U.S. Supreme Court Rules on Anti-Gay Funeral Protesters

[Natalie Severn]

To me, it is your position that is arbitrary.

You want to make a judgement call on what people should or shouldn't say.

In contrast, I don't.

My take on children in a classroom is nothing to do with which is 'worse' or any perceived outcome; it is to do with the generally accepted view in the Western World that children do not consent in the same way adults do (informed consent, that is).

If you can't see that teachers have certain responsibilities to children, i.e. responsibilities that do not apply to adults, then we see it very differently. With regard to adults, it is accepted that only the government through the rule of law has any governance over the life of an adult and that the government has no place in matters of conscience; whereas children, due to age, and vulnerability, are subject to regulation. That dividing line between children and adults is pretty much universally accepted.

If you have ever read AS Neil and I think it was Dewey who expressed similar views,you will understand that children are perfectly capable of running their own councils and operating perfectly fair systems of government by a system of democratic voting.AS Neil ran such a school for years and many Southern Local Education Authorities sent, at much cost, their most difficult state pupils there to be "helped" in their socialisation skills.His school worked very well indeed without authoritarian adult intervention.Everybody had a vote,ASNeil,by pupil decree, had one vote like everybody else.It worked very well,particularly regarding democratic rights , pupil responsibility and socialisation.
You seem to be ever so fond of talking about the "rule of law" and other such "rules and regulations" applying to the population at large-----sounds a bit oppressive actually for all your assertions about "freedom".

[Natalie Severn]

Re Dewey:

In his advocacy of democracy, Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society—as being major topics needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. Dewey asserted that complete democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by effective communication among citizens, experts, and politicians, with the latter being accountable for the policies they adopt
-see also J.Dewey,Democracy in Education-an introduction to the philosophy of education.

[Fleetwood Mac]

You seem to be ever so fond of talking about the "rule of law" and other such "rules and regulations" applying to the population at large-----sounds a bit oppressive actually for all your assertions about "freedom".

Of course there has to be rules within society to act as a framework of what must be expected in order to maintain peace and prosperity. The law acts as an independent observer of individual disputes and that must be in place for various reasons.

But, we're not talking about, well, I'm certainly not talking about, a world of absolute freedom where there is no hierarchy, no system of government and no rules that we all understand, all obey and all have the right of appeal.

Our discussion surrounds this: to what extent should the government/rule of law manage the affairs of the public? I would say: justice, defence to a limited extent and redistribution of wealth to a limited extent - certainly not matters of opinion and ideas among adults. Seems you disagree, Natalie.

[Natalie Severn]

Fleetwood Mac said[QUOTE]Of course there has to be rules within society to act as a framework of what must be expected in order to maintain peace and prosperity. The law acts as an independent observer of individual disputes and that must be in place for various reasons.[/QUOTE]


Well you could have fooled me when you are perfectly happy to allow the family of a dead soldier to be ridiculed and tormented as they try to bury their dead child in peace and dignity.

[Errata]

Well you could have fooled me when you are perfectly happy to allow the family of a dead soldier to be ridiculed and tormented as they try to bury their dead child in peace and dignity.

There is nothing perfect or happy about it. A free society is almost inherently an unhappy, complex and messy society. That's the actual price of freedom. As for allowing torment and ridicule, far far worse things are allowed in this society than an unwilling exposure to unpleasant people. Perhaps an absence of actual adversity in most of our lives makes the trivial seem of colossal importance.

[c.d.]

"Well you could have fooled me when you are perfectly happy to allow the family of a dead soldier to be ridiculed and tormented as they try to bury their dead child in peace and dignity."

Hi Natalie,

I think that you are viewing this case as though it exists in a vacuum and that the only parties affected are the church and the families of the dead soldiers. But Supreme Court decisions affect all Americans. Take the case of Roe v. Wade for example. The Court ruled that the plaintiff (Roe) had a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. In doing so, the Court gave that right to all American women not just Roe.

Now let's try a hypothetical case here and in this case we will assume that you are an American citizen. Let's say that your local city council decides to give themselves a big raise but doing so causes a budget shortfall. Their response is to cut funding for shelters for the homeless and battered women. Now should you choose to do so, you have the right to speak out publicly about this outrage. The city council can't make you stop because it doesn't like what you are saying. It can't make you remove your signs or make you move as long as you are within the law as defined in the Westboro Baptist case. So now that case is giving you the right to speak out in favor of the homeless and battered women or any other cause that you feel strongly about.

I don't think anyone is "perfectly happy" to allow what the church members do. It is extremely hard to swallow. It would be nice if we lived in a perfect world but we don't. The court is attempting to protect the rights of ALL Americans. In doing so, it has to protect the rights of scum like the church members. If it starts to limit who has the right to free speech then your right to speak out for what you believe is in danger.

c.d.

[c.d.]

Hi Julie,

On the other hand, it was the abolitionists here in America that used the right to freedom of speech to raise awareness of the evils of slavery. The nazis attempted to eradicate freedom of speech for anyone that didn't agree with them. Obviously freedom of speech can be used for good or evil. That is what the Supreme Court said in effect. In trying to eradicate the evil side of it, you can also weaken the protection it gives to those trying to do good in the world.

c.d.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Well you could have fooled me when you are perfectly happy to allow the family of a dead soldier to be ridiculed and tormented as they try to bury their dead child in peace and dignity.

Natalie, hmmmmm, at best you haven't read all of my post - you didn't quote the part where I said the government has a place in justice, but not in matters of conscience. And nowhere did I say I was 'perferctly happy'. I find it obnoxious and betraying a distinct lack of class. But, as ever with those who want to shut people down, you're appealing to emotion, when in the fact the rule of law is based on reason.

This is exactly why I said earlier I'm a fan of the US. They're the one nation in the developed world that understands (see CD's post) that once you start shutting people down it sets a precedent for others to be shut down - a slippery slope - and that's a lot of power for those deciding who can and can't speak their mind.

You're never going to have a nice, neat world where everyone is kind to one another. It ain't like that, and trying to achieve it through banning people, well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Totalitarianism is defined by censorship, and Lenin and Robespierre didn't start out by shooting dissenters: the situation spiralled from banning ideas.

Ultimately, if the situation in the original post were in England, you would be advocating that we should all be at the mercy of being shut down by others who don't like what we say. Surely that is no way to run government? It's only a short step to a secret police and a series of Gaulieters watching what we say; after all, if you're going to make rules around what people can and can't say then you're going to have to enforce these rules because human beings being human beings will say those things when you're not looking.

[Chris]

Fleetwood Mac

Just out of curiosity, where do you stand on libel and slander?

[mariab]

Isn't it Jeremy Bentham who needs some meat put on his bones? The guy hasn't eaten in nearly 200 years. Wait till his mum gets hold of him!

Robert, you're priceless! (Though Bentham doesn't look that thin to me. OK, maybe his legs. How was that for blond talk?)
I also happen to think that Chris' post #142 reads like a character list from a LOST episode. ;-)

[Natalie Severn]

Good question Chris.
Fleetwood Mac,
The right of the family to bury their loved one in freedom and peace is surely every bit as important as the "freedom of speech" which was successful in denying the family their civic right ?
I am as much a believer in democracy, citizen"s rights and the freedom of the press as you are, but expressions of such brutal bullying as were expressed at this event to a tiny minority of people, suggest that their minority rights were not in fact protected by the democracy under which they live.A healthy democracy defends other rights of its minorities than just "freedom of speech", such as the right to bury their dead in peace and dignity.The "right "here has to be judged alongside the "right" of another group who select to deny another group free expression,because the other group are the parents and friends of a individual who belonged to a gay minority, a minority they disapprove of,and whose rights ,as gay people they seek to deny.
This is really quite straightforward and boils down to the freedom of one group to persecute another group because of their sexual orientation .It has all the hallmarks of an oppression not freedom.

[Robert]

Maria, I'm afraid I've never seen "Lost" - what is it?

CD, Natalie's rights to protest at her council's antics have no connection whatever with the judges' ruling on the Baptist case. There would only be a connection if Natalie chose to wait until one of the councillors died and then turned up at his funeral to hurl insults. I can't see Natalie doing that. She's a lady. She might knee a councillor in the groin but that's the limit.


Nor is anyone trying to decide who has free speech. I am not saying that the Baptists should be prevented from picketing funerals, but that, say, The Beach Boys should be allowed to. I'm saying that in the circumstances of a funeral, nobody should be allowed to say this sort of thing.

Nor is it about gays. The funeral could be anyone's.

The slippery slope argument is, with respect, silly. If you invoke that argument, then we'll have no law of libel or of slander, no prosecutions for perjury, no prosecutions for misleading advertising....

[mariab]

Maria, I'm afraid I've never seen "Lost" - what is it?

Apologies for the little parenthesis, but Robert asked.
LOST is a silly American TV series about an international group of people stranded on a Pacific island after a plane crash, while paranormal phenomena, wonder-healings, and mysterious occurrences happen. There are tons of flashbacks into every character's previous life, and everyone has a deep secret or a criminal past. It's Gilligan's Island all sexed-up and pseudo-intellectualized.
And many of the characters spot the names of philosophers (Locke, Rousseau, Emerson), which is why I made the joke pertaining to Chris' post #142.

[Sister Hyde]

Apologies for the little parenthesis, but Robert asked.
LOST is a silly American TV series about an international group of people stranded on a Pacific island after a plane crash, while paranormal phenomena, wonder-healings, and mysterious occurrences happen. There are tons of flashbacks into every character's previous life, and everyone has a deep secret or a criminal past. It's Gilligan's Island all sexed-up and pseudo-intellectualized.

aaaah that's why i didn't catch anything when I tried watch it, i watched once, I couldn't understand anything (Twin Peaks was a piece of cake compared to this for me), so i just switched to arte.

[Chris]

It's Gilligan's Island all sexed-up and pseudo-intellectualized.

What's Gilligan's Island?