Four words: Ninth and Tenth Amendments. 
Except it doesn’t, if that speech has been determined from a public policy standpoint to be undesirable. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but let’s keep in mind the fluid, amorphous nature of “free speech.”
Gadarene, from bandersnatch’s post, I think he was talking about the Constitution prior to the Bill of Rights, which the Ninth and Tenth Amendments are a part of.
Olentzero, I think that you are missing Shodan’s point that what you consider acceptable to run out of town depends on your criteria. Certainly most of us would agree with yours, but some would not and would apply other standards for which it is acceptable to run people out of town, and sexual orientation, race, religion or ethnicity might be a part of that.
I think that fluiddruid suggested the truly appropriate course of action. Phelps was able to speak, but a calm counter protest was organized, and money was raised for the local LGBT/Ally for the amount of time that Phelps spoke. It turned his negative into a positive and everyone went home happy.
And therefore what? Because the concept has the potential for misuse (and what concept doesn’t?) it is an invalid approach?
Not at all, Olentzero, it just may not be the best choice, not that it is an invalid one. Again, I think the option presented by fluiddruid is probably the best.
I agree. Despite my kneejerk reaction to shut him down, the best thing is to either ignore him, which is not my style, or protest his protest, with an equal and opposite demonstration. No louder. No dirtier. But perhaps more humorous.
Spavined Gelding,
I hope you didn’t read my post as suggesting that the Fourteenth Amendment does not require the states to adhere to the First Amendment. I agree with your post. Rather, I was trying to point out that even if you could get around the Fourteenth Amendment, each state and local government still has its own state constitution to deal with. While there are relatively few recent state decisions on freedom of speech (based on the text of a state constitution), the Supreme Court has obviously weighed in on the matter on many occasions. Those decisions would provide very persuasive arguments that all governments in the US are limited to placing reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on public speech. I was trying by that to avoid the discussion of the Civil War.
I disagree. It’s not like anyone who organizes or participates in a demonstration that results in Fred Phelps actually being run out of town is going to suddenly turn around and do the same thing to a Muslim group or the Freedom Riders.
I also don’t see the effectiveness of a counterprotest that continues to let the other side speak. How is Fred Phelps’ hate speech countered just by being there? How is the message that bigotry is unacceptable conveyed when the bigotry itself is left alone?
It’s nice that the local gay alliance got money out of it, but how many of those who pledged would have given money under less threatening circumstances?
Protests and counterprotests aren’s, IMO, some sort of negotiation/balancing act. They’re not supposed to end up with everyone “going home happy”. If Fred Phelps goes home happy, I don’t. Hate speech and bigotry are best confronted, not bemoaned.
How does that prevent him from coming back next time? Or is that not an acceptable goal?
So the only people that should be allowed to speak are those that you agree with?
Should the police not give protection to a KKK or neo-Nazi rally, if they would do it for a civil rights rally? Or protect Phelps right to speak?
Looking back at your earlier post I see :
What disturbs me is the last part. It sounds to me like you are advocating a crowd physically forcing them to get back on the bus, like a sort of politically correct lynch mob. I am likely mistaken about what you meant though.
No, the same people probably won’t. But it establishes the precedent that someone who DOES disagree with a Muslim group or the Freedom Rider’s ideas should organize a rally that shouts them down and forces them out of the town. Your only seeming criterion for who gets to speak and who doesn’t is which group agrees with your values and which doesn’t.
In fact, that’s the real problem with your idea. The city council cannot prevent Phelps from renting an auditorium to speak, and if it seems that the populace would likely forcibly prevent Phelps from speaking, then the police would have an obligation to protect him and ensure his ability to speak.
Plus it would give Phelps more exposure on the news if a mob scene ensues.
Again, going back to fluiddruid’s post, they DID have a counter-protest. But it was peaceful and did not prevent Phelps from speaking. And it garnered a lot of community support. And didn’t give Phelps a lot more unintentional exposure by giving the news a top story of a riot breaking out in Omaha.
How are you getting that from my statement? I only said that I think the point of a counterdemonstration should be to prevent the demonstration from being heard, not just to indicate disagreement. Where does it follow that I have made a pronouncement about who should be able to speak?
I think the examples of Mississippi and Alabama in the 50s and 60s indicate how well the police gave protection to civil rights rallies.
Again, I don’t believe non-violence necessarily means being passive. A large enough, loud enough, angry enough crowd can cause a small group to retreat without laying a finger on them.
And what’s preventing people who may have run Fred Phelps out of town from adding their numbers to the demonstration of Muslims/gays/Freedom Riders and supporting their right to be there?
Well, I don’t agree with homophobia, anti-Semitism, and race hatred. And I don’t want that sort of thing being represented through organized rallies in my town. And I think the best way of countering that is by saying “Get out of my town”, and not just “I disagree with you”.
Thereby indicating that the police do not seem to be accountable to the city’s populace in general, and unresponsive to the populace’s demands. Smacks of a lack of democracy to me. If the police have any obligation, it ought to be to the municipality’s citizens and their wants.
And if a counterdemonstration is organized well enough, a mob scene won’t ensue, and the message gets out that bigotry and intolerance can be successfully challenged.
Active non-violence != violent riots. It’s not an either/or situation, where if you don’t sit and chant warm loving mantras, downtown is going to burn. Back in 1998, the World Church of the Creator (a Nazi organization) tried to stage a rally in front of the White House. A countermarch of well over a thousand was organized, and strong arguments were made for being loud and angry, but disciplined and not unruly. When all of four Nazis showed up at the police pick-up point in NoVa and heard what was going on, they bailed.
That’s the kind of thing I’d like to see Fred Phelps run into in Omaha, or wherever he decides to show up next.
Erofeev, I’m with you. When dealing with State action you can’t ignore the State’s own constitution. A line I edited out of my posting was that in a number of cases the State courts have said that there are things that the national government can do that the State can’t because of a prohibition in the State constitution that is more extensive than the restrictions on State and national power in the US Constitution.
Spavined Gelding,
Curiously enough, I edited the same thought out of my last posting, too.
I’m pretty uncomfortable with the idea of shouting down Mr. Phelps. I think you never improve public discussion by drowning out a voice - you only make that voice look sexy and rebellious.
If Phelps is allowed to speak for himself, there’s no way he can look sexy and rebellious.
I read about a similar situation in which the KKK marched on a town in (I think) Indiana. The locals organized a fundraiser called “Project Lemonade”. It was sort of like a walkathon, except that instead of sponsoring a walker for a certain number of kilometers, you sponsored the KKK rally at a certain rate per minute. The longer the rally lasted, the more money Project Lemonade raised. All the funds were donated to the NAACP and the United Negro College Fund.
Is this what the Madison rally was like? Because I thought this was the coolest idea ever.
Of course, I do think it’d be entirely appropriate for some folks to picket weddings, funerals, baptisms etc. at the Phelps church, disrupting them as much as they disrupt everyone else.
Daniel
So running a person out of town, thereby preventing them from speaking, is not a pronouncement by you that only those that agree with you should speak? Intriguing…
I’d like to think we’ve evolved as a society somewhat during the 50s and 60s. And I recall the national government sending in troops to protect the Arkansas children.
Nothing at all, but I’m saying that if the majority of the community felt that Muslims/gays/etc. should not be able to be there, does the majority get to push them out.
Thereby preventing them from speaking. As I said before, it seems to me that you feel the only people who should be allowed to speak are those that agree with you.
That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read. The police are there to PROTECT the minority’s rights, including the right to speak, not to do whatever the majority wants them to. So if the majority of the city’s populace feels that black/Muslims/gays should never be allowed in the city’s limits, then the police should do the democratic thing and prevent them from coming in?
Again, what I have concluded from your posts is that you only feel that the only people who should have the right to speak at a place are those who you agree with. Please prove me wrong.
I think you folks are missing the larger point. People like Phelps, Holocaust deniers, etc. are a great benefit to society and probably should receive federal funding. They ought to be regulary invited to appear at high schools and colleges across the country.
These people are so over the top that they act like a stupidity vaccination. In the face of open debate, they are completely incapable of convincing anyone who does not already agree with them. At the same time, exposure to their virulent hatred and the accompanying discussions it causes is an extraordinarly valuable learning experience for the vast majority of people who have never deeply thought about intolerance in our society.
The true danger is not people like Phelps. The true danger is people who are much more subtle and much less open about about their goals. In many cases, we ourselves are the danger because we often accept our own bigotted attitudes without even knowing we have them. Seeing hatred in its elemental state makes it that much easier to detect when alloyed with good intentions.
C’mon, Neurotik, I agree with Olentzero.
Of course people with unpopular opinions should be threatened. Well, not literally threatened, but they should definately be afraid. If we let people say things that the majority doesn’t agree with, that would be undemocratic!
I completely agree with him. In fact, the next time some of those fawking anti-globalization hippies come to Seattle, me and a couple thousand of my buddies and the cops are going to make them feel unwelcome. Very very unwelcome. After all, they are obviously wrong. Their beliefs are motivated by hatred of good old American capitalism. They are destructive to society. So we should shout them down, not let them communicate and infect the rest of society with their filth.
Think I’m kidding? Why are you surprised? That’s what Marxism is all about. Marxists aren’t afraid of a little violence, a little censorship. After all, if free speech benefits the bourgeois more than the proletariat then free speech is objectively a bad thing. That’s the argument Lenin used anyway, when he shut down the newspapers following the revolution. And Olentzero would have cheered. Marxists don’t believe in free speech. That’s just bourgeois sentimentality.