boomerang wrote:I bet I could find a dozen people who think the words "President Obama" are more offensive than any four letter word ever invented.
you think he put his bullet in for this oneflb_78 wrote:The guy is a Barney Fife. He's got a 10 gallon hat to cover up his pinhead.
I hope he gets fired.
maybe they should arrest him at the next big fire when its all going south and he lets one slipbdickens wrote:Restraint. Exactly. Restraint.
I get wound up, too. I get wound up about people who have a little bit of authority and start throwing it around to satisfy their egos.
And that's what this discussion is all about. It's about this guy Decker who happens to be a Fire Marshall who overheard a woman say "They're [the batteries] all ----ing gone" and got all offended about it and decided to throw his badge around. Whatever law enforcement authority Decker may or may not have, someone else here hit the nail right on the head: Law enforcement officers are not supposed to get offended. But this "law enforcement officer," if you can call him that (he's a Fire Marshall for goodness sake!), got offended and allowed his personal prejudices to cloud his judgment. When Ms. Fridge called him on it, he blew a gasket and escalated the situation to a degree far beyond what was necessary. His petty tyrant ego got bruised because Ms, Fridge didn't "respect his authority" enough.
Frankly, I believe Ms. Fridge's version of the story. I think Decker is a liar and so is his chief. I've seen people like Decker before and have had to deal with them. Little Napoleons with a badge, or some stripes, who let it go to their heads. They take some tiny imagined infraction and totally overreact, throwing their rank around because "you better respect my authority." I've enjoyed shutting jerks like that down on more than one occasion. They ended up getting embarrassed publicly because they were overstepping their bounds and had to get a good spanking by their bosses.
If it was me, Decker would be facing a lawsuit and his chief would do well to disassociate the department from that jerk's actions or they would me named as a co-defendant.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning coarse behavior in public. But there has to be some kind of perspective maintained. Dropping an F-bomb is not a "breach of the peace," however distasteful it may of may not be. Escalating the situation with the handcuffs and all is. There's a big difference between "They're all ----ing gone" and a loud rant of "F--- this and F--- that and F--- you and blankedy blank blank blank all you blank blanks...." Maybe next Decker can arrest the fat guy in shorts and a stained wife-beater shirt. That's pretty distasteful too.
The First Amendment protects free speech. It wasn't put in the Constitution to protect pleasant speech -- to protect agreeable speech. No, it was put there to protect disagreeable speech, controversial speech, distasteful speech, offensive speech. It was not put there to protect your sensitive ears from hearing things you might find objectionable.
While there may be limits on the First Amendment, those limits tend to be extremely narrow.
How ironic I find it that some of the same people in this thread cheering Fire Marshall Decker on in his efforts to clean up WalMart are some of the same people who elsewhere argue that there should be no limits whatsoever on the Second Amendment. Which is it? Are Constitutional rights subject to limits or not? You can't have it both ways.
flb_78 wrote:Last time I checked, WalMart is private property. I didn't realize an officer can cite your someone for using vulgar language on private property. Isn't this the same argument used by those who display the 30.06 sign? It's private property. If WalMart has a problem with her language then WalMart should have been the ones to call the authorities to handle the situation.
I still have yet to understand how folks can claim the business is private property, but I can still be arrested for "public" intoxication on said private property.
Which is it? Public or Private?
I see it all becomes clear nowLumberjack98 wrote:Nothing. I'm a HUGE Carlin fan. Sorry if it sounded like I was taking a jab at you. Rather I was applauding you for using a Carlin reference.lunchbox wrote:whats wrong with my other points
whats wrong with my other pointsLumberjack98 wrote:lunchbox wrote:wheres George Carlin when you need him
This may be your finest post to date!
Liko81 wrote: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.
WildBill wrote:Good thing she didn't say "grease monkey."bdickens wrote:Ooh, someone said a naughty word! BIG DEAL! Some people need to grow thicker skin.
