6/12/12

Justice Frances A. McIntyre on free speech, Occupy and "an enabling act for police violence"

“Little in the way of expression is outlawed
under the United States Constitution,
but an act which incites a lawful forceful response
is unlikely to pass as expressive speech.”

Justice Frances A. McIntyre
Occupy Boston et al vs. City of Boston et al

"So, that which the police suppress violently
is unlikely to be protected by the First Amendment?

What should the electorate expect
from leadership dependent on the status quo?

Can law and morality
unreasonably rationalize the status quo?

...that Citizens United says that corporations
can express free speech with money,
and McIntyre says that actual humans can't express free speech
...no matter how the thuggish-by-proxy board members
...might clutch their pearls, pepper spray, batons, guns,
and drone controllers.

Is stability a legitimate reason to repress justified dissent?

However, the worst aspect -- the most inhumane,
immoral, and inflammatory aspect -- of McIntyre's decision
is that it's an enabling act for police violence.

Have the educated underemployed instigated most rebellions?

Think about it.

Is dissent the highest form of patriotism?

If a "lawful"* and "forceful" response
means that whatever is forcefully responded to
is "unlikely" to be free speech,
then aren't departments that don't want to get sued
most likely to arm themselves with boilerplate from legal,
and then break as many skulls as they can, as forcefully as they can?"

Lambert

When the rich plunder the poor of his rights,
it becomes an example for the poor
to plunder the rich of his property,
for the rights of the one are as much property to him
as wealth is property to the other,
and the little all is as dear as the much.

It is only by setting out on just principles
that men are trained to be just to each other;
and it will always be found,
that when the rich protect the rights of the poor,
the poor will protect the property of the rich.

But the guarantee, to be effectual,
must be parliamentarily reciprocal.

Thomas Paine

1 comment:

polifrog said...

BostonHarold:



""" The judge [Judge Francis A. McIntyre] ruled today: “... while Occupy Boston protesters may be exercising their expressive rights during their protest, they have no privilege under the First Amendment to seize and hold the land on which they sit.”

The judge goes on to say: “ ‘Occupation’ speaks of boldness, outrage, and a willingness to take personal risk but it does not carry the plaintiffs’ professed message. Essentially, it is viewed as a hostile act, an assertion of possession against the rights of another. The act of occupation, this court has determined as a matter of law, is not speech is it immune from criminal prosecuti" """

I said it a little differently over at Ed's:


...Those students were not protesting non encampment regulation. They were there to "occupy".

And despite attempts to distill a new right of occupation via the abuse of both the right to free speech and the right to freely assemble there is no right to occupy.