(October 7, 2014 at 12:56 am)HopOnPop Wrote: ...but the legal system *is* how we enforce and fairly adjudicate public ostracisation and/or condemnation (whether it actually accomplishes this task is perhaps another discussion). I don't exactly understand what you are saying here? Can you give me a specific example of something you would consider appropriate in this case that demonstrates your own principle at work?
Certainly - a man offends the prudish values of his community. The community then ortracizes him. He is no longer welcome at the community functions. The benefits of belonging to that community - like people banding together to help him - are denied to him. And he is faced with their moral condemnation every time he tries to talk to them.
However, he isn't fined or sent to jail or forced into community service or even prosecuted. The legal system stays out of it.
If the response to this kid's actions was people posting critical comments on his facebook page or Christian parents telling their kids not to associate with him, that'd be acceptable. The legal system should've stayed out of it.
(October 7, 2014 at 12:56 am)HopOnPop Wrote: I think you are conflating two issues that need to be addressed separately
1) Is the DA retaliating... and
2) did this kid do somthing worthy of addressment by the legal system.
They need to be treated individually, and just because you (and I) sense that (1) is likely true, it should not cloud our thinking about (2).
I am contending, regardless of the DA's silliness, this kid is doing something wrong that needs some form of very minor legal addressment...and I cannot tell whether you agree with me or disagree with this point alone separate from the DA issue.
I thought I was being clear - the kid did nothing wrong. There should be no legal addressment.
(October 7, 2014 at 12:56 am)HopOnPop Wrote: You paint with too broad of a brush. Simply because a tool can be used in a particular unfair way does not invalidate it use when applied in other ways. As a counter-example where this principle does work: it remains (generally) illegal for people to burn crosses in public, even if the display is on on their own private property, precisely because of its potential to incite intimidation/violence/etc among, and against, African Americans and other minorities. Do you think that is too much of a "curbing of freedoms" on cross-burners to justify such a regulation?
A quick research shows that you are wrong. Burning crosses isn't outlawed because of its potential to incite violence, it is outlawed because it is regarded as actual intimidation.
Wiki:
"In Virginia v. Black (2003), the United States Supreme Court deemed constitutional a statute outlawing the public burning of a cross with intent to intimidate, but held that statutes that did not require additional showing of intent to intimidate (other than the cross itself) were unconstitutional."
Your "potential to incite violence" argument does not work here because it is not used here.
