You could argue that but then again it misses the ENTIRE point.PC's cents (I have trouble using "sense" in that context) of liberty unbounded maybe ideologically sound for the extreme but for most of us it borders on absurdity. Only an idiot or an extremist would allow a situation to proceed when the potential for violence and harm appeared likely; only an extremist would comport the actions of a school administration acting to mitigate violence as an affront to liberty. And only someone as captious as PC would make a federal case out of it.
Only an idiot compares wearing a shirt that someone might attack you for wearing and putting OTHERS in danger by yelling fire in a theater. Let me straighten this out for you –
If I yell fire in a theater I have created a situation that puts people in danger.
When I wear a shirt that you don’t like I have NOT placed others in danger.
What this school has done is utterly asinine and wrong. They have limited the freedom of one person because of others who would break the law and attack them. Get a clue – it is the people that attack you for wearing the shirt who are the problem – not the students that wear an American flag. I suppose you think it would be perfectly fine to take away the ability for those students to wear a Mexican flag as well if the other students started assaulting them in response.
Why are we reinforcing the violence as a solution? If you don’t like a particular symbol – beat those up that are wearing it until the school capitulates and bans that symbol. The ‘reasoning’ here is utterly insane.
We can argue if wearing a flag shirt meets the standard for fighting words*** all day, but the reality is an administrator who believes a student wearing any symbol which has the potential in his or her opinion to create chaos has a duty to protect his student population. That is certainly not asinine or wrong and logic has nothing to do with it.
The administrator felt that the American flag itself was the problem, an opinion that is completely off base and asinine. The administrator ALSO manages to ignore the ones that are actually doing the attacking – an epic fail. Further, the administrator could have avoided this entire issue by simply banning the wearing of flags in general – a move that she avoided. Nay, the AMERICAN flag was removed while other students could wear the flag of their choice. THAT is selective restriction on specific speech. She did not limit flags because they create violence; she eliminated the AMERICAN flag only because ‘offended’ students beat on those that wore it. I can’t fathom how you can miss that GLARING reality.
I have always defended the right to do with the flag as you please as a form of speech – if you really want to make a point by burning the American flag you are more than welcome to make your insanity public.Yet my questions to PC do require legal reasoning so I pose them to you too:
Comport the rights of those you defend wearing our flag on their shirts and the rights of another group ripping our flag into little ribbons of red, white and blue.
Speech is protected precisely for those forms that people disagree with.
I agree with the courts decision that the banner was against the school policy and that the official was fully within her rights to remove it/suspend the student. Of course this example has absolutely no connection with the flags in the OP – the school did not have a policy that forbade the wearing of flags – JUST the American flag. Selective suppression of expression BASED ON THE MESSAGE. That is what this is, PERIOD.And on which side would you fall on the decision in Morse v. Frederick (551 US 393 [2007), aka BONG hits 4 Jesus?
I so look forward to reading your legal reasoning.
*** fighting words n. words intentionally directed toward another person which are so nasty and full of malice as to cause the hearer to suffer emotional distress or incite him/her to immediately retaliate physically (hit, stab, shoot, etc.) While such words are not an excuse or defense for a retaliatory assault and battery, if they are threatening they can form the basis for a lawsuit for assault.
In the common law, assault is the tort of acting intentionally, that is with either general or specific intent, causing the reasonable apprehension of an immediate harmful or offensive contact. Because assault requires intent, it is considered an intentional tort, as opposed to a tort of negligence. Actual ability to carry out the apprehended contact is not necessary.
No matter how you try and dress it up, you simply cannot do that.
BTW, if she had done this to the Mexican flag wearers and NOT the American flag wearers the issue would have been identical. It would still be wrong for the exact same reasons.
Also, to the bold – you are making the connection that the FLAG is ‘so nasty and full of malice as to cause the hearer to suffer emotional distress or incite him/her to immediately retaliate physically.’ That does not even rate as worthy of a response.
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