Ferguson's "free speech zone" is a padlocked no-man's-land

In the long(er) term, there are two good things that will come out of this mess in Ferguson.

First is that white, middle-class people can finally see how thin the veneer of respectability of their police forces is. They have now seen film of cops threatening to kill people, refusing to identify themselves, barking profanity at bystanders and reporters, covering up their crimes, etc. Many will forget this as soon as the next “new” outrage appears, but there will be more who have now had their eyes opened to the fact that the place force in many places sees themselves as an invading force, dealing with “animals”.

The second good thing is that once all the settlements and lawsuits are through the courts, the power structure in Ferguson, MO will no longer exist in its present form. The city (and perhaps the county) will be bankrupt and the various white officials in positions of power will all be thrown out by voters for their appalling ineptitude. Even the most racist of suburban voters will not like having to pay for multiple legal settlements for the next decade.

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Hey, if it’s a good enough method for teaching their kids about sex, it’s good enough for learning about speech.

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I was going to use Henry Ford’s offer of “any colour of free-speech you liked, as long as ….” until I remembered that the only available colour might jar with the policy of this particular offer.

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One of my favorite Mad Magazine cartoons was from the 60s and said:

“In Russia you can say anything you want. Once.”

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Notice, no where in the Bill of Rights does it say Free Speech is designated to approved areas ONLY!?

The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution
prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion,
impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of
speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the
right to peaceably assemble or
prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances. It
was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that
constitute the Bill of Rights.

If your civil liberties, ‘Free Speech’ for example, only applies in designated areas as defined by
cops, then this is no longer a Democracy. -B

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It would be a fun interesting depressing activity to take all of those old Soviet cartoons/etc and edit them to fit the current US climate.

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Indeed not. They’ll be learning about it directly from their parents, thank you very much, possibly in a first instance in use AGAINST said school and it’s petty officials.

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In Modern America, free speech Zones you!

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The vast majority of middle-class white people have seen nothing of the sort. They’ve seen a bunch of news reports about how those stupid blacks are rioting and looting and destroying their own community again though.

The vast majority of people I know, who consider themselves liberals, even in the liberal bastion of Boston and California, are coming out in support of the police, and they haven’t seen anything but a bunch of “rioters” destroying their own community because a police officer had to shoot a violent criminal, high on drugs and just off a robbery, who had tried to take his gun and then charged him.

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That’s right, they go back to when George W. Bush became so nervous of his fellow citizens that he not only required tickets and an affirmation of True Belief to get into any of his so-called political rallies/town hall meetings, he made anyone else with differing opinions stay in his ‘free speech zones,’ always set up far enough away from the event that they were irrelevant.

“Free speech zones.” Another in the long line of Bush’s Orwellian constructs, like “Clean Water Act.”

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The Free Speech Zone will not be televised.

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You almost got that right, it’s just that the Clean Water Act was signed into law by Nixon. A guy the current GOP would tar and feather for being a bleeding-heart ‘lib’rul’.

If that’s true - it’s really sad. I don’t watch TV news, so I haven’t seen how badly the truth has been mangled.

Maybe people can see an out-of-control angry cop point his gun at the heads of unarmed and unthreatening people and then give his name as “Go fuck yourself” and see nothing wrong with that. What cognitive dissonance that must entail?

Maybe it’s time to look for a new country to live in.

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I’m really sick of seeing these police officers playing at being army men. #TerroristsWin

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‘sea to shining sea’ is a bit flowery for legislation, but the intent was there.

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people like aligning themselves with the powerful… like they’ll be protected or something, when their turn comes.

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At least the chocolate ration is being increased.

the National Environmental Policy Act also.

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Before the free speech zone sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the free speech zone. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” At the moment the gate to the zone stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try it in spite of my prohibition. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I can’t endure even one glimpse of the third.” The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the free speech zone should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. The latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.” During the
many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the free speech zone. He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud, later, as he grows old, he still mumbles to himself. He becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him.
But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the free speech zone. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body. The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great difference has changed things to the disadvantage of the man. “What do you still want to know, then?” asks the gatekeeper. “You are insatiable.” “Everyone strives after the free speech zone,” says the man, “so how is it that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it."

– Kafka, Before the Law (more or less)

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So that’s why it doesn’t include Hawaii and Alaska.