Here's an excerpt from John Boyle's column in the Asheville Citizen-Times:
Here in America, we love our rights, and rightly so.
The Founding Fathers laid a bunch of them out in the Bill of Rights, after all, and folks take that stuff pretty seriously.
But here’s a sticking point with rights: None of them are limitless.
You can own guns, but you can’t own a bazooka. You have freedom of speech, but you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater. Your right to swing your fist stops where my nose begins.
Sure, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, but that doesn’t mean schools can or should hand out Gideon Bibles to students like stocking stuffers. I think North Windy Ridge Intermediate School learned this lesson the hard way, after a local Wiccan complained about her son bringing home a Bible. ...
Other constitutionally-guaranteed rights — specifically, the right to assemble peaceably and the right to exercise free speech — are taking center stage in downtown Asheville with the Occupy Asheville Movement.
I doubt the framers had “camping out indefinitely in front of City Hall” in mind when they wrote the First Amendment. I’m thinking they thought protesters would get hungry and go home at some point.Read the full article
Here in America, we love our rights, and rightly so.
The Founding Fathers laid a bunch of them out in the Bill of Rights, after all, and folks take that stuff pretty seriously.
But here’s a sticking point with rights: None of them are limitless.
You can own guns, but you can’t own a bazooka. You have freedom of speech, but you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater. Your right to swing your fist stops where my nose begins.
Sure, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, but that doesn’t mean schools can or should hand out Gideon Bibles to students like stocking stuffers. I think North Windy Ridge Intermediate School learned this lesson the hard way, after a local Wiccan complained about her son bringing home a Bible. ...
Other constitutionally-guaranteed rights — specifically, the right to assemble peaceably and the right to exercise free speech — are taking center stage in downtown Asheville with the Occupy Asheville Movement.
I doubt the framers had “camping out indefinitely in front of City Hall” in mind when they wrote the First Amendment. I’m thinking they thought protesters would get hungry and go home at some point.Read the full article
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"You have freedom of speech, but you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater."
Actually, that is incorrect. In fact, virtually everyone that uses that quote gets it wrong. It actually is "one cannot falsely yell 'fire' in a crowded theater."
If I was a theater patron, and a fire broke out, I would want someone to yell 'fire' at the top of their lungs.
By Dionysis
01/09/2012
Are you a rogue element? Only people who weren't born in Asheville would be so rude as to yell, whether there was a fire or not. Maybe that's the way people behave in San Fransisco, or Mount Nysa, but here we're a little more genteel...
By Barry Summers
01/09/2012
"Are you a rogue element?"
Yes.
By Dionysis
01/10/2012
"I doubt the framers had “camping out indefinitely in front of City Hall” in mind when they wrote the First Amendment."
Yes, clearly they meant participating in benign rallies with signs printed by massive political lobby groups, then going home at the end of the day and watching Fear Factor.
By bill smith
01/11/2012