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Cape Girardeau police officer ordered to pay fees in flag lawsuit
Southeast Missourian ^ | Scott Moyers

Posted on 03/03/2013 10:24:06 AM PST by netguide

Cape Girardeau police officer ordered to pay fees in flag lawsuit By Scott Moyers ~ Southeast Missourian A federal judge ordered Cape Girardeau police officer Matthew Peters and the state of Missouri to pay more than $62,000 in attorneys' fees and costs in connection to an arrest he made in 2009 for flag desecration.

(Excerpt) Read more at semissourian.com ...


TOPICS: Government; US: Missouri
KEYWORDS: banglist; flagdesecration; law
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To: Mad Dawgg
You either have free speech or you don't. The First Amendment is there to protect the right of the individual to voice his opinion AND to illustrate it through physical actions as well.

The Founders did not agree. Blasphemy laws were routine in those times (until recent times, actually), as were obscenity laws, as were any number of local and state ordinances against loitering and incitement to riot. It's always been understood in America that public disorder—but not political speech—has its legitimate limits. The reason is that there's no freedom without public order. Libertarianism, taken to its anarchic extreme, never founded a surviving state.

I don't see what Federal law should have to do with this case anyway. The whole principle behind the Bill of Rights is that Congress shall pass no law. It purposely leaves the states free to pass such laws. If you don't like Cape Girardeau or MIssouri, you can move, and make the towns and states compete for your presence. The progressive Reds don't like this genuine diversity of custom. They want to enforce their hellish form of "universal diversity," where everyone is forced to confront Leftists burning flags and being obscene, and union thugs threatening businesses where they never worked. Leftist assaults on public space aren't freedom—they're totalitarianism.

21 posted on 03/03/2013 11:56:42 AM PST by SamuraiScot
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To: netguide
Good decision by the judge.

I don't like flag burning, but it's constitutional. On that same note, I'm not going to shed tears if someone gets the crap kicked out of him for burning the flag.

22 posted on 03/03/2013 12:01:31 PM PST by Darren McCarty (If most people were more than keyboard warriors, we might have won the election)
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To: phockthis

Immunity? Yeah, right. That’s why smart cops carry liability policies.


23 posted on 03/03/2013 12:01:52 PM PST by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)
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To: morphing libertarian
When the muzzies burn our flag do you run down to the airport fly there and give em hell?

I'm for it. When do we leave?

Speaking of which, there's nothing in our actual Constitution that says we have to admit, or bar, Moslem immigrants to America.

24 posted on 03/03/2013 12:26:24 PM PST by SamuraiScot
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To: SamuraiScot
He stood in his front yard, on a public road

A front yard is not a public road. It is private property. That's different than the public square.

He's an America hating jerk, but that in itself isn't illegal, nor should be.

As far as obscenity laws go, the problem there is that they are hard to define.

We are Americans, and we entitled to the principles of public order and genuine morality.

Morality in whose eyes? Morality is something that is between me, my conscience, my family, friends, and God. Not government. Not "society." If I say that I don't support gay behavior in public, that's now in many eyes as immoral has calling an 70 year old church lady a word that begins with c that isn't in my vocabulary. I don't trust "public order" anymore either, not with how school admins and our government officials run things.

Distasteful behavior is bad, but shouldn't necessarily be illegal with misdemeanors and felonies that goes on the record (for everything these days). Sometimes an old fashion arse-kicking is the better solution.

25 posted on 03/03/2013 12:27:30 PM PST by Darren McCarty (If most people were more than keyboard warriors, we might have won the election)
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To: morphing libertarian
When the muzzies burn our flag do you run down to the airport fly there and give em hell?

I'm for it. When do we leave?

Speaking of which, there's nothing in our actual Constitution that says we have to admit, or bar, Moslem immigrants to America.

26 posted on 03/03/2013 12:33:10 PM PST by SamuraiScot
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To: Mad Dawgg

Absolutely right....while I think the guys a jerk he has every right to be a jerk. Problem arises when legislators pass unconstitutional laws....like ones that restrict a constitutional amendment!!


27 posted on 03/03/2013 12:44:34 PM PST by ontap
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To: SamuraiScot

OK ????


28 posted on 03/03/2013 12:48:32 PM PST by morphing libertarian
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To: Chode

Best keep this precedent case handy. (BTW I’m going to use your tag line. Royalty check is in the mail.)


29 posted on 03/03/2013 1:31:07 PM PST by Eagles6 (Valley Forge Redux)
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To: SamuraiScot
"I don't see what Federal law should have to do with this case anyway. The whole principle behind the Bill of Rights is that Congress shall pass no law."

You don't get to pick and choose parts of the Constitution that suit you and ignore other parts that stop you from doing what you want. That is the Liberal/Progressives ploy.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Free Speech is covered in the First Amendment. The First Amendment recognizes the right and by the passage of that Amendment the Government of the United States has the power to protect that Right. Thus the Tenth Amendment states that any powers "NOT" delegated to the Government of the United States nor prohibited by them are reserved to the States. Thus the States have no right to limit Free Speech because the Fed Gov has the power to protect it AND is ordered to do so by the law of the land!

This is 1st year civics stuff. Might I suggest you sign up for a refresher course.

30 posted on 03/03/2013 1:33:21 PM PST by Mad Dawgg (If you're going to deny my 1st Amendment rights then I must proceed to the 2nd one...)
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To: Eagles6
i think we'll be seeing it again soon... and you can send the check to Jim Robinson - FreeRepublic 8^)
31 posted on 03/03/2013 1:36:44 PM PST by Chode (Stand UP and Be Counted, or line up and be numbered - *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
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To: Chode

They’re going to keep pushing hard until the 2014 elections. After that, if they win or lose, all bets are off.


32 posted on 03/03/2013 1:43:26 PM PST by Eagles6 (Valley Forge Redux)
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To: Mad Dawgg
Thus the States have no right to limit Free Speech because the Fed Gov has the power to protect it AND is ordered to do so by the law of the land!

This is 1st year civics stuff.

It's the legacy of Roosevelt's court, and contrary to the Constitution. I'm sure you're a good conservative, but you're trying to realize our civilization's revival using the legacy of Leftist thinking—an America whose freedoms were all granted from Washington. The USC was never designed to do that. The First Amendment protects us from the Federal government. FUBO and his Congress are forbidden from interfering with your unflattering articles or speeches about him. And the 1A pretty much protects us from the State governments, because the people insist on liberty at the State level as well. That's why the states all have their own constitutions. But the Founders never intended, and never wrote into our Constitution, any powers for the U.S. Supreme Court—of all things—to outlaw local ordinances against loitering, blasphemy, obscenity, flag-burning, or, for that matter, abortion, which they have falsely claimed the authority to do.

The key legal (as opposed to moral) reason Roe is absurd is that murder is a state matter, and the Feds have no authority there. The reason Federal rulings on laws against loitering and flag-burning (except on Federal property) are absurd is that ordinary public order is a local matter. Meanwhile, notice there's a whole six-pack of laws peculiar to Federal property that restrict our liberties all over the place.

The Founders put their faith in people's willingness to change their own local governments, or if need be, to move to better jurisdictions—rather than in Federal micro-management. The problem is that, when "freedoms" come from Washington, they're too vulnerable to big lobbies, and mostly wind up being the freedom of an incompetent applicant to get hired by you, the freedom of the Federal government to make you pay for and build a handicap ramp to your office door, the freedom of the Feds to insist that you make more girls at your college go out for intercollegiate sports—or cut the number of boys' teams . . . and so forth. Post-Roosevelt (and Wilson) the Feds dispense a lot of theft and tyranny, because they are too distant to be sufficiently accountable to the people on such small-scale matters.

Small-town small-mindedness was always an obstacle in America's more Constitutional days. But you could always move to a livelier burg. Today, with the arrogant Feds crawling everywhere, there's almost nowhere to run from Big Sis and the EPA. The more I know about FUBO, the better I like Original Intent.

33 posted on 03/03/2013 2:21:19 PM PST by SamuraiScot
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To: Mad Dawgg
Thus the States have no right to limit Free Speech because the Fed Gov has the power to protect it AND is ordered to do so by the law of the land!

I should point out that this statement is untrue. Here's the 1A:

"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."

You may be alluding to the "incorporation doctrine," a Supreme Court power-grab stuffed into our jurisprudence in Everson vs. Board of Education in 1947, that in effect claimed authority over essentially all state law pertaining to the First Amendment. It's Rooseveltian socialism—and to get there, the Court had to reverse its earlier opinion in Lochner vs. New York. It's all a corrupt mess. We need to go back to the government described by the Founders. They had common sense.

34 posted on 03/03/2013 2:36:56 PM PST by SamuraiScot
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To: Eagles6
100%
35 posted on 03/03/2013 4:05:56 PM PST by Chode (Stand UP and Be Counted, or line up and be numbered - *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
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To: SamuraiScot
Sorry but no, the Tenth Amendment is clear. The States and municipalities and towns can't override the Constitution or its Amendments.

By using your interpretation then the individual states or towns can legally ban people from owning guns. If they can write laws in opposition to the First Amendment then everything else is game.

Bottom line the First tells us Speech is free and the Tenth tells us any law opposing such is unconstitutional. (save for where such can do harm like yelling fire in a crowded theater)

36 posted on 03/03/2013 5:35:50 PM PST by Mad Dawgg (If you're going to deny my 1st Amendment rights then I must proceed to the 2nd one...)
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To: Mad Dawgg
By using your interpretation then the individual states or towns can legally ban people from owning guns.

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings. No kidding, Heller would not have been a big case if applying the 2A to individual citizens wasn't a novelty. It's a novelty created originally by the Left, and they're furious about that. The Left, by applying the 1A and so on to individuals while bypassing state laws, opened the door to Heller with the Everson case in 1947. The immediate fruit of Everson was all kinds of stupidity, ranging from obscenity rulings and Roe to Miranda—all illegally denying state sovereignty. Then Heller argued for applying the 2A directly to individuals. Of course I like that result. But it was a case of making sauce for the goose sauce for the gander. In Heller, the good guys argued, "If you want to tromp all over state sovereignty on speech in various novel ways through 1A claims, you have to do the same thing for gun rights, and give the unvarnished Second Amendment directly to individuals from the Federal level."

It's not Federalism, but what can you do? Federal "gun control" is unconstitutional, too, but we'll have to work on that through testosterone in Congress.

The point is that if we claw our way back to Federalism, we'll have sane, competing state governments, and we won't need Heller—which was a case of using bad Constitutional law to give the people back their rightful liberties through a back door. But to get America back, we have to whack the Federal government to 1/1000th its current size, and let the states take back their sovereignty. It's the only way all parties will act responsibly. We'll wind up with sane gun laws—i.e., the only gun laws will be laws against armed robbery.

37 posted on 03/03/2013 7:16:55 PM PST by SamuraiScot
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To: SamuraiScot
"I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings. No kidding,"

So then your interpretation of the Bill of Rights is that it can be trumped by State law or City Ordinances.

Fair enough, that is what is great about the USA you are allowed to a view that is totally inept and ignorant.

However you are on the wrong forum. You should check out DU or MSNBC.com. Their Views line up perfectly with yours they believe you can reinterpret the Founding Documents to suit your desired outcome.

However Conservatives know that the Bill of Rights are their to protect the rights of the people by limiting the power of Government to tell us what to say or tell us who to pray to or tell us whether we can own guns, etc.

Do you seriously think the Founding Fathers went to all that trouble passing the first ten Amendments through Congress and then getting them passed by the State Governments just so 9 town councilmen could invalidate them with the stroke of a pen?

Sorry Sparky, but you have been indoctrinated in Liberal/Progressive ideology. You need to see to that.

38 posted on 03/04/2013 3:39:57 AM PST by Mad Dawgg (If you're going to deny my 1st Amendment rights then I must proceed to the 2nd one...)
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To: Mad Dawgg
you have been indoctrinated in Liberal/Progressive ideology

Look up the cases. I will be interested to hear what you find, and genuinely interested in correcting anything I have said that is wrong.

And get better manners. I did not mock or belittle anything you said. I respectfully and cheerfully disagreed with parts of what you said, taking some care to point out where I agreed—and also conceding that some of what I was relating might sound strange, because such is history. There is no excuse for personal remarks on this forum. We are all conservatives discussing the foundations of our liberty in good faith. Assume it, and act accordingly.

39 posted on 03/04/2013 4:01:42 AM PST by SamuraiScot
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To: SamuraiScot
Look up the cases? The supreme court ruled People of African decent weren't citizens.

Does that make it right?

Bottom line: You are wrong. The Bill of Rights means people have the right to political dissent and that means burning the American Flag.

It doesn't mean some prissy town councilmen or some fatcat State legislators can revoke that right with the stroke of a pen. The Founding Fathers were serious. Those are NOT suggestions enumerated in the Bill of Rights, they are the law of the land.

40 posted on 03/04/2013 4:35:39 AM PST by Mad Dawgg (If you're going to deny my 1st Amendment rights then I must proceed to the 2nd one...)
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