Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Protesters Follow Pat McCrory Around Shrieking Game Of Thrones Lines At Him

These people are obviously nuts.
Is this legal? Can you really follow someone all over the place shrieking at him? He should at least be legally permitted to punch them, I say. [I looked right over the bit about the cops shooing them away...so I guess the answer is no...]
Perhaps the bathroom bill was a mistake, perhaps not...I still think it's a rather tough call. But either way, this sort of thing is crazy.

2 Comments:

Anonymous cb said...

You might get your wish -- one NC legislator does want to make this illegal: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/01/25/this-is-dangerous-after-d-c-protesters-shout-at-ex-n-c-gov-mccrory-lawmaker-floats-bill-to-protect-him/?utm_term=.d80cc372e945

I've never understood why you get so up in arms about relatively powerless college students' affronts against free speech, while not seeming concerned at all about assaults on said speech by very powerful actors (recent examples: trump's executive orders to EPA and other agencies, journalists arrested and facing jail time after covering inauguration protests, etc.)

Shouting "Shame on you" at a politician for legislation they passed seems like a clear case of constitutionally-protected speech to me. I'd be interested to hear why you think it is not.

1:35 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Maybe I'm irrational...you ever think about that?

I'm all for peaceful assembly and protest--100%, unequivocally, no doubt about it. But what I read indicated that such folk were following McCrory all over the place. Yelling when someone goes by is one thing. Following them around seems very different to me. (As does protesting at their home, actually, though I have no reason to think that has happened in this case.) When protesting becomes personal harassment, I'd think we'd draw the line...but I haven't thought about it enough.

I'm in no way unconcerned about Trump's apparent gag orders, but I've basically been dragging my feet about paying attention to that, as I'm pissed off enough these days. The little bit I read made that seem like not a free speech issue, but some other kind of bad thing about how government scientists are permitted to do their jobs. Undoubtedly a horror show...but shit...who doesn't know that that guys' a train wreck in every way? People I'm interested in talking to almost all know that. But the're less good at seeing the badness of the PC stuff.

As for the stories about journalists being arrested, I just started reading about that this morning. Some of those guys don't seem to be actual journalists, but, rather, bloggers or something...some were explicitly described as activists...and I just didn't have time to sort it all out. I started spinning down the rabbit hole of trying to find out why there's no body camera footage available...and then I had to "work" at my "job"...

But anyway, excuses aside, point taken.

Also d00k sucks.

2:14 PM  

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