Supreme Court hears "Bong Hits 4 Jesus"

06/25/2007 07:06:34 PM · #51

Yes that was from the decision that I don't agree with but if you read the oral arguments you might think something different.

//www.supremecourtus.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/06-278.pdf

And I read the ruling that is why I posted it.

Message edited by author 2007-06-25 19:08:03.

06/25/2007 07:15:58 PM · #52

Originally posted by thegrandwazoo:

Man we are giving up our freedoms right and left and it seems most sheep are ok with it...

Sad Very Very Sad :-/

I'm so sick of these grossly over-exaggerated reactions to things.

The majority ruling is limited, explicitly, to restricting the freedom of being able to champion a criminal act (doing drugs is still illegal, yes?) in a certain situation.

So I'm baaaaah sorry that baaaaah American kids can no longer baaaaah have assholes parading around baaaaah at school functions promoting baaaaaaah crimes.

Cry me a fucking river.

06/25/2007 07:17:56 PM · #53

I'm reading it now. Do you have a link to the dissents? I'd be curious to know if they believed it was a school-sanctioned/school-supervised event or not.

06/25/2007 07:18:09 PM · #54

Originally posted by routerguy666:

Originally posted by thegrandwazoo:

Man we are giving up our freedoms right and left and it seems most sheep are ok with it...

Sad Very Very Sad :-/

I'm so sick of these grossly over-exaggerated reactions to things.

The majority ruling is limited, explicitly, to restricting the freedom of being able to champion a criminal act (doing drugs is still illegal, yes?) in a certain situation.

So I'm baaaaah sorry that baaaaah American kids can no longer baaaaah have assholes parading around baaaaah at school functions promoting baaaaaaah crimes.

Cry me a fucking river.

So you are the king of the sheep good to know. One at a time you give up your rights don't look to me for help when they are hauling you off for being an asshole. Which btw the first amendment gives you that right!

Message edited by author 2007-06-25 19:20:44.

06/25/2007 07:20:31 PM · #55

Originally posted by yanko:

I'm reading it now. Do you have a link to the dissents? I'd be curious to know if they believed it was a school-sanctioned/school-supervised event or not.

I will look for the dissents.

06/25/2007 07:29:19 PM · #56

Originally posted by thegrandwazoo:

It's a deal. I won't look for help to someone who thinks kids have a right to promote drug use.

fotomann_forever

06/25/2007 07:37:37 PM · #57

I think he was promoting religion too :-)

06/25/2007 07:40:04 PM · #58

Originally posted by thegrandwazoo:

Originally posted by yanko:
I'm reading it now. Do you have a link to the dissents? I'd be curious to know if they believed it was a school-sanctioned/school-supervised event or not.

I will look for the dissents.

Just FYI, I found it here

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D

06/25/2007 07:53:13 PM · #59

Originally posted by routerguy666:

Originally posted by thegrandwazoo:

So you are the king of the sheep good to know. One at a time you give up your rights don't look to me for help when they are hauling you off for being an asshole. Which btw the first amendment gives you that right!

It's a deal. I won't look for help to someone who thinks kids have a right to promote drug use.

Sorry to hear that is all you got out of that. Narrow minds are what is helping to erode our rights. Especially the right to free speech.

frisca

Nikon D70

06/25/2007 08:00:32 PM · #60

it does do violence to your freedom of expression. Imagine if disagreeing with the president was made to be an "act of treason" during some sort of crisis, red alert wartime measure? What if that wartime measure went on for a long time? Its on these battle grounds where your real rights are lost, and because many people disagree with "bong hits 4 jesus" they feel its ok to not let that guy say what he thinks. He's not hurting anyone, he's not advocating violence or prejudice...what he if wants marijuana to be legal? It is in some circumstances even in the US, so why is this a "criminal" act? I'm in agreement with the dissent in that decision and I'm sorry it came down this way. There are many rights going the way of the do-do. I am pretty sure the privacy rights argument that won Roe v. Wade is next.

06/25/2007 08:12:28 PM · #61

It seems to me the dissenters agreed that the verdict should have favored the principal but that the SCOTUS should have just said she wasn't liable for any damages and just leave it at that. That confuses me. Are the dissenters saying her actions were just? If so, on what grounds? If not, then why do they feel there should be no punishment or compensation in the matter? They also don't seem to believe that the school was not responsible for the event in anyway just that it was a question of whether or not the banner was indeed disruptive and to whom.

06/25/2007 08:13:29 PM · #62

From the dissent:

"...I agree with the Court that the principal should not be
held liable for pulling down Frederick's banner. See Harlow
v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 818 (1982). I would hold,
however, that the school's interest in protecting its students
from exposure to speech "reasonably regarded as
promoting illegal drug use," ante, at 1, cannot justify
disciplining Frederick for his attempt to make an ambiguous
statement to a television audience simply because it
contained an oblique reference to drugs. The First
Amendment demands more, indeed, much more."

The 5-4 decision shows almost perfectly that the court made this ruling along Partisan conservative lines and had more to do with the political issue of the reference to drug use and the war on drugs. It in no way took into consideration the importance of the First Amendment.

Message edited by author 2007-06-25 20:14:53.

06/25/2007 08:19:43 PM · #63

Originally posted by yanko:

No I think that was allowing a principle to be a principle. Had the principle been fined it could possibly open a pandora's box. I believe that is correct. We must allow our schools to set policy and make decisions, within constitutional boundaries, for betterment of our kids. That said there is a very important lesson for our kids in this ruling but I fear it will be missed.

Message edited by author 2007-06-25 20:21:01.

06/25/2007 08:23:18 PM · #64

Originally posted by thegrandwazoo:

Originally posted by yanko:
It seems to me the dissenters agreed that the verdict should have favored the principal but that the SCOTUS should have just said she wasn't liable for any damages and just leave it at that. That confuses me. Are the dissenters saying her actions were just? If so, on what grounds? If not, then why do they feel there should be no punishment or compensation in the matter? They also don't seem to believe that the school was not responsible for the event in anyway just that it was a question of whether or not the banner was indeed disruptive and to whom.

No I think that was allowing a principle to be a principle. Had the principle been fined it could possibly open a pandora's box. I believe that is correct. We must allow our schools to set policy and make decisions, within constitutional boundaries, for betterment of our kids. That said there is a very important lesson for our kids in this ruling but I fear it will be missed.

Don't use Bong and Jesus in the same sentence?

06/25/2007 08:24:12 PM · #65

Originally posted by yanko:

Don't use Bong and Jesus in the same sentence?

That's the one! :-P

06/25/2007 09:04:17 PM · #66

Originally posted by thegrandwazoo:

Narrow minds are what is helping to erode our rights. Especially the right to free speech.

No. It is not narrow-mindedness to expect your government to act in a rational way.

A government that spends billions (that is to say, pours billions down the drain) fighting against the use of so-called illicit drugs, would be fatally schizophrenic to then judicate in favor of actions that allow the promotion of the same to the youth of the nation.

So to be narrow minded in this case is to view this as some harbinger of a facist future. And to do so, and to react similiarly at every slightest provocation, is the real danger. Because eventually people get tired of hearing the boy cry wolf, and at that point you've done greater damage to liberty than anyone in washington - you've made the 'sheep' stop listening to you.

The ruling was very narrow and specific. It does not set groundwork for an infringement on political speech. An encroachment on the ability to speak freely in that regard, a reference to the prez as someone else posted, would be cause for concern. This is no different than the court saying you can't cause a panic by yelling 'fire!' in a theater.

06/25/2007 09:15:30 PM · #67

Originally posted by routerguy666:

Originally posted by thegrandwazoo:

Narrow minds are what is helping to erode our rights. Especially the right to free speech.

No. It is not narrow-mindedness to expect your government to act in a rational way.

A government that spends billions (that is to say, pours billions down the drain) fighting against the use of so-called illicit drugs, would be fatally schizophrenic to then judicate in favor of actions that allow the promotion of the same to the youth of the nation.

So to be narrow minded in this case is to view this as some harbinger of a facist future. And to do so, and to react similiarly at every slightest provocation, is the real danger. Because eventually people get tired of hearing the boy cry wolf, and at that point you've done greater damage to liberty than anyone in washington - you've made the 'sheep' stop listening to you.

Originally posted by thegrandwazoo:

Originally posted by routerguy666:

This is no different than the court saying you can't cause a panic by yelling 'fire!' in a theater.

See you are wrong here as well. That speech is against the law and very clearly defined just as hate speech is clearly defined. Bad example.

06/25/2007 10:15:51 PM · #68

Originally posted by thegrandwazoo:

Originally posted by routerguy666:

This is no different than the court saying you can't cause a panic by yelling 'fire!' in a theater.

See you are wrong here as well. That speech is against the law and very clearly defined just as hate speech is clearly defined. Bad example.

It's against the law because someone ran it up to the Supreme Court, just like this, and that's how it was decided. Same with hate speech. No doubt in both cases some people viewed each of those decisions as an erosion of first amendment protection...

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

06/25/2007 10:30:13 PM · #69

Originally posted by routerguy666:

Originally posted by thegrandwazoo:

Originally posted by routerguy666:

This is no different than the court saying you can't cause a panic by yelling 'fire!' in a theater.

See you are wrong here as well. That speech is against the law and very clearly defined just as hate speech is clearly defined. Bad example.

It's against the law because someone ran it up to the Supreme Court, just like this, and that's how it was decided. Same with hate speech. No doubt in both cases some people viewed each of those decisions as an erosion of first amendment protection...

Not a "reasonable man".

And the point, I think you are making, that the mere fact this case got as far as the Supreme Court is the problem. If that is the case then I agree it should never have wasted the courts time. But I bet I think that for different reasons than you. But on that we can agree. :-)

Message edited by author 2007-06-25 22:31:33.

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

06/25/2007 11:32:49 PM · #70

I am a little flabbergasted by those who defend the court's decision (and the principal's actions) by saying, in effect, that because drug use is against the law then advocating drug use is not an action that falls under the umbrella of "free speech". I mean. c'mon, think it through... During Prohibition there were literally THOUSANDS of people speaking out against that law. That didn't get them arrested. Drinking did, sometimes, but... What about the "Jim Crow" laws? It took decades of activists speaking out against segregation before the Civil Rights movement happened.

I mean, you can go on and on. This country was built on the principle that a man could speak his mind without fear of sanctions being made against him. There are certain fairly well-defined limits to this (the common example is the above mentioned shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded theater), but this case was nothing like that and the SCOTUS didn't attempt to say it was, so that's a straw man argument.

Understand me clearly: I am NOT saying SCOTUS made a wrong decision; I'm not sure they did. What I AM saying is that those of y'all who say the banner was not protected as "free speech" because it promoted an illegal activity are simply wrong. That's not the issue at all. The issue is how much power, under what circumstances and in what venues, does the school system have to curtail the speech of its students? And the current sad state of discipline in American secondary education does suggest this is an area that needs looking at, because school administrators are already running scared.

Had SCOTUS ruled against the principal in this case, we'd be even worse off in that regard. I'm still not sure the law supports the ruling, but I can sure see why they made it.

R.