Clinton Prosecutor Now Targeting Free Speech 571
Virchull tells us about a case the Supreme Court has agreed to hear, in which former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr will take the side of an Alaska school board against a student who displayed a rude banner off school property. The banner read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" and it got the student suspended. He and his parents sued the school board for violating his First Amendment rights. The case is nuanced: while the student did not display the banner on school property, he did do so during a school function. Starr is said to be arguing the case for free.
This guy hates freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
What's up this guy's ass about personal liberties? anti-free speech, anti-free love; the only thing he seems to like is all the free attention he gets.
What do Republican's stand for? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, it seems like Republicans are for spying, big-government & 7 trillion dollar debts (which can only be paid for by cutting services WHILE raising taxes). Honestly, what does the party even stand for anymore? "Sacrifice the future for the next election".
Maybe I was just stupid and Naive to know any better, and Republicans were always fascists in disguise.
Why is this getting any publicity..? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Wi-Fizzle Research [wi-fizzle.com]
Re:Some thoughts (Score:2, Insightful)
Some how I suspect there's a bit more to this story than you're telling.
What's Starr have to do with this? (Score:5, Insightful)
What I never understand is why people get demoted over things like this. The principal was the one that went over to him and destroyed the banner. She still works for the school district in some capacity, but not as principal. She stated that she knew it was probably a violation of his rights when she did it, so she was found by the appeals court to be personally responsible, should a suit wish to be filed later naming her individually (usually individuals acting on behalf of an organization can't be named separately when acting in accordance to that organization's rules). If the district agrees she was so wrong, why not just fire her? They are knowingly keeping a civil rights violator on staff. Even if she is not the one that does it next time, if anyone else does it the district will be open to much more liability for "supporting" people that violate civil rights.
Re:Why is this getting any publicity..? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Some thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
It depends on what kind of end result is desired from the system. I want smart, scientifically literate, people to walk out the doors. But, that would also call for 'huge' changes in the way western countries work. Can you imagine what the world would look like if the majority of people simply had an understanding of scientific methodology and the basics of logic? I think an alien invasion would cause less change.
Re:What do Republican's stand for? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're part of the problem as long as you label yourself a part of it. You're not a republican, you're not a democrat, you're a fucking human. You're a amazingly smart creature that's able to use all of its brain, and doesn't need a group of people to tell you what to think. Cut the chains, think for your own damn self, and stop voting by who's BFF with whom.
Re:Some thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure the judge will see it the same way, in which case the kid is going to lose. I'm not even sure why a big gun like Starr would bother with this.
As for uniforms: schools have the right to require uniforms, and the power to enforce that right. Not all schools choose to, but that doesn't stop the right. Courts have repeatedly ruled that students, while at school, have limited rights to self-expression (which includes free speech). This is nothing new. Heck, if the worst your school is doing is requiring a uniform, feel good; your grandparents probably faced flogging as a form of punishment for failure to wear uniforms. Get some perspective.
Finally - the printer thing? If your teacher didn't back you up by pointing out he asked for the network to be hooked up, then he's a dick. If the school official who suspended you did so after being told that the teacher requested it, then she's a dick. Lots of people in this world are dicks, so in this respect it's good exposure to the realities of life - it's unfair and people are dicks. But remember - it's not the school that is taking this action. The school is a building, probably made with bricks. It just sits there. What you are seeing are the actions of a few individuals, probably reflecting the attitudes of the local school board - a school board probably elected by your community. Most high schools in the US have senior students eligible to vote. Very few of them bother (the 18-21 age group is the least likely to vote, and across the board people vote less in local elections than any other). Don't like what they do? Organise your fellow students - the ones old enough to vote, certainly, but don't ignore the younger ones. They can work on their parents or their older siblings (who are only a few years removed from the situation). There's a good chance your school board got elected with only a few hundred votes total. Even if you lose, you'll show them that they can't treat you like a carpet.
In other words - stop bitching, and start fixing.
Re:Some thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
Surely that's part of the 'American Dream'; that anyone can make it, irrespective of the humbleness of their beginnings. If you deny the most disadvantaged even a basic education, what chance will they have?
Re:What do Republican's stand for? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What do Republican's stand for? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Some thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just shocking. I know public schools can be a mess and are certainly in need of reform (AND more funds) but abolishing them? How exactly are the underprivileged supposed to send their kids to school? I thought America was supposed to be about everyone being able to make something out of themselves? Well, without basic level education that is fucking hard.
Just to inform you, public education works pretty well in a lot of countries. It may have flaws everywhere, but in most countries it provides a decent level of education no matter your income, thus making it possible for even the under priviliged to work their way out of poverty.
Re:Some thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry that the US public school system is so appallingly broken. I would like to point out, however, that being public is not the reason it is broken. There are many publicly funded education systems around the world that are doing just fine. Take a look at Finland for example, who finished first [bbc.co.uk] in a study of math, science and reading skills of students in industrialised countries. You might also note the other countries that did well, such as South Korea, Canada, and the Netherlands all have public school systems. Public schooling need not be a recipe for poor quality - the fact that public schools are so poor in the US is clearly due to something else, possibly political, possibly cultural. If it is a cultural problem then abandoning public schools is not going to fix it. I would suggest you stop making excuses and start working out exactly why it is that the US school systems sucks so badly.
Re:Why is this getting any publicity..? (Score:2, Insightful)
When they came for some moron stoner wanting to cause trouble,
I remained silent;
The world can do with one less trouble making idiot stoner.
When they came for a respectable human being who had done nothing wrong,
THAT's when I spoke out.
It's not like the idiot stoner was going to speak out for me anyway.
He's too busy sharing a bong with Jesus.
Re:Some thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
The theory is that to have a decently functioning democratic society you require a reasonably educated and well informed populace. To ensure that the average citizen is at least reasonably educated and capable of getting him or herself suitably informed on any issues you need to have a basic minimum standard of education that everyone is guaranteed to recieve. Thus, in some senses, funding a public education system is about paying for a efficiently functioning democratic society. Even if you opt out of the basic minimum education and seek education at a private school or get home schooled (which, note, is still monitored to ensure it meets basic minimum standards), you are still taking part it, and gaining the benefit from, the democratic society - and it would therefore not be unreasonable to expect you to help pay for that. If you want to opt out of the society altogether you are welcome to do that - leave the country and (at least in theory, some countries will tax you even as a citizen permanently residing overseas) they won't expect you to pay any taxes. None of this precludes pointing out the fact that the particular implementation of the basic minimum level of education is inefficient, and ineffective, or quite simply broken. The question you should be asking is how to fix it - given that there are excellent public education systems in some countries it must be possible. And no, removing the minimum standard of education altogether doesn't fix it. As far as I can tell the US is already wavering perilously close to haing an insufficiently educated and informed populace: just look at the crap both major parties get away with before distracting the public with "wedge issues" and shiny toys just before the next election - do you really want to make it worse?
Re:Some thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
I would soooooooooooooooooooooo love to see a citation backing that claim
Re:Some thoughts (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Some thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
quit trying to run everyones lives (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Some thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
OK. I'd settle for opt-out then. What really gets me is that money is forcibly taken from people for services which they do not use. I have a friend with five kids. All of them go to private school because he thinks that the public schools are crap. It is not right that he is still required to pay astronomically high property tax in order to support the failing public schools where he lives (among the worst in the country). He is basically forced to pay twice to get his kids an education. Let people who want to send their kids to public school pay the taxes and let the people who want to send their kids to a private school (where they can do simple things like fire underperforming teachers) not pay the taxes to support the system they don't use.
Basic education paid from the general taxation is in my opinion a must for any society that looks at the future.
The amount of trouble you'd have due to an uneducated underclass would in future be a much bigger drain on your friends finances than the 'forced' payments he's making now.
If he'd be truly worried about the public schools he needs to get off his lazy but and get politically active to get things sorted, surely he's not alone with this problem in his city.
In The Netherlands we have a system where all schools are getting per pupil a comparable amount of money from the national government.
But parents, churges etc. are allowed to set up a school (and school board) themselves, as a result a lot of schools are not 'public' yet are still paid for by society as a whole.
All schools have to comply with minimum requirements re. the levels of education but if the parents (through the board) would for example give the schooling a catholic or muslim slant that is fine. When parents want to make extra financial or other contributions that's also possible.
Only from the left we hear complaints that the 'real' public schools get the burden of receiving the majority of problematic pupils.
A strange argument as the schools with a private board generally cannot refuse entry to any pupil.
Re:Settle down (Score:3, Insightful)
So, we going to raise our children in an environment where they are forbidden by authority to express any unpopular sentiment.
Absolutely. It's called "being a parent." There's a lot of things that children aren't allowed to do, including expressing unpopular sentiments. It can be a sentiment that's unpopular with the parents, and they won't appreciate it.
Clue: Children do not have the rights of adults. Really. We, and every society, places limits on what children are allowed to do, as opposed to adults. Until they become adults, they have a limited subset of rights.
If it wasn't Ken Starr who was the lawyer, this whole thread would be "Kid does something stupid, parents make a federal case out of it."
Re:Some thoughts (Score:2, Insightful)
Access to good education should be a basic right of every person. Therefore I demand that private education must be stopped to ensure a future for your country. If private schooling is stopped, the good educational staff will be available to everyone again and not just to those few which can afford it.
I know, this is impossible and probably silly to be regulated. Personally everyone should also have the right to learn more/different than public schools can offer.
Still, i personally think there lies the problem in the "US and A", a good teacher will earn much more in a private school.
Re:This guy hates freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
Clinton's lie about "not having sexual relations with that girl" Cost...
o 1 x DRYCLEANING BLUE DRESS
o Many millions of dollars in tax payer money
o Government grinding to a halt during impeachment proceedings
o Rest of the world laughing at us
Bush's lie about "saddam having weapons of mass destruction" Cost...
o ~3000 American Soldiers Dead
o ~2 Trillion dollars
o Government grinding to a halt throwing mud at each other
o Rest of world wishing we would mind our own business and hating us
You know... there are differences, yah... both are liars and in all honesty, just listing these two lies is absolutely unfair to both of them... they both lied a lot more than that. Both sides are full of extremist nutjobs in all honesty, but to compare the lies and say "a liar is a liar" is not quite fair in this case. Both were wrong, yes... both shouldn't have lied, yes... the lies cost the american tax payer, yes... however... that's about where the similarities end. Like I've been saying on digg to a lot of the KO/Rush/O'Reily/Cout/Fox/Rest of Media stories... Both sides are a bunch of extremists who want to sling mud and the american people are acting no better than if we were sitting in the audience of the jerry springer show watching midgets who sleep with the mother of another midgets girlfriends best friends former roommate.
Nutter butter politicians, media, and extremists enough for everyone this "holiday" season, right?
Re:Some thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
I grew up in an economically depressed part of the state. I've seen what lack of property tax base does to the education system. Roofs leak. Repairs go undone. Out of date textbooks. (My high school world history textbook in 1992 ended with the Camp David Accords. Yes. The book was 14 years old, and it looked it.) Meanwhile those luckily enough to be born in the weathy Chicago suburbs got everything. Up to date textbooks. Fully stocked science labs. Multi-million dollar sports complexes. It's obscene, and it should be stopped. Of course it won't because they don't want their tax money being used to pay for someone else's school bus. Then that same suburbanite wonder's why the schools in the innercity and the rural parts of the state don't have any money to buy new desks.
Re:Perhaps he too is looking towards 2008 (Score:2, Insightful)
Starr is said to be arguing the case for free.
Think free as in free lunch (not like fsf) and that pro-bono work is lawyer speak for "Can't get a paying job and I need the PR"!
Re:Obvious solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Some thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
(AND more funds)
Uhhh.... No. This is the big myth.
The US spends an average of ~$10,000 per student per year. For a class of 25, that's $250k. Enough money to lease commercial office space for 9 months, hire a teacher with a MS or Phd., and have money left over to buy new textbooks every single year, provide low income lunches and obtain some kind of bus service where needed.
The truth is, the money we spend on education is squandered on administration and in large part simply handed to bankers. Every education bond passed has some investment banker dipping into the public till. This is the real problem. We refuse to pay as we go and we strangle our government budgets with debt.
Re:This guy hates freedom (Score:2, Insightful)
I will give this to Ken -- he got the government to give him $40 Million in taxpayers' money so he could let the American people and the world know Bill Clinton got a blowjob in the Oval Office. What a genius. And so, of course, he can afford to do a lot of pro bono work now. Too bad his pro bono work is anti free speech rights.
Re:Give thanks to Starr (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Right of Speech x Right of Censorship (Score:1, Insightful)
A public school is required to provide an education to someone regardless of his political or other views. If you were an environmentalist concerned with cars polluting the Earth, and you put up a big sign encouraging people to drive less, do you think the Department of Motor Vehicles should be able to deny you a driver's license?
Re:U.S. Supreme Court already decided this (Score:3, Insightful)
That was in 1988. Different world. You've got pre-Columbine, pre-9/11 thinking. Different world. Everything changed. Columbine was the Worst Thing That Ever Happened To Any High School, Ever, and 9/11 was The Worst Thing That Ever Happened Anywhere, Ever. Everything changed. Terrorists. Protect the chldren. Different world. If you're not with us, the terrorists have won.
There. Hope that clears things up for you.
Re:This guy hates freedom (Score:2, Insightful)
If the government asked me if I had sex with an ugly fat woman I'd lie, too. My (or Clinton's) sex life is none of anybody's damned business; not one state has laws against adultery.
Bith cases you cite were the Republicans screwups. Clinton shouldn't have let that fat bitch suck his cock, but it should have been between him, her, Hillary, and God. It's nobody else's business.
Re:Give thanks to Starr (Score:2, Insightful)
This kid was on a school trip, supervised by school faculty. IANAL but I'm pretty sure "In Loco Parentis" applies. So the kid unveils the banner and gets suspended for breaking school policy for "promoting illegal drug abuse". Once could also argue he crossed the line on the separation of church and state by promoting his religious views during school time.
Should public school districts be put in a position where they effectively have no control over what their students say and do during school trips? Is it ok for the kids to distribute pro-drug, racism, etc., literature while on the class trip to see the capitol? Or while standing just outside school property? The student was not a minor at the time but undoubtedly some of his schoolmates were under 18.
The basic issue isn't really about free speech or the coveted Right to Take Drugs-it's about the ability of the school district to maintain an educational environment during school time.
Granted, the banner was funny but the case makes me think about parents who complain about school uniform policies infringing on their coddled children's sacred right to wear Prada.
Or perhaps I'm wrong and the school nurse ought to give out free hypodermic syringes to prevent the spread of HIV?
Re:Some thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
You see, the tax dollars you spend goes to a basic need. If you choose to not use it, you are still free to do so, but your tax money gets spent to create the infrastructure and keep the machine running. The government doesn't pay you to buy a Segue just because you're not using your portion of the automotive roadways. You arean't going to get "book vouchers" or "internet service credit vouchers" if you choose not to go to your local library. And you're not going to raid public education funds to send your kids to private school - they money doesn't magically reappear if you take your kid out.
Re:This guy hates freedom (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, look, for as much as I disagree with Ken Starr in general, or might disagree with many of Bush's policies, there was a little more to the Clinton scandal than his sex life.
Remember how this started out - a sexual harassment lawsuit. I forget the details, but the basis of any sexual harassment lawsuit is that somebody with power used this power to influence a decision of a sexual nature with somebody subject to this power. Clinton's insistence that he did not have a sexual relationship with his intern was directly relevant to this case, as an admission of this would have given credibility to the plantiff - he would have had a history of sleeping with his employees which is a no-no where sexual harassment is concerned.
In testifying that he did not have sexual relations with a subordinate he was in fact lying under oath - which is a serious offense. And it wasn't just to save personal embarassment (as if the case were about a car accident and an attorney decided to just randomly bring up the topic) - his lying had a material impact on the case (the case was about his sexual habits, which in the case of an employer is a legally-regulated matter).
So, the issue under trial was whether Clinton had committed perjury, which is an impeachable offense (actually, just about any law violation is - it is up to congress to assess this - heck, they impeached Andrew Johnson for firing his secretary of war).
Now, whether the trial was well-handled can certainly be debated. However, the fact that it dug into the president's sex life was inevitable since the whole matter at issue was that Clinton said he did not have sexual relations with Lewinsky, and yet it appears that he did (does anybody really think that he did not?).
In the end I think that most people would agree that Clinton did have what most people would consider a sexual relationship with Lewinsky, and that he did what most people would consider lying under oath (especially considering the fact that the term "sexual relations" was carefully defined and the definition was specifically brought up when he was asked the question). Those who support him politically, and even many who oppose him, may tend to give him a little allowance mainly out of the reluctance to oust a sitting president over an issue that really has no impact on public policy. In order to give him allowance people need to find some way of finding that he didn't in fact lie under oath (which most people agree is a serious offense), and so they come up with loopholes and such so that they can determine that his action wasn't in fact perjury.
Personally, I think that Clinton's actions reflected bad leadership - he compromised his ability to create political change (the reason he was elected) in order to have a fleeting relationship with a subordinate. If he had slept with anybody who DIDN'T work with him he wouldn't have gotten in this kind of legal trouble (sure, there could be scandal, but not impeachment and all that this entails). His indiscretion resulted in a tremendous loss of political power which did not serve his constituents, who ended up being the losers in the end. Ironically he might be most remembered 100 years from now in history books as one of only two presidents to ever be impeached (probably Anderew Johnson's most-well-known accomplishment). You might argue whether the offense should have been impeached, but if you really want to be a leader who will make a difference, why give your opponents this kind of ammo?
Re:This guy hates freedom (Score:3, Insightful)
For me, lying to protect your privacy is not an issue. Of course, I am not american
Re:Right of Speech x Right of Censorship (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Give thanks to Starr (Score:4, Insightful)
Separation of church and state has no bearing on this issue. Students are not barred from promoting religion on school grounds and never have been. The ban is to prevent state entities from promoting religion. Students are free to practice as they choose.
The argument that the kid was on a field trip is, in my opinion, bupkus. Regardless, I think that the phrase "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" could be easily construed as political speech or parody/satire, both of which are protected even on school grounds. But that's not ultimately for me to decide.
But yeah, you can't make the argument about separation of church and state.
Re:Some thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This guy hates freedom (Score:2, Insightful)
Ironically I find the thought of Bush lying about WMDs (even though it's probably not true) much less concerning than the fact that Bush really believes God told him to invade Iraq [bbc.co.uk].
I'm not sure if I would prefer a cold, calculating, lying, polonium poisoning, ruthless, judo expert running a superpower, or someone who makes decisions affecting hundreds of thousands for centuries to come based on voices in his head. I am sure I'd prefer an adulterer to either..
Re:Bring up a point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Give thanks to Starr (Score:5, Insightful)
why it is important (Score:2, Insightful)
As to shrub and company lying, heck ya they should be investigated about it and possibly be impeached. It is still the lying part that is important. If they took intel analysis and re-arranged it to sell an agenda, or just cooked it up wholesale (which I think they did) yep, that's most likely a crime, even if they have given themselves some sort of get out of jail free card with the recent military commissions act.
Since it isn't perfect, you can't do it! (Score:5, Insightful)
It is mind-boggling to me that the very people who make arguments like this poo-pooh supply-side economics. Does anyone doubt that a program that gives thousands of parents the means to choose where thousands of government dollars go will encourage good teachers, stymied by the Byzantine rules of the public schools, to start schools?
I do the s/voucher/food stamp/g thing to make the point that the decision to have government funding for some good or service does not require that the government doing the funding directly provide the good or service in question. Another reason I do that is to show the idiocy of the argument that parents shouldn't be able to use vouchers at religious schools. Nothing prevents the use of food stamps for kosher or halal foods, or requires vegetarians to purchase meat. Those are choices left to the consumer.
Even without vouchers to help them out, parents vote with their wallets. In Kansas City, MO, the government-run schools are so bad that a federal judge took over the district and imposed tax increases. A Jesuit school in KC, Rockhurst High School [rockhursths.edu] offers arguably the best education in the entire state, at a tuition rate roughly 2/3 the per-pupil cost to the taxpayers in the government schools.
In the few places where vouchers have been tried, the public schools have also shown improvement, for the same reason why having a McDonald's and a Wendy's across the street from each other makes them both provide better service to their customers. But even if none of this happens, there's another alternative....Two members of KCLUG [kclug.org] home-school their kids. One of them fits the stereotype; a very conservative Christian. The other is a leftist atheist. They seem to agree on very little other than their right to choose things like how their their computers and children will be educated. They can choose what sorts of rules their children will have to follow, and there's no need for a court to decide what those rules are.
Re:This guy hates freedom (Score:2, Insightful)
'Scuse me?
Remember how this started out - a sexual harassment lawsuit. I forget the details ...
You do forget the details. How this all started out was an investigation into the Whitewater investments made by the Clintons while Bill was sitting in the Arkansas Governor's office.
This morphed, after Kenneth Starr took over as special prosecutor, into an allegation made by Paula Jones of sexual harrassment when he was Governor of Arkansas -- a case prosecuted under a law pushed through Congress by the Clinton Administration to make things more fair for women in the workplace (ironic, that). This is due to an apparent fascination Mr. Starr has with sex. He's the type of person who would pull as many strings as possible to place himself on a censorship board so that he could see all of the fascinating material that ought to be censored and save personal copies of that material that was left out due to his censorship.
With respect to free speech...
The Supreme Court has, over the lifetime of the United States, reined in this radical notion of "free speech." Mr. Starr will, doubtless, call the banner unfurled by Joseph Frederick an "action." You and I might see a sign that has words on it as "speech," or "press" if you want to stretch the issue of printing on a banner. But if you read all of the Supreme Court decisions that limit free speech, you'll see them redefined as "actions," not "speech."
Personally, when it comes to speech, I'm a radical. I would like to see the "act" of hollering "Fire!" in a crowded theater protected. I would also love to see those persons inconvenienced by the person who did that protected in their assault on that idiot (hoping that their assault was one of words). I would also like to see theaters allowed to prohibit the admission of those who might emit false alarms.
I am in favor of the ability of all citizens of majority age to view, trade, distribute and read pornographic materials showing really disgusting acts and bizarre behaviors -- as long as no person acting within those materials was under the age of 21 and as long as nobody was harmed in the actions (I would mention that nobody is ever harmed by textual documents). This puts me outside of the mainstream of thought. I'm not a total sleaze-bag who gathers materials like that -- I just think that restricting anything is a violation of rights. This First Amendment is problematic and, the framers of that Amendment wanted it to be problematic. They grew up in a society that tried to control political discourse so that nobody who accused the government of ill will towards its citizenry could be charged with a crime and silenced by a long tour of a cell in some prison.
I would recommend that all persons concerned with this issue read John Wirenius' excellent book on freedom of speech [holmesandmeier.com] as well as Richard N. Rosenfeld's The American Aurora (review) [h-net.org] which should, hopefully, provide a bit of an educational background for the context of freedom of speech.
Mr. Starr is a true conservative in the sense that the conservatives during our American Revolution wanted limits on speech and the press. I wish him well as the "marketplace of ideas" proves his conservative viewpoint absolutely and irretrievably wrong.
Re:Some thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
Also many poor students are trapped in poor or failing government schools. If government got OUT of the education business, then we could have schools which are forced to compete in order to keep their doors open. The schools which offer the best value would get more enrollment and offer more choice to the lower class. Right now the lower class have no choice, and most middle class can't afford to send their children to better schools while still being forced to pay property (and income) taxes to support government-schools.
And finally, the US Department of Education should absolutely be abolished. It's existance is illegal under the US Constitution. Plus it spends billions of dollars a year and educates no one.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Give thanks to Starr (Score:3, Insightful)
Although, if you actually start adding up the dollars spent tying up congress from actually doing the business of the nation, I'm sure that amount would quickly spin into the multi-billions.
Re:Bring up a point (Score:5, Insightful)
The canonical "yelling fire in a crowded theater" example is a proxy for any behavior which creates grave, immediate danger of irrepairable harm to others with little or no benefit to self. If civil courts had the power to take your life and/or remove your body parts and organs and give them to the people you killed or maimed with your reckless actions then perhaps that would work for your victims. It still would not represent a significant deterrent as if you'd thought about the consequences of your actions prior to taking them you wouldn't have taken them. We use the criminal justice system to deal with such persons because either because they are incredibly reckless, representing a significant, persistent threat to others or because they are sadistic psychopaths who take such actions becuase they enjoy inflicting the inevitable pain.
The parent post neither understands the function of our criminal and civil systems nor the underlying reasoning behind their function.
Re:Give thanks to Starr (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Give thanks to Starr (Score:3, Insightful)
If the school is a public school, it is considered an entity of the state and has to observe the constitution. There have been reports of lawsuits on
Private schools have more leeway since they are not part of the state.
BONG HITS 4 JESUS is pretty ambiguous. It might be interpreted as political speech that drugs should be legalized. Or it could be interpreted as promoting illegal drug use (the interpretation of the school officials). Or maybe just as a stupid joke.
In the absence of a clear meaning, I think the state should be careful not to infringe on civil rights by choosing the interpretation that is most damaging to the speaker
Re:Give thanks to Starr (Score:3, Insightful)
Really, though, there is no persecution of religion in this country, though there are idiot school administrators who don't bother to read the laws/court decisions (and they go to both sides on this). Overall though, I don't understand how you can claim religious persecution in a country where the president is a born agan Christian, over 99% of the legislature follows a Jeudeo-Christian religion, all of the Supreme Court is Jewish or Christian, and every state governor is religious. Heck, can you come up with a single politician on the national scale that doesn't wear their religion on their sleeve?
Re:Give thanks to Starr (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Give thanks to Starr (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, he lied about getting a blowjob in court. Yes he deserved to be reprimanded for he lies. And he was.
Why should these wounds be reopened? Because our current president lied to us and due to it hundreds of thousands of people have died.
Granted, he didn't lie under oath. But I think (rather, I sincerely hope) that everybody would agree that a single human life is far more important than a single instance of lying under oath.