OWS: The first amendment trumps all laws.
So now with the protesters being removed from public parks and such have desired that those pesky State, City and County laws are illegal. Yep these are the type of posters that are going around the net.
At first I just thought that it was just a few people when I talked about this online petition online.
I asked DC how the First Amendment overrides all State and City public ordinances.
The Constitution overrides all ordinances to the contrary. That’s pretty basic civics. And I would add that while ordinances may be found Constitutional by courts when there are on-its-face contradictions, that doesn’t mean that the courts decided correctly. Hence, what the courts decide is constitutional one day may be unconstitutional within the technical judicial definition the next. It’s up to citizens, ultimately, to defend their own constitutional liberties by refusing to comply with violations of them even when those violations are given the trappings of law.
So in short ignore any law that you disagree with or find inconvenient on the assumption that it will be overturned in the future? Yea tell me which laws are going to be overturned in the future? It must be that law against public urination and defecation. I forgot that farts are now considered protected speech.
Category: Antiwar crowd, I hate hippies, Politics
You got it, Spork, if you don’t like the law, just ignore it. What right do the people have to not see sex in public, defecating, listening to obnoxious asshats disturb their peace? What right do they have to enjoy the parks that they pay for, in many places, instead of occuturds turning the places into toxic waste dumps? I mean, after all, the occuturds are the “99%”, well, not so much, more like the 2%.
Well, in that case, they can just STFU about my Second Amendment rights.
Um I’m pretty sure there a LOT of limits to the first amendment
So, it would be alright then for me to exercise my 1st amendment rights to freedom of expression by taking a sheleighly, and wading into the local Occutard hippie crowd? I mean, I’d consider knocking a few heads to be “performance art”, and who are they to say it’s not?
I mean, if it’s alright for THEM to say that the laws don’t matter, then they certainly can’t use them to hide behind when THEY need protection, right?
Or am I missing some stinking hippie stupid pseudo-logic here?
“Hence, what the courts decide is constitutional one day may be unconstitutional within the technical judicial definition the next.” Huh? Say again please. Say what? Repeat that. Run that by us again. That is the single most dressed up piece of crap I have seen in I don’t know how long. Is this a joke?
First time I have ever seen “US Constitution” in red letters. How appropriate is that? Also, it appears that union printers were not employed for the poster production. What’s up with that? Isn’t that against their law or something?
“The Constitution overrides all ordinances to the contrary. That’s pretty basic civics. ” Actually it is pretty basic civics, but if you get beyond Jr. High Civics and actually pay attention to the law, you discover that things are a bit more complex than your 8th grade teacher said it was. Apparently this guy’s stunning legal insight into First Amendment issues somehow managed to avoid any actual knowledge of First Amendment law.
“And I would add that while ordinances may be found Constitutional by courts when there are on-its-face contradictions, that doesn’t mean that the courts decided correctly. ” No actually it kind of does. That’s why the Supreme Court is called the SUPREME Court, and not the “totally optional advisory board”, see Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803).
“Hence, what the courts decide is constitutional one day may be unconstitutional within the technical judicial definition the next.” Gee, 900 years of English legal precedent and the whole principle of Stare decisis are apparently just the product of random chance, and can be disregarded at whim?
This moron is the absolute physical embodiment of “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” If this intellectual giant had even the tiniest fraction of the knowledge he pretends to have you would think he would have heard that this issue has been pretty seriously litigated by the Pro-Life movement.
Square in the black, El-Tee. Square in the black.
The constitution was never designed to be a suicide pact
You’d be fairly amazed by the number of people I dealt with during events on the west coast, whose thought train runs full speed ahead on the track of “The laws and rules are for thee, not me”. Just as amazing, they will espouse it much louder while being presented with the *being stupid* award.
so is it freedom of speech if I shit in all their megaphones? Because their words are laced with excitement anyways.
‘Fraid not, Doc. You see, what they WANT trumps all else.
The axiom to that rule is that any of those transient rights apply only to them. If you don’t believe it, just ask ’em. They have the right to demonstrate in public, but those who oppose them do not. They get to decide what your rights are limited to, just because, well, they are who they are and get to do that because of some nuanced something-or-other which we are not smart enough to grasp.
And the other part of the first ammendment doesn’t exist. Nor does the second.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Mixing this up with property rights is where the muddy, marxist sheep go wrong. They are “occupying” private property (for the most part) and exercising what amounts to violence in that they are obstructing, harassing, intimidating people who just want to walk down the sidewalk to get to work.
No where in the 1st amendment does it say you can be some sort of swine that pisses and shits wherever it wants. You can assemble peacefully, sacrifice incense to whatever is your deity of choice and say/write what you want – that’s it. You do not get to defile property that does not belong to you nor interfere with other peoples’ daily lives.
Retired Navy – spouting off.
Wonder if the TEA Partiers will also have that right, or anyone who disagrees with the Occutards?
I’m going to have to disagree with Lt. Rasczak here.
Yes, the Supreme Court is the highest court in the land. But they’ve made some pretty awful decisions in the past. These decisions were sometimes completely at odd with the plain meaning of the text. Their decision can’t be appealed, but that doesn’t mean that they are right.
Judges frequently decide cases on the basis of their personal feeling of justice. That’s wrong.They’re supposed to decide on the basis of the Constitution, but some of them can’t resist the temptation to push their private agendas.
Ben……. In those cases, the Justices were forced to act in their rulings within what they saw as the meaning of the law as written. They can attempt to interpret law, but they cannot make NEW law. Only Congress has that power.
In many cases, such as the Kelo decision, the solution to the problem is for the Congress, as well as the several states, to pass a strict interpretation as to when and where Eminent Domain is applicable. The current laws left the SCOTUS with no choice but to rule as they did.
Therefor, it is imperative that the voters elect persons to Congress who actually will vote in the manner that squarely falls within the letter of the Constitution, and the written intent of the authors of that document.
SCOTS can only rule on the law as written, therefor their hands are tied on certain matters. Blame Congress, and the morons who voted for the morons who wrote those laws.
“The constitution was never designed to be a suicide pact”. Precisely, Doc, precisely. Though the occutards think and believe that it is.
#15 Ben,
The SCOTUS for the most part gave up on making decisions based on the Constitution and other founding documents.
These days SCOTUS makes decisions based on “prior decisions”. And if one prior decision is poorly decided, then everything else becomes even MORE divergent from Constitutional intent.