When people say freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences, they mean consequences like ostracization, shunning, getting fired. That sort of thing.
I think the banner here would qualify as free speech, but I think they also were made to take it down because they didn’t have a permit or something. And the people involved should certainly be given societal consequences.
Oh, it’s totally freedom of speech. But freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom to broadcast your speech on public property without exception.
If they hung the banner on their house or private property, there would be nothing to be done to stop them.
But you can’t hang a banner from the governments property without their permission, which must be given in a manner impartial to the content on the banner beyond any compelling interests like “no hanging very distracting banners where it could cause accidents”.
They didn’t ask, so they can have their banner removed just as though they hung it from the flagpole in front of the courthouse.
They’re being prosecuted because a racial component to a crime is an aggravating factor that makes it more appealing to prosecutors.
So their claim is entirely correct: they’re being prosecuted because their crime was minor but made worse by being racist. We’ve already decided that it’s reasonable for the government to be particularly harsh on racist crimes because it singles out a type of behavior that’s particularly harmful to society.
When people say freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences, they mean consequences like ostracization, shunning, getting fired. That sort of thing.
I think the banner here would qualify as free speech, but I think they also were made to take it down because they didn’t have a permit or something. And the people involved should certainly be given societal consequences.
Oh, it’s totally freedom of speech. But freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom to broadcast your speech on public property without exception.
If they hung the banner on their house or private property, there would be nothing to be done to stop them.
But you can’t hang a banner from the governments property without their permission, which must be given in a manner impartial to the content on the banner beyond any compelling interests like “no hanging very distracting banners where it could cause accidents”.
They didn’t ask, so they can have their banner removed just as though they hung it from the flagpole in front of the courthouse.
They’re being prosecuted because a racial component to a crime is an aggravating factor that makes it more appealing to prosecutors.
So their claim is entirely correct: they’re being prosecuted because their crime was minor but made worse by being racist. We’ve already decided that it’s reasonable for the government to be particularly harsh on racist crimes because it singles out a type of behavior that’s particularly harmful to society.