Only if the district can make the case that posting at home is at a "school sponsored event," which I don't think they can.
What I think they'll try to do is demonstrate that the speech entered the school, and thus gave them authority to act. I'm not sure what the right decision is, but I suspect that the Robert's court will find for the school district (if it goes that far.)
I think there's a pretty fair chance that this post was viewed at the school. Does that change anything? I don't have a good answer for this, and honestly, I think this is what this case is going to turn on.
If you print out fliers at home calling the principle a pedophile and hand them out in the hallway, can the school punish you?
What if you rent a billboard across the street from the school?
What if write a letter to the editor of a publication that gets delivered to the school?
I think it's pretty clear that if the student had made statements away from school that did not and could not travel into the school then the school would be powerless to punish her. Putting something on the net... I could see it going either way.
It's not necessarily cowardly to be anonymous. It's definitely cowardly to anonymously spread scurrilous rumors designed to impugn someone's character.
Hmmm. There are a lot of differences between this case and the Jerry Fallwell case. First, Jerry Fallwell was undeniably a public figure, which makes defamation much more difficult. A high school principle may be a public figure, but I don't think that it is clear cut. Second, the Hustler article claimed that Fallwell's had an ongoing sexual experience was with his mother that started in an outhouse in a magizine known for being outrageous. That's a lot less plausible than a student accusing a high school principle being a pedophile in an open forum that is occasionally ridiculous, but occasionally serious. IMO, on first read, this probably was libelous speech. The open question is whether the school can deal with this situation administratively (which is less harsh, but also less subject to review) or whether they're compelled to bring a suit in such a situation.
It is a legal requirement in 24 states to identify yourself to a cop who has a reasonable suspicion that you are, have been, or are about to be about to be engaged in criminal activity.
A cop can pull up next to you and ask for your ID any damn time he wants to. So can I. You are under no obligation to show it to him or me.
If a cop pulls up to you and you break into a sprint, you better believe that if he didn't have a reasonable suspicion before, he does now.
If you don't want to identify yourself, ask the LEO, "am I free to leave." If he says no, and asks you to identify yourself, you should comply.
I've just got to believe that there already is a medical word that doctors can apply to an urgent order, without co-opting please. How about NOW, or STAT, or URGENT, or ASAP. Please makes it sound like a request, which it really isn't - it's an order, and there should be a better way of indicating urgency than appending "please". What I suspect has happened is that doctors over-use the already existing words, so hospital administrators are playing a game of word-inflation. It's not actually going to decrease the amount of weekend work, it's just going to force the doctors to pad their orders with code-words.
If they want to decrease the amount of work performed on overtime, what they need to do is call a staff meeting and explain why they think that there's an overabundance of urgent requests. OTOH, it's probably easier to just send out an email stating that all orders that don't contain the magic word of the week will be rejected.
It's a little unfair to use a few crazies to stand in for the whole animal rights movement.
I am not an animal rights activist, but it's hard to argue with the position that animal cruelty is a bad thing. It's a line drawing problem. Is raising chickens cruel? Is raising chickens who spend their whole lives in cages cruel? Is raising chickens in cages and cutting off their beaks cruel? Is tazing chickens repeatedly for the fun of it cruel?
Similarly there are solid public health reasons to oppose things like over use of antibiotics and introducing downed cattle into the food supply.
So while PETA may be an organization of crazies, the animal rights movement as a whole isn't.
The United States is founded on the principle that the state only exists by consent of the governed. How can any person deprived of their right to vote, be said to give consent?
That's not the principle the US was founded on. When the US was founded if land owning whites in a territory consented they could govern all people in the region.
I've got issues with felons being denied the right to vote, but I don't necessarily think that felons need all privileges of citizenship restored to them upon release from prison. I'm ok with long running probation. I'm ok with denying violent felons the right to bear arm, I'm ok with denying sexual predators from being teachers, embezzler from running businesses and traitors from government employment. I'm ok with all these things outside of the formal probationary period.
Those things are not a violation of their constitutional rights, it's a constitutional form of punishment in addition to imprisonment and probation that is neither unjustified, cruel, nor unusual.
I think this is a very tough call. I support civil commitment for people with genuine mental defects that make them a danger to themselves and others - but I also agree with some other posters here that point out that if he did this because of a mental defect he should not have been found guilty. In other words, it seems to me that the miscarriage of justice here isn't the indefinite containment, but rather the initial conviction.
And how is this different from any supply and demand purchase?
It isn't.
What it is is a great illustration of how unencumbered free markets can fuck the general public.
What it says on US currency is true: "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE"
What debt were you paying off at the apple cash register? Legal tender doesn't mean that they guy at the local 7-11 can't demand to be paid in 1987 topps baseball cards. Legal tender means if you owe a debt to 7-11 for the 30 cases of chili sauce they dropped off at your command center, they have to accept payment in cash.
ticket scalping is not only legal, but in many cases desirable
The fact that it's possible that there are sane people at tea party rallies or even *gasp* minorities doesn't speak to the broader themes of the movement. (certainly not the way an actual survey - like the one I attached - does)
On the other hand, try searching for "racism at Obama rally", or "racist democratic rally"... You'll find nothing on the first, and ugly vestiges from the dixiecrat era on the second. The fact that the tea party movement tolerates racist signs says a lot more than the fact that there's a black guy or two at them.
Of the first three I see, one is being ironic. Of the othertwo the first falls into the birthers-are-either-ignorant-or-racist-but-probably-both category, the second is just random. One the rest of the page I think I see one more ironic photo. So, 2 ironic, one random, and 15 racist signs...
Back when the tea party movement actually was grassroots (for about 2 weeks) before Dick Armey's freedomworks and Fox News co-opted it. This is how the tea party movement got it's start.
Look. There's no excuse for violence at a non-violent protest. In any group some people are asses. I'm not faulting the tea party movement for it's fair share of idiots, I'm faulting it for the racist element it harbors above and beyond its idiot quotient. Aside from the really overt and disguistingstuff, there's only so many times you can say "real americans" need to "take back america" from Obama who isn't eligible to be president because he's a secret Kenyan Muslim Manchurian candidate before it comes across as racially motivated.
For instance, the Tea Party, the grassroots movement committed to reining in what they perceive as big government, and fiscal irresponsibility, also appear predisposed to intolerance. Approximately 45% of Whites either strongly or somewhat approve of the movement. Of those, only 35% believe Blacks to be hardworking, only 45 % believe Blacks are intelligent, and only 41% think that Blacks are trustworthy. Perceptions of Latinos aren’t much different. While 54% of White Tea Party supporters believe Latinos to be hardworking, only 44% think them intelligent, and even fewer, 42% of Tea Party supporters believe Latinos to be trustworthy. When it comes to gays and lesbians, White Tea Party supporters also hold negative attitudes. Only 36% think gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to adopt children, and just 17% are in favor of same-sex marriage.
When you put it all together, it's impossible to conclude that racism isn't an important motivating factor in the tea party movement.
Now if a woman is being forced or otherwise coerced into to have a clitoridectomy - which is the only reason they're ever done - liberals (and hopefully most everyone else) is against them. Similarly liberals would be just as outraged as conservatives if women were being forced or coerced into abortions.
I was painting with a broad brush, so yes, maybe that was unfair. However, most people in congress are beholden to the "moral majority" and as such feel compelled to legislate moral points at every opportunity.
I'm also fairly convinced that the religious right is substantially larger than the fiscal conservatives (how else to you explain Sarah Palin), so while all conservatives certainly don't think that way, I'm not convinced that most don't.
I've met my share of conservatives, most are pretty decent human beings. I just know better than talk politics with them. There's only so much, "protect us from terrorist/governs best governs least/men will be marrying dogs" incongruity that I can take.
If the police are looking for a burglar, and you spread the word among the community, that could be considered obstructing their investigation.
Similarly, if the police are looking for a speeder, and you warn potential speeders, that could be considered obstruction.
It's a long shot. It might not hold up. But if the cop wanted to be a dick, he could have pressed the issue, forcing the friend to either capitulate or fight it.
I don't know who you spoke to, but liberals often think that their opinions don't make for good public policy.
Many liberals think abortion is morally wrong, would rather not have to deal with gays, and think we should enforce our borders.
However, they don't think they should legislate what medical procedures women should have, they don't think that gays should be legally second class citizens, and they don't think that Lou Dobbs is right about immigration.
Conservatives, on the other hand think that all their ideas should have the force of law.
Oh please. The tea party movement started as a campaign to mail tea bags to congress. Sure the teabagger label may have first been used by detractors, but it didn't come out of the blue, and it was quickly adopted by it's proponents - fully aware of the double entendre. It was only after Fox news decided to sponsor the movement that they realized that some uptight conservative might google "teabagger" and have their delicate sensibilities upset that spokespeople for the movement decided they were the tea party movement, not the tea bag movement. Libertarians may be wrong about just about everything, but at least they (usually) have a sense of humor. The same can't be said for Fox news's target demographics.
I would never say that everyone who attends tea party rallies was racist, but there's some ugly stuff percolating in the movement. Ever since the GOP decided to swell it's ranks by picking up southern defectors from the democratic party in the wake of the civil rights movement, they've been plagued by racism. If the tea party movement doesn't want to be associated with racism, they should clean up their house. Speakers should shame protesters with racist placards. They should stop pushing the Obama is a Muslim line. But they won't. Dick Armey and Liz Cheney are smart people. They know that denouncing racism and racists in the strongest possible terms will alienate a small, but important part of their base. They need to play to the fears and insecurities of lower middle class white America - and those fears and insecurities have a distinctive racial bias. Why else would immigration and affirmative action (which, outside of academia is for all intents and purposes defunct) be such important issues?
If your business plan consisted of making a series of long-shot bets, wouldn't you want people to know about the one that paid off?
That may sound crass, but think of it this way. A company has 1000 novel active ingredients, 900 of which drop out after spending $10,000 on each, 50 more drop out after spending an additional $100,000 each. 30 more drop out after spending $1,000,000 each, 15 more after further investment of $5,000,000. Then you patent. Then you go to clinical trials. Then you take 5 years and spend $20,000,000 on each compound, and find one is worth while.
Wouldn't you fire up the marketing machine to make sure that the people making the purchasing decisions know that your new drug exists? You've only got 9 years to recoup your investment before the generics eat your lunch. You don't have time to wait around for word of mouth to spread.
I've got real issues with pharma's marketing budget - but it's not like they're behaving irrationally.
It's possible for R&D to be phenomenally expensive, and yet be out stripped by advertising.
You're not going to find anyone here defending pharma's ad budget, but that doesn't make research any less expensive.
Lets say pharma reduced their ad budget by more than half and spent it on R&D (and we all know that the only thing you need to invent something is money...)
That would add what, another dozen drugs, half of which would be viagra plus, and the other half would reduce cholesterol slightly, but not as much as the existing drugs on the market.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the open question is what portion of homeschooling is "properly" done.
Only if the district can make the case that posting at home is at a "school sponsored event," which I don't think they can.
What I think they'll try to do is demonstrate that the speech entered the school, and thus gave them authority to act. I'm not sure what the right decision is, but I suspect that the Robert's court will find for the school district (if it goes that far.)
I think there's a pretty fair chance that this post was viewed at the school. Does that change anything? I don't have a good answer for this, and honestly, I think this is what this case is going to turn on.
If you print out fliers at home calling the principle a pedophile and hand them out in the hallway, can the school punish you?
What if you rent a billboard across the street from the school?
What if write a letter to the editor of a publication that gets delivered to the school?
I think it's pretty clear that if the student had made statements away from school that did not and could not travel into the school then the school would be powerless to punish her. Putting something on the net ... I could see it going either way.
It's not necessarily cowardly to be anonymous. It's definitely cowardly to anonymously spread scurrilous rumors designed to impugn someone's character.
Hmmm. There are a lot of differences between this case and the Jerry Fallwell case. First, Jerry Fallwell was undeniably a public figure, which makes defamation much more difficult. A high school principle may be a public figure, but I don't think that it is clear cut. Second, the Hustler article claimed that Fallwell's had an ongoing sexual experience was with his mother that started in an outhouse in a magizine known for being outrageous. That's a lot less plausible than a student accusing a high school principle being a pedophile in an open forum that is occasionally ridiculous, but occasionally serious. IMO, on first read, this probably was libelous speech. The open question is whether the school can deal with this situation administratively (which is less harsh, but also less subject to review) or whether they're compelled to bring a suit in such a situation.
It is a legal requirement in 24 states to identify yourself to a cop who has a reasonable suspicion that you are, have been, or are about to be about to be engaged in criminal activity.
A cop can pull up next to you and ask for your ID any damn time he wants to. So can I. You are under no obligation to show it to him or me.
If a cop pulls up to you and you break into a sprint, you better believe that if he didn't have a reasonable suspicion before, he does now.
If you don't want to identify yourself, ask the LEO, "am I free to leave." If he says no, and asks you to identify yourself, you should comply.
I agree with everything you said.
I've just got to believe that there already is a medical word that doctors can apply to an urgent order, without co-opting please. How about NOW, or STAT, or URGENT, or ASAP. Please makes it sound like a request, which it really isn't - it's an order, and there should be a better way of indicating urgency than appending "please". What I suspect has happened is that doctors over-use the already existing words, so hospital administrators are playing a game of word-inflation. It's not actually going to decrease the amount of weekend work, it's just going to force the doctors to pad their orders with code-words.
If they want to decrease the amount of work performed on overtime, what they need to do is call a staff meeting and explain why they think that there's an overabundance of urgent requests. OTOH, it's probably easier to just send out an email stating that all orders that don't contain the magic word of the week will be rejected.
It's a little unfair to use a few crazies to stand in for the whole animal rights movement.
I am not an animal rights activist, but it's hard to argue with the position that animal cruelty is a bad thing. It's a line drawing problem. Is raising chickens cruel? Is raising chickens who spend their whole lives in cages cruel? Is raising chickens in cages and cutting off their beaks cruel? Is tazing chickens repeatedly for the fun of it cruel?
Similarly there are solid public health reasons to oppose things like over use of antibiotics and introducing downed cattle into the food supply.
So while PETA may be an organization of crazies, the animal rights movement as a whole isn't.
That's not the principle the US was founded on. When the US was founded if land owning whites in a territory consented they could govern all people in the region.
I've got issues with felons being denied the right to vote, but I don't necessarily think that felons need all privileges of citizenship restored to them upon release from prison. I'm ok with long running probation. I'm ok with denying violent felons the right to bear arm, I'm ok with denying sexual predators from being teachers, embezzler from running businesses and traitors from government employment. I'm ok with all these things outside of the formal probationary period.
Those things are not a violation of their constitutional rights, it's a constitutional form of punishment in addition to imprisonment and probation that is neither unjustified, cruel, nor unusual.
I think this is a very tough call. I support civil commitment for people with genuine mental defects that make them a danger to themselves and others - but I also agree with some other posters here that point out that if he did this because of a mental defect he should not have been found guilty. In other words, it seems to me that the miscarriage of justice here isn't the indefinite containment, but rather the initial conviction.
It isn't.
What it is is a great illustration of how unencumbered free markets can fuck the general public.
What debt were you paying off at the apple cash register? Legal tender doesn't mean that they guy at the local 7-11 can't demand to be paid in 1987 topps baseball cards. Legal tender means if you owe a debt to 7-11 for the 30 cases of chili sauce they dropped off at your command center, they have to accept payment in cash.
Ticket scalping is never desirable.
Ok, you're not all racist ... Only 55% of you are.
The fact that it's possible that there are sane people at tea party rallies or even *gasp* minorities doesn't speak to the broader themes of the movement. (certainly not the way an actual survey - like the one I attached - does)
On the other hand, try searching for "racism at Obama rally", or "racist democratic rally" ... You'll find nothing on the first, and ugly vestiges from the dixiecrat era on the second. The fact that the tea party movement tolerates racist signs says a lot more than the fact that there's a black guy or two at them.
must be a geolocation thing.
Of the first three I see, one is being ironic. Of the other two the first falls into the birthers-are-either-ignorant-or-racist-but-probably-both category, the second is just random. One the rest of the page I think I see one more ironic photo. So, 2 ironic, one random, and 15 racist signs...
Back when the tea party movement actually was grassroots (for about 2 weeks) before Dick Armey's freedomworks and Fox News co-opted it. This is how the tea party movement got it's start.
Look. There's no excuse for violence at a non-violent protest. In any group some people are asses. I'm not faulting the tea party movement for it's fair share of idiots, I'm faulting it for the racist element it harbors above and beyond its idiot quotient. Aside from the really overt and disguistingstuff, there's only so many times you can say "real americans" need to "take back america" from Obama who isn't eligible to be president because he's a secret Kenyan Muslim Manchurian candidate before it comes across as racially motivated.
When polling finds this:
When you put it all together, it's impossible to conclude that racism isn't an important motivating factor in the tea party movement.
No you wont.
Now if a woman is being forced or otherwise coerced into to have a clitoridectomy - which is the only reason they're ever done - liberals (and hopefully most everyone else) is against them. Similarly liberals would be just as outraged as conservatives if women were being forced or coerced into abortions.
I was painting with a broad brush, so yes, maybe that was unfair. However, most people in congress are beholden to the "moral majority" and as such feel compelled to legislate moral points at every opportunity.
I'm also fairly convinced that the religious right is substantially larger than the fiscal conservatives (how else to you explain Sarah Palin), so while all conservatives certainly don't think that way, I'm not convinced that most don't.
I've met my share of conservatives, most are pretty decent human beings. I just know better than talk politics with them. There's only so much, "protect us from terrorist/governs best governs least/men will be marrying dogs" incongruity that I can take.
If the police are looking for a burglar, and you spread the word among the community, that could be considered obstructing their investigation.
Similarly, if the police are looking for a speeder, and you warn potential speeders, that could be considered obstruction.
It's a long shot. It might not hold up. But if the cop wanted to be a dick, he could have pressed the issue, forcing the friend to either capitulate or fight it.
wikipedia talks about it, so it must be true.
Someone who would be described as liberal in the US has what the rest of the world would call "center left economic opinions" - not socialist.
Libertarian, on the other hand means bat-shit-crazy wherever you go.
I don't know who you spoke to, but liberals often think that their opinions don't make for good public policy.
Many liberals think abortion is morally wrong, would rather not have to deal with gays, and think we should enforce our borders.
However, they don't think they should legislate what medical procedures women should have, they don't think that gays should be legally second class citizens, and they don't think that Lou Dobbs is right about immigration.
Conservatives, on the other hand think that all their ideas should have the force of law.
Oh please. The tea party movement started as a campaign to mail tea bags to congress. Sure the teabagger label may have first been used by detractors, but it didn't come out of the blue, and it was quickly adopted by it's proponents - fully aware of the double entendre. It was only after Fox news decided to sponsor the movement that they realized that some uptight conservative might google "teabagger" and have their delicate sensibilities upset that spokespeople for the movement decided they were the tea party movement, not the tea bag movement. Libertarians may be wrong about just about everything, but at least they (usually) have a sense of humor. The same can't be said for Fox news's target demographics.
I would never say that everyone who attends tea party rallies was racist, but there's some ugly stuff percolating in the movement. Ever since the GOP decided to swell it's ranks by picking up southern defectors from the democratic party in the wake of the civil rights movement, they've been plagued by racism. If the tea party movement doesn't want to be associated with racism, they should clean up their house. Speakers should shame protesters with racist placards. They should stop pushing the Obama is a Muslim line. But they won't. Dick Armey and Liz Cheney are smart people. They know that denouncing racism and racists in the strongest possible terms will alienate a small, but important part of their base. They need to play to the fears and insecurities of lower middle class white America - and those fears and insecurities have a distinctive racial bias. Why else would immigration and affirmative action (which, outside of academia is for all intents and purposes defunct) be such important issues?
Civilian-ish. The East India Company wasn't exactly a hallmark of free enterprise.
As for being terrorism ... no one died, so if it's terrorism its a particularly weak soup variety. I'd call it a lawless protest or a mob action.
But then on the other hand, the guy who thinks Tim McVeigh wasn't a terrorist is an idiot.
Infinite * infinitesimal does not necessarily equal infinite.
You could get an infinite number of copies of Shakespeare, a finite number of copies, or zero copies.
If your business plan consisted of making a series of long-shot bets, wouldn't you want people to know about the one that paid off?
That may sound crass, but think of it this way. A company has 1000 novel active ingredients, 900 of which drop out after spending $10,000 on each, 50 more drop out after spending an additional $100,000 each. 30 more drop out after spending $1,000,000 each, 15 more after further investment of $5,000,000. Then you patent. Then you go to clinical trials. Then you take 5 years and spend $20,000,000 on each compound, and find one is worth while.
Wouldn't you fire up the marketing machine to make sure that the people making the purchasing decisions know that your new drug exists? You've only got 9 years to recoup your investment before the generics eat your lunch. You don't have time to wait around for word of mouth to spread.
I've got real issues with pharma's marketing budget - but it's not like they're behaving irrationally.
It's possible for R&D to be phenomenally expensive, and yet be out stripped by advertising.
You're not going to find anyone here defending pharma's ad budget, but that doesn't make research any less expensive.
Lets say pharma reduced their ad budget by more than half and spent it on R&D (and we all know that the only thing you need to invent something is money...)
That would add what, another dozen drugs, half of which would be viagra plus, and the other half would reduce cholesterol slightly, but not as much as the existing drugs on the market.
Citation?