Brickbat: Unfree Speech Zone

In England, anti-abortion activist Livia Tossici-Bolt has been found guilty of breaking a law banning protests near an abortion clinic in Bournemouth. She stood outside the clinic on two days in March 2023, holding a sign that said, "Here to talk, if you want," which violated the "safe zone" set up to protect women accessing the clinic from harassment. The court gave her a two-year conditional discharge and ordered her to pay £20,000 ($25,540) in legal costs. Tossici-Bolt argued she wasn't protesting or bothering anyone, but the judge ruled her presence could still upset clinic visitors.

Comments

[MWAocdoc]

Free speech does not give anyone the right to speak anywhere they want to in any manner that they want to at any time of the day or night that they want to. It means government may not forbid or punish opinions, whether spoken, written or simply held by a person. Some jurisdictions have decided to designate free speech zones or permit some demonstrations at some times or places that would not usually be tolerated in order to minimize their impact on other people trying to conduct business in those places at those times. But the practice of designating free speech zones or granting permits is not a restriction of free speech and pretending that it implies anything else about the practice of your free speech rights is false and a reversal of logical cause and effect!

[AT]

in order to minimize their impact on other people trying to conduct business in those places at those times

How does speaking freely affect the impact of other people trying to conduct business?

But you know what, don't worry about it. I like where your head is with this. Hey, college campuses - your students no longer get to hold pro-Hamas terrorist rallies! Same goes with you unionists striking and picketing outside the company's property line! Environmentalists interfering with streets and throughways and workzones, STRAIGHT TO JAIL. I love it. Oh oh, man how fun will it be to round up the mostly peaceful Black Lives Whatever anarchists? And the predatory LGBT Pedos (which is all of them, oh dude, drag queen story hour - you are all going to jail FOREVER)! And the illegals! Each and every one of them is constantly disruptive to other people trying to conduct business. Be it commerce, or education, or property management, or whatever else.

EVERY SINGLE LEFT-WING "FREE SPEECH" ACTION IN THE LAST FIVE DECADES has been a million times worse than what this lady did, meaning you HAVE to agree that they're violating safe zones and should all be rounded up, fined, and possibly jailed. Maybe killed. (I mean, would anyone really miss them? And wouldn't that permanently minimize their harmful impact?)

I like it. I LOVE it. Put all the progs in jail forever! Minimize their impact! It's not a restriction of free speech! Everybody is sick of them, nobody will miss them, and we'll have a peaceful utopia from here on out.

[Vernon Depner]

Parody is very difficult to do these days, but you pulled it off. You had me going for a minute there.

[Rossami]

Say what?!?

If that was sarcasm or parody, I have to disagree with Vernon. That was impenetrable.

[AT]

her presence could still upset clinic visitors.

Almost every leftist on this site, saying and doing the things they say and do, upsets me as a website visitor. I want you all in jail. Right now. Starting with you, Chaz. Reason needs a safe zone against your articles. And I personally want financial restitution.

[SQRLSY]

Charles simply reported what the judge said. This is a just-the-facts article. What is WRONG with PervFected YOU, that You get all spun up, lusting to PUNISH people for reporting the FACTS?

SEEK HELP!!! You badly NEED it! If not mental health help, then moral-ethical-spiritual help!!! You are PervFectly infested and infected with EVIL!

If you ever come around to wanting to work on your affliction, EvilBahnFarter-Fuhrer, start here: M. Scott Peck, The People of the Lie, the Hope for Healing Human Evil
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684848597/reasonmagazinea-20/
People who are evil attack others instead of facing their own failures. Peck demonstrates the havoc these “people of the lie” work in the lives of those around them.

[Fist of Etiquette]

In England-

Stop right there.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

"Here to talk, if you want,"

All the loney people, where do they all come from?

[Don't get eliminated(Lying Jeffy thinks about people having anal sex with their sisters)]

In front of an abortion clinic? Wait until you hear about what’s happening to people in their own fucking house.

[Rick James]

Hey, at least Reason noticed and threw it in a Brickbat. Baby steps, baby steps.

[KiwiDude]

Do they still have Free Speech Zones in America?
You know the ones where the protesters were herded into wire cages and there and only there, were allowed to protest the president (Bush 2?) out of sight and view