2 ms·
In this case no, but the question remains to the GP as to whether having the police remove the man from the crowd would have been justifiable if it were a cemet
by wizofaus 4y ago
In this case no, but the question remains to the GP as to whether having the police remove the man from the crowd would have been justifiable if it were a cemetery.
(To be clear, I don't especially have a problem with the police taking Prince Andrew's heckler away, if nothing else for his own safety given members of the public were also manhandling him. I do have an issue with him being arrested and expected to face court.)
- pessimizer 4y ago> as to whether having the police remove the man from the crowd would have been justifiable if it were a cemetery. Of course it would be wrong for the police to arrest people for being disrespectful in a cemetery. What would be alright is if the owners of that cemetery wanted them to leave the property, they refused, and the police were called. That's why all of the photos of Westboro protesting at funerals were them on the sidewalk facing a cemetery.
- wizofaus 4y agoSo if I choose to hold my mother's funeral at a public cemetery owned and administered by a governmental body and our gathering is interrupted by an unruly mob of hooligans determined to disrupt proceedings as much as possible barring physical violence, you're saying I should have no right to request that the police escort them from the scene? (We have "public nuisance" common law in Australia exactly to deal with that sort of scenario, which allows that "The action endangered the life, health, property, morale or comfort of the public". Surprisingly it can be treated as a criminal offense, though I'm not sure how often it really is).
- pessimizer 4y ago> So if I choose to hold my mother's funeral at a public cemetery owned and administered by a governmental body Just because City Hall is public doesn't mean that there aren't rules that you have to follow when you're there, or that you can't be kicked out when you break those rules. What it means is that you can't make up rules, because those are just the whims of the ruler. If there are no rules at a publicly-owned cemetery against verbally abusing your recently dead mother in front of her grandchildren, you have to face that the abuser, as part of the public, has as much a right to be there as you do. But in real life there will be posted rules, just like there are rules at the public pool. If Britain wants to pass a blanket law criminalizing all criticism of the royal family, they should. Plenty of dictatorships and monarchies already have lèse majesté laws, they can just copy them. They won't have to make up rules or improvise.
- wizofaus 4y agoThe abuser has as much a right to be there as I do, but I disagree they have a right to act in a clearly harassing/heckling manner. If they have something important to say that's worth protecting with free speech laws, that's not the way to say it. If that's the sort of behaviour that's protected by the 1st amendment in the US, you're welcome to it. On the other hand, nor do I ever wish to live in a country that criminalises criticism of anyone, esp. those in positions of power.