Posted on 08/22/2007 8:56:45 AM PDT by TornadoAlley3
Thoughtcrime comes to America, 23 years behind schedule.
So much for the First Amendment.
” Student who wrote violent story loses appeal “
I’m guessing that he wasn’t all that appealing to start with....
Or maybe that should be:
“Thoughtcrime concurrent Oceana 23 years postschedule.”
The First Amendment doesn't protect your right to make death threats....
Whether or not this girl's story qualifies as such is a different question -- I'd have to see the story first, and understand the context in which it was written. (For example, did she have an actual antipathy toward her 6th period math teacher?)
I NEVER trust media articles on topics like this. They're invariably written from a viewpoint that is sympathetic to one side ... usually the student's.
Good position to take....beats putting up "gun free zone" signs.
Even a stopped clock is "correct" twice a day.
Are we to suspect the 11th Circuit got something right? I'd have the see the details of the case to confirm this.
Either we trash the First Amendment or we get rid of the government schools. I vote for getting rid of the government schools.
Government schools are compulsory. This means threat of police force. ( real bullets in those guns on the hip)
Once in the school the child is told to shut up for nearly all of the day. Their right ( and the right of the parents) to freely choose with whom they will associate is trashed. The child is subjected to a curriculum and school policies that can NEVER be religiously neutral in content or consequences.
If the child or parents refuse to cooperate with the government school Gestapo they face police, court, and foster care action, and possibly prison. They are cases of police actually killing parents who have resisted government action.
If a citizen refuses to support the government school abomination, the government will send armed sheriffs to sell his home and business at auction. If the citizen is sufficiently resistant he too may be sent to prison. If sufficiently resistant armed police may kill him.
All of the above is true. This is what government schools are.
This case has absolutely nothing to do with the First Amendment.
A student in my fifth grade class was suspended from school for a week because he called the teacher a "****ing b****."
Were his First Amendment rights violated? After all, he was just expressing an opinion.
Is she?
L
She definitely was a bitter, petty woman as I recall her.
Still, I don't think the kid's suspension was unconstitutional.
So what dosage of Ritalin would they have had Stephen King on if things were the same back when he was in school?
I see that our courts have adopted Iranian jurisprudence: a dream in a work of fiction constitutes a threat. The same sort of ‘reasoning’ applied in the fatwa against Salman Rushdie—the delusions of a fictional character constitute blasphemy.
I hope the SCOTUS takes the appeal as an opportunity to clarify the true-threat doctrine, and to uphold the First Amendment.
True, but that is why there is a body of jurisprudence about what constitutes a true threat. It has not been settle by the SCOTUS, so various circuits have different applications as to whether a reasonable speaker, a reasonable hearer to whom the statement is addressed, or a reasonable person overhearing the statement would regard it as a threat.
For instance, if, in the middle of a pillowfight between two junior-high girls, one of the combattants is knocked down, and rises, still weilding only a pillow, and proclaims "I'll kill you," while grinning broadly and thrashing the other about the head and shoulders with the sack of down, no reasonable person in any of the various roles would regard the statement as actually threatening death. It would thus be protected speech under the First Amendment in any circuit.
It seems hard to see how a dream in a work of fiction could rise to the level of a true threat under any of the standards applied by the various Courts of Appeals.
The judges in this case affirmed a previous summary judgement in favor of the school. As I understand it, summary judgements are rare to begin with, because they're likely to be appealed. So judges will only grant summary judgement when there is no question as to the legal aspects of the case. The 11th Circus agreed.
I'm going to go with "there's more to the story than what's in this article." The courts clearly say a clear difference between the girl's story, and the pillow fight you described.
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They have been utterly and completely incompatible with the First Amendment the entire time they have been in existence.
“The First Amendment doesn’t protect your right to make death threats....”
However, the student’s literary work was clearly stated as being a fiction. Thus, not a genuine death threat. This is just another example of a kid drawing a gun and a re-educational warden deciding that a picture of a gun was the same as a real gun.
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I hope that the SCOTUS takes the appeal as an opportunity to declare all compulsory funded, compulsory attendance “government-school-kiddie-prisons” unconstitutional.
All schools must strictly restrict free speech, free press, free assembly, and free expression of religion. They must do this to maintain order.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to have a religiously neutral school. It is axiomatic! No matter what the government school does about curriculum or school policies the government WILL uphold and establish the religious beliefs of some, while destroying those of others!
When government schools compel students to attend their “schools” by threat of police action, they are automatically in violation of every First Amendment Right. This includes the child and the parent.
Government schools have enormous power over the lives of children and their families, if they are not fortunate enough to homeschool or privately school. Their power includes police, court, foster care action, and the real threat of prison for both the parent and the child.
For those parents who wish to escape the government school gestapo, they must: 1) pay the religious-philosophical ransom of private tuition for their child to attend a private school, or 2) pay with their time and lost income to homeschool.
Any citizens who opposes the religious indoctrination of the government schools ( Secularism is a religion) faces the loss of his home or business to sheriff´s auction. ( Real bullets in those guns on the hip)
As a former homeschooling mom, I personally know the power that government schools have over people´s lives. These fascists/Marxists are not good people.
It does not matter how long they have been in existence. Government school never were, are not now, and never will be constitutional!
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