Ramblio

Nick Stockton

58 minutes ago

So there are a few things here. There are freedom of expression, property rights, and right to association/non-association. Freedom of expression in law means that the government cannot punish you, throw you in jail, prevent you, from engaging in your speech/expression. In such places that are public property and at that point in time open to the public, you can express yourself. What constitutes speech and expression has been a contentious matter for a very long time. For example, I can think of multiple European countries that might claim to have freedom of expression, but also have laws against giving personal offense like calling someone a fat pig. Many of them have hate speech laws that make things like holocaust denial or distributing Nazi writing an imagery from World War II a crime. Then we have property rights which can supersede right to expression. You are free to make statements I don't like add a location that is public property and open to the public like a street corner, and I cannot stop you. If you come in my house or my business and do the same thing, I have a right to kick you out and have you trespassed to prevent you from returning. Some locations such as inside government buildings you might think are public property and open to the public for the sake of this argument, but the law says that the administrators of that location have a right to trespass people in these cases. For example, I have been to a Social Security office where someone started cursing and acting belligerent toward staff, and after he was warned and persisted, they kicked him out and told him that he could not come back until the next day. Likewise, municipalities will issue permits in order to temporarily close off public areas such as streets or parks for events, filming TV shows, etc. In that case you can be kicked out of that area for disrupting. Now you might have freedom of speech and freedom of expression, but you do not have a right to someone else's property. If I want to stand outside on a public street and protest a speaker I don't like , I have that right. If I go inside and am disrupting, then I am no longer in the right because I am violating someone else's property rights. They paid money to have a temporary exclusive right to that space, I did not. They get to decide what speeches allowed or disallowed, I do not. Now we come to freedom of association/non-association. While you have the freedom to express yourself, you don't have the right to demand that people associate with you. If someone doesn't like what you're saying and doesn't want to associate with you anymore, you do not have the right to force them. So in the case that you brought up of the woman and her offensive license plate, I would personally say that what dozen doesn't appear on a plate issued by the government could be argued to be at the discretion of that government, so long as that they can articulate the rule and apply it equally. So if the rule is no calls for genocide, then that's clearly understood and it would be disallowed in that case. This does not prevent her from putting a placard on the side of her car or whatever. Personally speaking though, I like to know who such people are. If someone is pudding slogans and dog whistles that call for genocide of Jews or any other people on their car, that would be very helpful to me when I'm seeing them broken down on the side of the road and trying to decide whether I wish to help them and if it is safe for me to help them.

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Does freedom of expression really mean you should be able to say anything?

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Nick Stockton