Pair Arrested After Telling Lawyer Jokes 657
fembots writes "Two men were arrested for telling lawyer jokes while standing in line leading into First District Court. A spokesman for the Nassau courts said the men were causing a stir and that their exercise of their First Amendment rights to free speech was impeding the rights of others at the court."
Re:I dunno, something smells fishy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I dunno, something smells fishy... (Score:1, Interesting)
People do a LOT worse outside of abortion clinics without getting arrested. I think the charges against these guys are bogus.
Re:Slow news day? (Score:1, Interesting)
Does your right to a fair trial supercede my right to "freedom of speech"?
Re:Slow news day? (Score:1, Interesting)
It is all garbage designed to raise your ire so they can claim a broad mandate for their political agenda.
Re:Slow news day? (Score:5, Interesting)
Quote from the article:
... check out this choice list of problems with current law practice from the articleRe:The summary leaves something out: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If you didn't vote Libertarian, (Score:2, Interesting)
Education: (~373 billion annual budget)
http://www.policyalmanac.org/education/a
By far, the greatest part of education revenues came from nonfederal sources (state, intermediate, and local governments),
FDA annual budget ~ 8 billion.
FAA annual budget ~ only 28 million??!!
DoD annual budget ~ 115 billion.
Considering most of the education money doesn't come from the Fed anyways, and the huge size difference between things that would absolutely be cut, like DoD spending, and things like FDA and FAA, I think a reasonable, minimal rather than maximal, compromise can be met.
Of course... I'm crazy, what am I thinking. If we cut ONE SINGLE PENNY from any one of those programs, and don't increase them every year (with someone else's money) then we're wavering in our commitment to the ideal these organizations are supposed to uphold. (You know, the ideals they uphold for us, so we don't have to...)
But, you know, forget Libertarians for a second, they're crazy, they want to reduce the size of the Fed by 90% ASAP. Get any of the Democrats or Republicans to reduce the size of the Fed by 10%, or try for all they're worth, and I'll vote for *them* in every term thereafter until they start increasing it again (beyond a realistic inflation).
Re:And the highschool slashdot poster has been fou (Score:4, Interesting)
If you had read the article, you would also have noticed that the persons arrested were not mere average joes. They are members of a legal reform group that looks out for cases such as this one.
They were silenced for their views that were contradictory to the court.
Re:Slow news day? (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's hoping that I am not sued for posting this/
Re:The summary leaves something out: (Score:3, Interesting)
They got arrested for the very thing they are fighting against.....authorities bending the law and truncating people's rights to their own ends.
They weren't preventing anyone from using the court
What they did do was personally offend a lawyer and perhaps a judge.
However, the first amendment doesn't care about offending people. KKK & neo-nazi marches are allowed in Jewish neighborhoods.
The only difference here is that the people who took personal offense had the opportunity to abuse their power.......which these guys, as their goal..successfully pointed out.