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From: moviePig <nobody@nowhere.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: [OT] Teens face 10 years in prison for riding over pride flag on
 bicycles
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2024 18:28:08 -0400
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On 6/23/2024 5:54 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> Robin Miller <robin.miller@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>> suzeeq <suzeeq@imbris.com> wrote:
>>>> On 6/23/2024 11:27 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>>>> Robin Miller <robin.miller@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>> Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>>>>>> Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:
> 
>>>>>>>> Leo Kearse, the presenter of this video, is correct: the rules of the
>>>>>>>> Alphabet Mafia have taken on the feel of blasphemy laws in the Muslim
>>>>>>>> countries. This is particularly evident in the horrendous overcharging
>>>>>>>> of three Spokane teens for riding over a local pride flag on bicycles:
> 
>>>>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtS-c4nPJtQ [`12 minutes]
> 
>>>>>>> Overcharging? It wasn't even a crime to ride their bicyles in the first
>>>>>>> place!
> 
>>>>>>> I love how the video clip of the interview of the lesbian witness shows
>>>>>>> an automobile driving over the very same painted pavement as we see over
>>>>>>> her right shoulder. I didn't see the felony arrest.
> 
>>>>>>> It appears that what we have here is a case of bullying children because
>>>>>>> that's what we can get away with.
> 
>>>>>> Every day this NG is filled with examples of why it's become such a
>>>>>> cesspool.
> 
>>>>>> Here is a news story and the police statement:
> 
>>>>>> https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/teens-arrested-after-scooters-leave-marks-on-pride-crosswalk/ar-BB1nSroe
> 
>>>>>> https://my.spokanecity.org/police/news/2024/06/06/multiple-arrests-make-after-downtown-pride-mural-is-vandalized/
> 
>>>>>> This happened on June 5, 18 days ago, but is now being widely shared on
>>>>>> right-wing media. These kids were repeatedly riding over an area
>>>>>> described as a "street mural" in order to deface it. The area had
>>>>>> recently been repainted after someone else had intentionally damaged it
>>>>>> using a flammable liquid. The area, according to the police statement,
>>>>>> was "clearly marked to keep traffic away as it was just re-painted to
>>>>>> repair previous damage."
> 
>>>>>> These kids should have been arrested if they were intentionally damaging
>>>>>> anything painted on the street as a street mural. And if it had been a
>>>>>> US flag I doubt anyone would be complaining.
> 
>>>>>> While the kids were charged with 1st Degree Malicious Mischief, a class
>>>>>> B felony for which the maximum sentence is 10 years, of course they
>>>>>> would not receive anything like that even if they are convicted. They
>>>>>> would probably be put on probation.
> 
>>>>> In advance of pride parades in Chicago and various suburbs, the parade
>>>>> routes are lined with decorations installed temporarily on municipal
>>>>> lightpoles. That can be done with permission in a way that enforcing
>>>>> laws against vandalism of the decorations as crimes doesn't violate equal
>>>>> protection of the right to free speech.
> 
>>>>> I'm going to continue to disagree. This is a matter of government
>>>>> restrictions on free speech. The mural, an act of expression, is the free
>>>>> speech of the artists who painted it. They had permission. However, as it
>>>>> was painted on a driving surface of an open roadway in the public way,
>>>>> that permission cannot possibly prohibit someone else from driving over
>>>>> it, even if the way it was driven over defaced the mural.
> 
>>>>> Free speech in the public way is a natural right, not a privilege that the
>>>>> city of Spokane may selectively grant to the artists precluding the free
>>>>> speech of those who disagree. It's also a civil right in the Constitution
>>>>> of the United States. Therefore, the criminal charges are a denial of
>>>>> equal protection of a civil right.
> 
>>>>> As a secondary matter, a mural painted on a driving surface in the
>>>>> public way IS NOT a painted marking as a traffic control device based on
>>>>> the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, a standard published by
>>>>> FHwA as promulgated by AASHTO. Now, it doesn't have the force of law and
>>>>> I'm not sure of its status as a federal regulation (to the extent that
>>>>> the standard is adopted in a given state, it is a state regulation that
>>>>> local public works departments must implement), but it's always a
>>>>> defense to  citation of a traffic violation that signs and markings were
>>>>> knocked over, misplaced, installed incorrectly, or worn out that the
>>>>> driver had no notice of the condition being enforced.
> 
>>>>> Similarly, the boys should be able to use the fact of the nonstandard
>>>>> pavement marking as a defense against the felony charge.
> 
>>>>> All I saw in the video were traffic violations that would have been
>>>>> proper charges, not crimes to be charged.
> 
>>>> Wouldn't it be a deliberate act of vandalism, though?
> 
>>> The artists don't have a property right in painting a driving surface of
>>> an open roadway in the public way. Without a property right, I don't see
>>> how it's vandalism. The guy who set fire to the mural certainly
>>> committed a criminal act, not vandalism of the mural but vandalism of
>>> the roadway surface.
> 
>> Burning a privately-owned flag is an act of expression. Burning a flag
>> attached to a government building is a criminal act.
> 
> Not all government land is public way for the purpose of speech rights,
> and of course you cannot burn someone else's property as an expressive
> act of free speech. That's vandalism.
> 
> I already said if the decorations erected on streetlights in advance of
> a pride parade were desecrated, that's an act of vandalism and not
> expressive free speech.
> 
>> This mural was authorized by the governmental authorities and therefore
>> became part of the roadway surface. Intentionally defacing the mural is
>> therefore a criminal act.
> 
> You're not considering that it's the public way. You can't give one
> person the privilege of free speech in the public way exclusive of
> someone else's speech. If applying the paint was an expressive act of
> free speech in the public way where everyone may use it, then removing
> the paint was similarly speech.

Perhaps you can't give it to them permanently, but you should be able to 
give it to them for a reasonable fixed period of time ...just as you can 
allow a political group to convene on public land.