We are, in theory at least, a nation of laws where everyone is given equal rights and there are protections against a tyranny of the majority. The Heckler’s Veto is, pretty much by definition, a tyranny of the majority.
I don’t see anything noble or heroic in violating the law to prevent someone from doing a perfectly legal action. Burning the Koran is a real dickhead move, and it is very offensive. However, this country doesn’t have a right to not encounter dickheads nor is there a right to not be offended. It does have a right to free speech.
Someone should give this guy back his Koran and let him flick his bic. Then they can yell as loudly as they want about what an asswad he is. He’d have his say, detractors would have their say, and no one would be violating the law.
And a world where religious fundamentalists no longer hurt innocent people over trivial insults is not a noble goal? You might not feel his method is likely to succeed, but there is a clear vector between showing that threats of violence are no longer effective in stifling free speech, and causing these zealots to turn away from a now-useless tactic.
Hypothetically, if the Koran/Flag/whatever burner resisted Isom’s attempts to take his/her property, is there a limit the law would apply to said resistance? If the burner held tight to his property and Isom suffered an injury as a result could the burner be found criminally liable? What if the burner struck Isom in an attempt to keep his property? What if the burner struck Isom and as a result he died?
The use of deadly force merely to protect property is not justified (possible exception for “Castle Doctrine” situations inside one’s residence). However, in general, you may use reasonable force to defend your personal property from theft.
This is generally an affirmative defense to the crime of battery, for instance. That is, if Burner had struck Isom in an effort to defend his property, and was then charged with that battery, he could typically admit to the facts of the battery but offer defense of property as his affirmative defense, meaning the burden would be on him to prove each element of the defense by preponderance of the evidence.
Rick Monday did that on a baseball field in 1976 and became an object of near-universal veneration. Of course in that case the protesters were trespassing, and it’s hard to work up much sympathy for somebody who loses their property while trespassing.
Well, what is interesting here is that hate speech laws have, in certain situations, withstood judicial scrutiny. A general law banning hate speech wouldn’t survive a First Amendment challenge. However, campus codes at public universities, I believe, have been challenged and upheld. Those decisions are, IMHO, wrong, but I am pretty certain they are out there.
Now that begs the question about flag or Koran burning on campus. I agree with you both are speech, and both are presumptively protected by the First Amendment. I would imagine burning a Koran would fall foul of hate speech codes on campus, and would think by the argument I previously made that burning a flag would too.
Thomas’s dissent in that case, if I am remembering it right, is horrible. He’s normally pretty good on free speech matters, but it shows that everyone has their own button issues where their principled analysis gets twisted to justify a result they clearly want to get to. I can understand why Thomas has a deep seated hatred for cross burning, but under his usual analysis there is no way he could uphold that law.
Well, to be terribly nit-picky (after all, what else are lawyers for), it may well have been illegal, to the extent that burning stuff in public parks usually violates some kind of local ordinance. Though it seems the ‘pastor’ had it in a grill, so it might be a park where public BBQs are allowed.
I think in the context of your hypothetical above, the heckler, or hecklers, should be removed and the speech permitted to continue. When law enforcement is acting for reasons of safety, discontinuing the speech is but one way to achieve safety. The other way to accomplish safety would be to remove the hecklers.
I understand the concern about “innocent third parties…may very well be murdered in retaltiation,” but I do not think it is wise to predicate the protection of speech on such a tenuous principle. I am not suggesting you did so here. I am merely stating while your concern is valid, I do not think it is a good idea to censor speech on this basis.
Well, you merely presume burning the Koran is hate speech as opposed to political speech. I do not think this assumption is correct.
There probably are some contexts where burning the Koran constitutes as hate speech but I do not think Bricker’s opening post includes such a context. So admonishing Bricker for failing to illuminate a fact which is not present does not make a lot of sense.
I do feel differently about the burnings, and who owns the flag or Koran doesn’t enter into it. The issue is that I’m supportive of protesting a government or its actions in princple while I find that singling out one particular religion for a general protest is stupid. So yes, you’ve identified that people feel differently about burning different stuff. I don’t think that’s surprising and that’s separate from how they should be treated legally.
Then, instead of simple dismissiveness, perhaps you could explain how it could reasonably be considered “political” rather than as the expression of religion-based (and essentially incoherent) hatred it so damned obviously is. :dubious:
Convenient, that, huh? Yes, if you tack the word “hypothetical” onto anything you would prefer not to discuss, then you can say any damned thing you want, can’t you?
No, his hypothetical is, as usual, a cover for a discussion of a real world situation. Failure to mention the real world context, when also considered in the context of the poster’s established behavior pattern is most certainly a basis for admonishment.
I agree that legal treatment doesn’t have to (and maybe shouldn’t!) be guided by how we feel. As I said, if I were on the jury, I’d convict the Guardsman of theft.
But…
So now it’s a French flag, about to be set afire the day after France announced that they would not let US planes through their airspace to bomb Libya, or the day after the Congressional cafeteria changed to “Freedom Fries,” based on France’s failure to support the US Iraq War.
And the flag-stealer is a French exchange student who just doesn’t want to see his country’s flag burned.
Still on board with “supportive of protesting a government or its actions?”
Interestingly enough, it occurs to me that the SDMB may itself be the breeding ground of an informal “heckler’s veto.”
Do you, dear reader, ever see a poor argument, or a terrible conclusion, or an unjustified attack, and think to yourself, "No, I’m not going to point that out, because then the offending poster (and others!) will just lay into me. I’ll just leave it alone.
That doesn’t work - it presumes that the poster who is put off from posting is not themselves a heckler. And that their approximation of the post as being itself a heckle is accurate. Neither of which seems particularly necessary.
I’m a little offended if you think I’m that simple. Yes, I’m supportive of protesting governments and their actions. I reserve the right to decide if I think a specific protest is smart or stupid.
Generally: Is this really a heckler’s veto? There are no hecklers! There are only imagined hecklers, and a person voluntarily choosing not to speak due only to internal conflicts. If the person actually speaks, and then the crowd got so riled at them that the speaker got banned and their posts deleted specifically in response to that outrage (and not other breakages of forum rules), then that would be a heckler’s veto, but I’ve never seen that happen on this board. Heck, even when somebody does successfully get the banhammer for one reason or another, their posts (that is, some portion of their speech) remain.
