[RD] Marty Walsh versus the Bill of Rights

BvBPL said:
Things that may appear to contain a threatening element but are obviously hyperbolic or otherwise do not show an intent by the writer to carry out the alleged threat are protected.
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I am interested in whatever legal citations you can come up with on this.
 
Elonis v. United States. Watts v. United States.
 
BvBPL said:
The part where people think that's a full statement of the law. True threats aren't protected. Things that may appear to contain a threatening element but are obviously hyperbolic or otherwise do not show an intent by the writer to carry out the alleged threat are protected. This would be the case here.
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Really. How exactly would you argue that an anonymous threat to slash the tires on an unprotected vehicle is "hyperbolic" or that there is no intent by the writer to carry it out?

I see no point in exploring this question of law since it is clearly not applicable to the case at hand.
 
BvBPL said:
The part where people think that's a full statement of the law. True threats aren't protected. Things that may appear to contain a threatening element but are obviously hyperbolic or otherwise do not show an intent by the writer to carry out the alleged threat are protected. This would be the case here.
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You make some strange assumptions some times. "If you park here I'll slash your tires/kick your ass" is most certainly not a hyperbolic threat. I can guarantee you emphatically that no court anywhere would interpret a threat taped to a space saver as anything other than a literal threat. Nor should they, because it is quite clearly intended to threaten the action stated in the note.
 
metalhead said:
You make some strange assumptions some times. "If you park here I'll slash your tires/kick your ass" is most certainly not a hyperbolic threat. I can guarantee you emphatically that no court anywhere would interpret a threat taped to a space saver as anything other than a literal threat. Nor should they, because it is quite clearly intended to threaten the action stated in the note.
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Same thing I thought. Googling "stolen parking space revenge" turns up 235,000 results. It is emphatically different from either of the issues in the cases cited by @BvBPL, given that there is a clear intent to actually deter people from taking the parking spot.
 
Three clearly rational arguments...well, two plus my more or less refusal to engage. This is the point where the right wing representative tucks away their false narrative only to spring it again totally unaffected at some later date. This process will likely be continued until someone gets frustrated with presenting the same rational argument however many times and says "eff you." At that point the right wing representative will haughtily claim that only they are willing to engage in civil discourse.
 
BvBPL said:
Well that's just it, space savers are in fact recognized by official city policy. It becomes an issue when people are treated differently based upon the content of their speech, as Walsh states he will act.
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The state reserves the right to treat people differently based upon the content of their speech when that speech represents a credible threat of harm to a person or their property. That's why it's illegal to send people death threats, for example, or to incite a riot.

Between this and punching Nazis, Americans are choosing some very strange places to draw their line in the sand vis a vis civil rights. You'd think it might have been when all those cops killed all those black people, but, no, Nazis and sociopaths, that's where we go to the barricades.
 
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Quiet you, we've got fragile white identities that need protecting!
 
Traitorfish said:
Between this and punching Nazis, Americans are choosing some very strange places to draw their line in the sand vis a vis civil rights. You'd think it might have been when all those cops killed all those black people, but, no, Nazis and sociopaths, that's where we go to the barricades.
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Hey, don't lump me in with....them
 
Timsup2nothin said:
Make the world a better place:

Step one, remove space saver with note threatening to slash tires.
Step two, park car.
Step three, watch for person to come along and retrieve their space saver.
Step four, kill them before they can slash tires, whether those tires belong to you or someone else.
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I notice that Step 2 is not ‘park your car’.
 
Takhisis said:
I notice that Step 2 is not ‘park your car’.
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The full plan works best if you use a car that can't be traced to you. Cars are like giant identifying marks. That's why I drive other people's cars as much as possible, and my cars are registered to an address where I can't ever be found.
 
BvBPL said:
Things that may appear to contain a threatening element but are obviously hyperbolic or otherwise do not show an intent by the writer to carry out the alleged threat are protected. This would be the case here.
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How do space savers threatening to slash my tires not show an intent by the writer to carry out the threat? That seems exactly like something someone who would even go through the trouble of doing the whole space saver thing in the first place would do. That's because people who would engage in such petty behavior are the type who have the "Madea" philosophy on life of "I don't get got!" And those are the exact types of people who would make good, or try to make good, on any threat they make.
 
Take the following pictures of space savers. Both are nasty. At least one is threatening. But neither fall outside of the First Amendment.

Spoiler :



Walsh seeks to direct public works employees to remove space savers using nasty or threatening notes. That places the onus to determine what is and what is not threatening on public works employees who will not be properly prepared to comply with the nuances of the First Amendment. It is unreasonable to assume that public works employees can be probably trained to distinguish between threatening but protected speech and true threats during a four day blizzard and its immediate aftermath. The order should be suspended until such a time as BPW employees can be given proper guidance on what does and does not constitute protected speech.
 
Much better than sending out whoever would do that training to provide public works, I suppose. Somebody'd get hurt.
 
And how is this supposed to work anyway? ... So the space-saving-warrior (SSW) leaves a chair with a nasty note. The public works guy comes by and takes the note down (or removes the chair entirely), while everyone is at work. Neither the SSW, nor the space-"stealer" saw him take the note down (or remove the chair). So when the space "stealer" gets home first and takes the spot, the SSW has no idea that her threat was not delivered (or that the chair was not seen). So if an SSW intends to slash the tires of someone who moves their chair and parks in "their" space... Do we really think that said SSW is going to check the chair, see the note is missing (or notice the chair is missing) and say, "Oh the city guys must have taken away my note! This poor space-stealer didn't get my dire warning, I can't possibly slash their tires! That wouldn't be fair!"
 
BvBPL said:
Take the following pictures of space savers. Both are nasty. At least one is threatening. But neither fall outside of the First Amendment.
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Actually, since they are both clearly threats they are both outside the first amendment. I'd be more than willing to defend the removal of them in either case if the person making the threat wanted to pursue legal action on first amendment grounds, because they would lose. There is no jury or court that would look at those and see "no threat," or "just hyperbole," or "no intent to follow through" in either of them.
 
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