Politics: Onward from New Hampshire
 

Here starteth the new thread.

Al Franken- Round II?
 

Club's little brother, or maybe the black sheep of Atticus' family is stirring shit up.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,109546,00.html


http://www.foxnews.com/images/114518...calif_teen.jpg

this guy would kick Al Frnaken's ass. PS hint to editors of conservative student papers - don't go skinhead- you're playing to the mob.

First Amendment
 

Minor point,* but where was the first reference to "the First Amendment" in this thread?

*Not really.

Memories from 1971
 

Franken redux
 

Josh Marshall was at the event where Franken mixed it up with a LaRoucheite, and adds some more color. It was a concerted effort by the LaRouchies to screw things up, and people who were asked to leave then came back in to cause trouble again. Not sure that this warrants what Al did, but there you go.

The post before this one is an early candidate for POTY. G.B. Trudeau used to be very, very funny.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

Umm, what is your point? This is the text of the 1st Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. (emphasis added)

This is what Al was quoted in the story as saying:
You can quibble over whether he was standing up for what he perceived as a first amendment right or not, but I think there is little doubt he was given his choice of words. In most lay-person's minds, freedom of speech is synonymous with 1st Amendment. Al even kicked "right to assemble" language, which further solidifies in my mind that he was thinking of Amendment numero uno.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

I think Atticus was focusing on the whole "Congress shall" language and taking the position that Franken is technically not an arm of congress, nor the US government at all.
That he is a hypocritical dickhead isn't really up for intelligent debate, so I don't think Atticus was challenging that part of your post. I'm only surprised that Al didn't claim the attack was somehow sanctioned by Harvard.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

No, Hank, that was my point in bringing up the "where is the state action" comment. AG's position was simply to quibble with me that Al didn't specifically say 1st Amendment therefore, he could not have possibly been thinking he was somehow standing up for the 1st Amendment.

My main point was only that Al Frankenberry is a typical lay person who thinks that another private citizen (not acting on the government's behalf) speaking loudly over you somehow infringes your 1st Amendment rights. I think that Al sees himself as this protector of constitutional rights. The irony being that he was suppressing another's speech to supposedly protect someone else's speech.*

*Ty - I think that may be your cue to call me a name

Warm and Fuzzy
 

So not only do you and Atticus hang out, but now both of your alter egos hang out too.

Funny dat.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

Regardless of your gender, i wish you well here. i doubt, however, that Atticus will agree with your above charecterization.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

You're a troll, and I generally don't respond to your kind with more than just a pithy one-liner. As my one-liner went over your head, I'll spell it out more clearly: Hank is right; you are wrong. While the First Amendment and freedom of speech are related, in that one is a very narrowly written way of securing the other against a very particular kind of encroachment, they are not the same thing. Thus my analogy to a particular NFL rule that is conceptually different from "fair play" as a general concept.

Franken's actions could be in defense of freedom of speech, in the same sense that I would personally kick the ass of anyone who came into my church to campaign for Howard Dean in the middle of Mass. The right to speak is not the same as the right to hijack another's audience; you have to win an audience some other way.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

Well, maybe AG and I are both misunderstanding each other. Stranger things have happened. All I was saying was that Al Frankenfreak was confused as to what rights were or were not being infringed.

I would have to go back and read the article, and I am not going to do that, to know if the speech was occuring on private or public property, which, of course, brings a whole other dimension into it.*

*between the Heart of Atlanta Hotel case and now this discourse on the 1st Amendment, I have made quite an impressive showing of my Con Law knowledge here

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

Conveniently you leave out Al's comment on "right to assemble." Al was clearly thinking 1st Amendment freedom of speach and right to assemble. AG, you are wrong (again).

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

Even if he was, he had the presence of mind not to call it thus. You, however, did not. And you're a lawyer.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

I suspect the framers of the First Amendment did not believe that it gave us all the right to prevent someone from speaking by shouting them down. Nor did this get read into the Constitution in the last century. Holmes said the First Amendment does not give you the right to shout "fire" at a crowded Dean rally, and I think he would have not come out differently had the hypothetical involved LaRouche ravings instead.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

See, you don't get at all what I was saying. My point was never that he was in fact defending the first amendment. Just that he thought he was. From what he said, he clearly thought he was.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

Not Me, a funny twist now would be to analogize Ty's editing of your posts to "government action." Within the world that is this, Ty is the Man.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

He's tunnel-visioned.he wouldn't vote for Mary Carey because she was for taxing breast implants, even though her "platform" was otherwise one he'd like to "support."

You've never come out and claimed implants, i really think it might be that simple.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

Ty - in the realm of speech, all the first amendment does is bar THE GOVERNMENT from preventing us from speaking based on the content* of what we are saying in certain situations and that was my point. Private citizens are not barred from preventing someone else from speaking by the first amendment, and especially not if it is done on private property. You do get that, don't you? Because by what you have written it seems like you don't get it.

*with some notable exceptions like yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theater or apparantly by running political ads paid for by certain groups within so many days before an election (!)

But Ty, Al Frankenfreak is not the GOVERMENT. See that is the state action requirement I was talking about. The first amendment only bars the GOVERNMENT from stopping speech. It does not authorize private citizens to stop someone else from speaking in order to allow another person to be heard.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

Confidential to Ty: Please don't respond to this. It is right and fitting that this be the last word on this misbegotten thread, as inducing another poster to use capital letters to say "I AM AN IDIOT" is the perfect PB denoument.

Or, you could ban Not Me. That would be fitting, too.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

I cannot be effectively banned by anyone.

Schwarzenegger: "That which does not kill me makes me stronger."
 

Schwarzenegger to Pay $4.5 Million After Court Rebuke
Claims to Be Ecstactic About Losing Lawsuit; Says "I'm Lovin' It" to Adoring Crowds of Potential Plaintiffs

Why the New Thread?
 

I've been gone a couple of hours, why the new thread? Does this mean my post count will be reset AGAIN?

Watch me pull an Atticus Franken
 

Bitch, please.

Watch me pull an Atticus Franken
 

Dr. Frankenstein, may I introduce to you, your creation, Tyrone.

Anyone Know If
 

a candidate has ever won Iowa and NH, but not the nomination?

Anyone Know If
 

if the answer is no, the process is fucked, NTTAWWT

Memories from 1971
 

Yeah, the President thinks he's done more for human rights than Abraham Lincoln, but John Kerry is an egomaniac.

Gaius Julius Caesar wasn't the best dictator in Rome's history. He was just the only one who thought to write his military history in simple, easily digested Latin, that could be read by people who today would be watching Oprah. And high school sophomores still read it. Oh, and a little play about him, too, though that's a little more dense.

Why the New Thread?
 

No your post count is not reset. The last time something happened to the thread it was by accident and it was deleted. This time it was just locked and a new one started.

If a thread grows too big the system has trouble cataloging it for the search engine. It also can cause myriad problems for our server, and future problems when we need to move servers or upgrade.

For the moment we have set the number at 5000 posts. So any time a thread reaches 5k the moderator closes it and starts a new one. You can see this in practice if you look at the fashion board.

The original threads remain, they are simply locked. You can read them at any point. If 30 days pass however you need to go to the main page for the thread you want to view and click on the option to look at older threads.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

You certainly have shown it.

S_A_M

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

Ignore is a lovely thing, on the board and in life. And while banning from here would not be a first amendment issue, unless somehow the Admins have become arms of the Government, we generally don't like the idea. In fact in our first year we haven't had to ban anyone. Haven't even come close.

Al shouldn't have jumped anyone. First amendment not withstanding, it is inappropriate to be violent because you don't like what someone is doing. Call the police if they are disrupting your event. The state does, after all, have a right to control time, place and manner of protest for reasons of safety and security as well as protecting the first amendment rights of all concerned.

Memories from 1971
 

But wait, AG -- that _must_ have been a misstatement. GWB could not _possibly_ have understood what he was saying and still have meant it! Right, BB?

OTOH -- Lighten up a bit. It's funny cartoon, and no one gets to where these people are by being a shrinking violet.

S_A_M

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

As well as having the ability to enforce laws against trespassing if the event was held on private property and the LaRouche crowd had been asked to leave.

Al comitted an assault and battery.

Anyone Know If
 

According to , this story, never:

Anyone Know If
 

That's what I expected. It could be different this year though. I think Kerry has a bit of trouble in the South with Edwards picking up there, and Dean doing better in the West.

Anyone Know If
 

That is outrageous if true. Iowa and NH have way to much influence in US presidential politics.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

{Sigh.} I meant it to be an ironic request, not a real one. I guess I should leave the irony to PLF.

Memories from 1971
 

I know. But if you truthfully say that, as a Senator, you "took the initiative in creating the Internet," it makes you sound like a kook. Or, at least, it allows people to tar you with it, when in fact politicians on both sides of the aisle cannot open their mouths without complimenting themselves under the guise of their "record." It's a byproduct of our perpetual campaign system. Which is I guess better than dictator-for-life, but not by much.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

If by "ironic" you mean "stupid," then yes, I see how that was ironic. But if by "ironic" you mean "ironic," well then, no, your request was not ironic.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

Don't make me go all Franken on your ass.

Flinty, how's progress on that invention that allows you to stab people in the face over the Internet? I think I want in on the ground floor.