2853

As someone who grew up with many Armenian American friends I can tell you they would like to at least see the genocide officially recognized. Around here Armenian Americans even were redlined from home ownership. My family just happened to move here in the 1960’s into a development that was next door to one started by Armenians so they would have homes to purchase.

They understand the politics, but they aren’t very happy about. I think Obama backed off promising to recognize it after he was elected.

2854
2855

No one could have predicted the abuse of laws that restrict speech.

2856

A couple of thing that aren’t really being presented. This law is from 1917 and is described rarely enforced and it is described as rarely enforced because it’s not constitutional. They were not insulting the police officer according to the actual article but playing some sort of vulgar words game. I don’t know why this Tweet says what it does. It is completely misleading.

The Connecticut statute is a rarely-enforced relic dating to 1917 and intended to address advertisements for businesses, not every use of derogatory language.

2857

Reading one of the articles, it appears the people who wrote the law forgot to state clearly in the bill itself that it was intended for advertisements only. So it’s an intent-of-law versus text-of-law issue, and a gaff on the part of whomever wrote the law.

2858

Well the law was problematic to begin with that attempt. But the problem in today’s world, once you know what actually happened, is why the hell did the police even arrest them based on it?

Even if they were called, tell them to knock it off and then walk away. If it goes beyond that let the school warn them and if it keeps going then expel them. There is no need to involve police in this unless it’s something like a disturbance or something of that nature… which doesn’t require them look at an old statute for that.

Oh and 1917 seems less likely it was a liberal leaning issue and more like someone who didn’t want to see something on a billboard.

2859

Because the cops were dumb.

But that’s a problem with bad laws, that they can be used by bad people.

2860

Yes. And at least one of the Supremes pointed that out recently; essentially, if the lawmakers spent more time making better laws then shit like this, which gets taken it up to the courts, wouldn’t happen all the time.

2861

Absolutely true. Laws need to be more specific.

2862

Even if the law was intended only for advertisements, it is still unconstitutional. But now the two defendants have to fight their way through the courts. (One of the articles suggests this was likely the cops’ actual goal as punishment.)

2863

I’m not disagreeing, but this was 1917. I mean we’re also talking about a time when women were wearing swimsuits that looked like dresses with shorts or, gasp, someone might get bothered by skin!

My point is not to defend the law but to show this is not some brainchild concocted by today’s liberals. This predates even Civil Rights.

2864

Well, people gave zero shits when the law was used/abused in the past. Now maybe it will be taken off the books.

2865

Old bad laws are as common as a stubbed toe in the country. We still have literal laws on the books where black men are not allowed to walk in town after dark in a nearby town. A lot of places just don’t get around to removing them because that actually takes some time to do.

The important part is… the cops don’t enforce those. It makes no sense that the cops did this, whether or not that law is on the books. And they would know that too, so they did this purposefully. It is not a secret that this specific law would not be enforceable.

2866

But it has been enforced several times in the past. It’s simply that back then the defendants likely weren’t able to “lawyer up” sufficiently, and didn’t have the public or the media on their side. (Because the “victims” of the crime were cops, and everybody likes cops.)

[edit]

I reread the article and the language is apparently pretty clear that the law is intended to apply only to advertisements.

2867

I am not sure you are arguing at this point. Here are my points.

We have old and bad laws in the books all over the country. These laws remain on the books largely because no one gets around to removing them, and most the departments know not to enforce them because they won’t stand up in court.

This law was created in 1917, and a lot of law has been tightened, redesigned or create since then. I mean not just a little change but a whole lot of change. As far as I can tell, this has not been taken to any supremes.

The fact they have this on the books but it’s rarely enforced kind of suggests they know they don’t have great standing here. It’s very unlikely that this sort of thing is such a rare occurrence… anywhere. They’re just picking and choosing here, although the article does say if they don’t convict it’s maybe not easy or even possible to find out just how many are getting entangled in it.

And again, this specific brainchild did not emerge from any sort of modern thinking. It was not created for today’s scenarios or politics even if some groups are like massaging it into something like that.

This is not what happened. That’s just what the tweet says, but this incident was not that.

I am blaming them for running with this law, not for having it because a lot of places have bad laws on the books but they know better than to enforce it.

2868

It’s a common problem with such nuisance laws.

The Rock and powerful can just fight such laws. The laws just serve as a mechanism by which the poor and powerless can be oppressed.

2869

Even if you find this speech undeserving of sympathy, empowering authorities to investigate and penalize racially-offensive commentary will be abused — indeed, a number of the rare charges under this statute have been for insulting police officers — and we should be most vigilant for constitutional freedoms when the outcome may be carceral.

Okay, only a number of past convictions were for insulting police officers, not all.

Yes, we know this. But the law was already unconstitutional when it was written in 1917. It was never constitutional to begin with.

2870

Nesrie is pointing it that this wasn’t created by liberals, and that’s cool, but it’s still an effective example of how speech laws, which are often presented by folks seeking to limit the speech of bad people like Nazis, can backfire.

2871

We don’t know whether the law was or was not written in 1917 by “liberals”, or by people who considered themselves “liberal” or “progressive”. The articles don’t talk about this.

2872

It was 1917… you know what, never-mind. If that’s the reach you need, have at it.