tend to roll my eyes when people go on about how the liberals want to take away evryone’s guns. I don’t care about other people owning guns. So I find it annoying when people in government apparently really want to take away everyone’s guns.
Comment by Meagan — Friday, 21, January, 2011 @ 09:29 |
People forget this: If free speech were never so vile or angry or disagreeable that you wished you could stop it, then we’d have no need for the 1st amendment. Freedom is sometimes ugly, uncomfortable, or even dangerous, but less so than the end result of suppressing it.
Comment by Wayne Conrad — Tuesday, 25, January, 2011 @ 18:29 |