And you are entitled to respond to it and hopefully by so doing discourage it. You are NOT entitled to repress it, and neither is the government. They assume that power (i.e. the FCC can censor public broadcasts and the MPAA can administer the NC-17 kiss of death to a movie with excessively obscene content), but it is not right for them to do so. You've probably heard Voltaire's quote: "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". The First Amendment protects not only ideas, but your chosen form of expression of those ideas. I could make a noise like TV static every other word; it's how I choose to speak and you do not have to choose to speak to me if you cannot or will not stand to listen to me talk. What you cannot do is to require me to not make that noise, even if that noise serves no purpose; it is my chosen form of expression and as such is protected by the First Amendment. What's not protected are actions resulting from my words, or my malicious intention to provoke those actions.SCone wrote:The noise word is just filling space, it's not needed. They do not add to the conversation in any way. So many people use foul language without any regard for the people around them. Whether they be adults or children. And even as an adult, I find foul language, without restraint, offensive.
The operative phrase here is "inciting disturbance of the peace". Any speech, gesture or other action on my part made with the intention of either offending large numbers of people around me, or worse, inciting a violent response, is disturbing the peace. That's what the law says; most of the provisions not involving outright violence itself specifically require intent to disturb or provoke disturbance. This woman absolutely did not have any such intent; she was expressing her frustration to no-one in particular that some item was out of stock. The fact that ONE PERSON heard her and was offended does not qualify as a disturbance of the peace. What WAS a disturbance of the peace was the officer's actions. You mutter the F-word under your breath and 99.9% of people will shake it off even if they don't think you should be saying that word in public. Pull out a pair of handcuffs and loudly order a woman to come back, and you have the undivided attention of anybody in earshot. The officer disturbed the peace infinitely more than the woman did, and any of the woman's further utterances can be laid squarely on this fire marshall's shoulders for turning one word into a public spectacle.