Hm I'm curious as to your absolutist stance on freedom of expression. I don't follow that you can have the ability of unlimited expression and ignore the fact that someone else deserves just as much a right to NOT be on the recieving end.

Some clarification is in order.

I don't hold that you can say whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want, at all times. On the grounds of property rights, I wouldn't allow someone to break into my home and begin a long harangue about the necessity of a global government. Similarly, I'd support a business posting a notice outside it's entrance explaining what is and what isn't allowed inside. If that includes threatening behavior or intimidation, then that's fine.

I do hold that speech by itself cannot cause harm or violate rights unless it's performed on the property of someone who doesn't want you there. It takes action to do violate a right. You'll have to explain why you feel humans have a right to NOT experience discomfort, unease, fear, or other emotions.

My position is best boiled down to: speech is not a privilege, it's a right. And as a right, you don't need to ask permission to do it.

Isn?t speech an action? It affects, and can do so with great impact. Of course we aren?t limiting speech to merely vocal activity, but also anything representative, correct? And in this case, the obvious intent of the DJ was to incite the response due his representation, which it seems he claimed initially. So why would his intentful incitation of effect by action go under discussions of property rights?

As an aside, if the threat towards violence is separated from violence, and going so far as to sever intention of violence without outright ?action? as you earlier describe it, under what level would your doctrine of self defense be applicable? Let?s say you are with your family and they have a gun and say ?I?m going to kill you and your family.? And you respond by killing them, preventing the intended action (whether or not it was literally intended, but your judgment called it as imminent). Would you have been justified by your beliefs? On neutral property? On the other person?s property?

I?m afraid I?m having a bit of trouble figuring out ?action? itself under your description.

Speaking is an action. However, it is an action that only affects the listener if he so chooses it. It is an action that carries no direct physical consequences when carried out; when I speak, I do so with the knowledge that anyone who hears what I have to say can ignore it, partially listen, or fully listen. What happens after that point is also up to the listeners. They may make different decisions after hearing me, but they are responsible for those decisions, not I.

I'd file this under property rights because as property owners, we have the right to pick who can enter our homes, cars, businesses, and such. If a property owner wants a smooth and civil business, he may want to post the rules by which he expects his customers to follow if they want to do business. So if you do something the property owner doesn't like, then you have to leave if he asks you. Acting suspiciously criminal could fall under this.

We have to keep separate threats, intents, and provocations from the acts that are actually being bandied about. Without that bright line keeping them apart, we get into muddy gray areas that become too subjective to enforce with integrity, never mind the previously mentioned causality distinction between choosing to react to something or not. If someone were to threaten the lives of my family with words and armed gestures as you described, I'd react in self defense to some degree. Unless my family and I were trespassing on the threatener's property and didn't have permission to be there, any hesitation I'd experience would be slight. Responsibility I'd accept afterwards. If I ended up killing the threateners, I'd feel justified in doing so because to fire on them is a last resort option for me.

Had the store clerk reached under his counter and drawn a shotgun on the DJ and demanded he leave, I'd be fine. Had the store clerk told the DJ to stay out of the store as soon as he saw him walk up, I'd be fine. I'm not fine with punishing the DJ with fines and jail time for scaring someone and not hurting anything.

It's the difference between advocating the abolishment of the federal government by any means necessary and actually attempting to arrest or subdue the individuals working within the federal government. One is an opinion, a wish, or an exhortation and it can be accepted or rejected in a number of ways. The other is the act in question and all the violence it would entail.

Saying, acting as, or dressing as something that presents a threat shouldn't be illegal.

Freedom of expression is already limited. You can't shout FIRE in a croweded movie theater.

Let's say I while driving on the highway I pull up next to someone and point an empty gun at them. The driver jerks the wheel, hits another car, rolls down an embankment and dies.

I had no intention to shoot the person, the gun was unloaded, but I would still be responsible for the outcome.

How about I call an airport and report bombs on three jets? No bombs. I am just having fun.

How about I pick one guy and call him all the time and follow him and tell him I am going to kill him all the time. I would never do it but it sure would be fun for me.

How about I tell someone I am going to kill them.... but actually mean it. When the police come I can just say it is a joke. No harm no foul.

Just think. If I drink and drive I have not hurt anybody. Victimless crime. I would still go to jail.

Shooter, I'm not saying freedom of speech *isn't already* limited. I'm saying it shouldn't be. Shouting "FIRE!" in a theater does exactly this: it informs the people around you that you've yelled "FIRE!" It doesn't compel them to act or respond. It doesn't mandate they madly rush for the exits. And it doesn't control the minds of anyone in earshot. People who DO react rashly are just as responsible for their actions as people who react calmly are.

The driver who reacted to the gun jerked his steering wheel, not you. He decided, in that split second, that it was more important to get out of your aim by turning the car rather than braking, speeding up, or ignoring you.

None of your hypothetical scenarios change this situation. Harassing and stalking people sets up a pattern of behavior that can be acted upon by the person being bothered if that person feels a reaction is the best choice of action. Speech should never be illegal.

Your example of drinking and driving demonstrates you don't understand where I'm coming from. Getting locked up and fined for driving after drinking and only for that reason is absurd.

So you have no problem with a person tells another person to go kill another person, knowing that it will happen?

For example, lets say I am poor and being forced out of my house by the bank. I tell my adult son he needs to kill the banker. My son goes out and does this. According to state law I have conspired to commit murder. In your world I have done nothing wrong. I am simply saying something. It is entirely my sons fault, even though he never would have thought to do it without my direct action. You are ok with this correct?

Now let me ask you this. You walk up to me and yell I am going to kill you. I hearing this shoot you six times. Do you have a problem with this?

Yeah, I'd certainly have a problem getting shot! Wouldn't anyone? But you're just presenting more scenarios different only in detail from the ones already discussed. You (in the latter example) and your son (in the former example) would be guilty of murder...no matter who said what to whom before. Speech doesn't compel action. Individuals acting on their own initiative are responsible for their actions. Case in point: you are under absolutely no obligation to respond to this new comment of mine. If you do, you did so because you wanted to.

Conspiracy to commit a crime is something I'm willing to consider, but it's got to go beyond just telling someone to do something illegal to someone else.

Woah,　they went on tangents I wasn`t headed down. Again, this is being typed on a ajapanese keyboard, so please ignore the oddities in text~

Here:s where I@m coming from, I don@t agree that you can establish the freedmo of speech as a blatant right while ignoring the consequences of not defining the rights of the individual at the other end. What makes the first action, speech, more important, or more worthy of absolute freedom, in comparison with KNOWINGLY causing others to form conjectures that may be hazardous?

For example, you do say you grant the rights of buisnesses to discriminate (not in the loaded PC usage, in the vocab term) thier clientele. However, I`d be under the assumption that there are social bylaws of the nature that pertained to buisnesses as well as all establishments- which, more than likely, the DJ was aware of similarly, that prevent KNOWINGLY inflammatory activities, or equally loaded activities which have the EXPRESS purpose of causing the commotion and instilling a degree of threat into a vicinity, or on others. The earlier mentioned `FIRE` is a good example, the resultant damage caused by screaming that in say, a crowded theater, or hospital, is an ACTION SPECIFICALLY taken for a reaction with a negative value, ie, the action is calculated in order to frighten/injure people.
I:m not saying i necessarily agree with that arguement myself, but lately I:ve been curious as to the justifications of political and social posits and this one interested me. How is speech to be held greater then the effects it causes in those unwillingly subjected to it, how are you weighing those two interrelated things ?
Curiosity.

I'm offended you couldn't even muster up a decent hardworking American keyboard to comment, Trade-y! tsk tsk...

I don't see how I'm not defining the rights of the listeners of a person's speech. Assuming the speaker isn't on the listeners' property, in what instances do their rights allow them to silence the speaker? That's my primary concern with this: silencing people for talking/yelling/etc.

Even with malice aforethought, I wouldn't criminalize speech designed to agitate listeners. As I said above, the fact that some jerk decided to cause a panic doesn't make him responsible for Mr. Smith in the back trampling an old lady to death on the way out the door. Individuals are responsible for their own actions.

Speech is too precious to be trampled, even a little. It's an extension of the person and that person's thought. It's an expression of ideas and concepts, and absolutely necessary for a society to function. Marginal restrictions may seem fine, but those only set the stage for the next marginal restriction and anyone paying attention to the calls for additional regulation or outright prohibition of "indecency," political advertisements, and commercials should understand what I mean. Establishing a property-limited (but otherwise absolute) freedom of speech as a principle would ensure those transgressions wouldn't happen.

The negative consequences of such a principle shouldn't be dismissed and ignored, but they don't override the principle. I think this way primarily due to my discussion of individual responsibility above. I simply cannot be held responsible for the process, content, and outcome of another person's mental faculty. I can provide inputs that person may choose to integrate into or reject out of his awareness but I can't make decisions for him. I can't compel action merely by saying, writing, or communicating something. The choice to act is left to the listener.

Mr. Chappell played a dirty trick on someone in a position where the trick would have an even greater impact. The clerk is right to be upset and would have been right to throw him out, bear a weapon in self-defense, and was right in calling for help afterwards. What isn't right is criminally sanctioning a man for dressing up in a way that fits a stereotype of a dangerous person and then not doing anything dangerous and criminal.