Checking out any non-mainstream media inevitably brings you to some stories about people who are being fined or intimidated for speaking their minds. I'd like to take a look at two stories that I came across, and talk about whether they are really free speech issues, or if they are just about people who broke the law and are falsely claiming that they were discriminated against for their views. The links are at the end of the article.
I'll start with the one that is a bit less controversial. A man had a sticker on his rear window that said, “No to Empire,” and was pulled over and ticketed for it. I suggest reading the article for the full story. But anyways, it was supposedly on the grounds that the sticker was obstructing his view. The Professor Ovetz, the man being fined, claims that there are tons of people with stickers from their college in the same place as his sticker, and that it did not obstruct his view. Now I know that my family has UConn stickers in the same exact place, and that it does not obstruct our view, and that we've never been fined for them. I've seen tons of people on the road with the same type of sticker. So, unless the laws in San Francisco are different than here in South Windsor (which they very well may be, I'm not being sarcastic), I think that the police officer was probably stretching the law in order to get Ovetz to take his sticker down.
The next one is more controversial, as it involves the flag. Dale Decker, of Wisconsin, flew a flag upside-down on his apartment patio. According to Decker, he talked to a police officer, who told him that he was breaking the law (without being able to say exactly which law) and should take down the flag or he would face fines or imprisonment. The police chief denies that he was threated with fines or imprisonment, and that he was merely asked to take it down due to a neighbor's complaint. Decker has also faced anger and death threats from other people in his community. The end of the story is that the apartment complex ordered all flags, even right-side up, to be taken down. Everyone, including Decker, complied with this. Now as I said, the flag is a lot touchier for people than a sticker. But it should be Decker's right to fly the flag upside-down if he so chooses. The apartment obviously wanted to get Decker's flag down to avoid conflict, but ordered all flags down in order to seem neutral. This was a good move, as it keeps them out of the ideological side of it. But they didn't order all flags down until Decker began to “disgrace” his, and the owners of the apartment complex said that they only had problems with “anyone showing disrespect.” Also, he was not breaking any law, merely a rule of the apartment. So if Decker's claim of what the police said is true, then we are looking at a case of the police using intimidation against nonviolent speech, which would be a much bigger deal. I just hope that the Decker was exaggerating, and that the police did not threaten him. This story has many more holes in it, and I'm much less sure about who was right than with Ovetz's case.
Now I'm not saying that I agree with Decker's flying the flag upside-down, or with Ovetz's sticker. I just think that they should both be allowed to express their ideas, without being singled out by police officers who twist the law to fit the situation. Also, the way that the community treated Decker was horrible. People should respond to his actions by flying their own flags right-side up, not by saying that, “If you keep up what you're doing, a vet is going to find you and put a bullet in your head.” Stifling free speech stifles independent thought, and that is what our country is supposed to protect. Feel free to comment with your own ideas about these articles, or if you find any articles addressing the same situations from different viewpoints. This country is about the free expression of ideas, I just expressed mine, now please express yours.
http://www.progressive.org/mag/mc070708.html
http://www.progressive.org/wx070408.html
