Applied Freedom of Speech

Anyone who has read my disjointed ramblings for any length of time may have correctly drawn the conclusion that I support the Second Amendment.  Here it is, courtesy of Cornell University Law School:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

We the people don't enjoy the benefits of the Second Amendment as it was written and as it was intended.  Opponents of bearing arms argue that no one should own a machinegun except the government, which includes the police.  Other opponents campaign vigorously to get the U.S. government to make it illegal for anyone outside the police to own a gun of any kind at all.  As for me, I believe that everyone who wants one should be able to own a minigun, but I'm probably alone in this.

These are the two extremes about the observance of the Second Amendment.  On one side you have Mister and Mistress Fruitcake Moonbat who can't get a decent night's sleep all because of yours truly, Mad Jack, who, while in casual conversation with Fruitcake and his wife Ballcutter, let it slip that my new machinegun finally arrived and it test fired beautifully, never jamming once.  Now I'm all set for home defense.  There's another reason that the Moonbats next door can't sleep, and that's due to observance of the First Amendment.  It seems that there is an inconsiderate young man who lives down the block and who owns a boom car.  The fool comes home at 11:30 PM weekdays and plays his music loudly enough to wake everyone up, including the Moonbats.  It's a shame that nothing can be done about this, but we can't make him be quiet because we'd be infringing on his right to free speech.  Here's the First Amendment, courtesy of Cornell:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Reasonable people will argue that the boom car is not freedom of speech; it's noise pollution.  On the other side of the fence we have a group of anti-intellectual, non-erudite people (AKA differently abled) who defiantly scream that they have a right to play their music - or words to that effect.  So why am I writing this and rehashing old topics?  I was inspired to do so by a post I saw on SwampBubbles, a privately owned BBS style site driven by user input.  While it's certainly true that many of the users engage in or start flame wars at any opportunity, this one went over the top.  Here's the screen shot:

Click to Zoom In

Likely you'll have to zoom in to read the post, but that's just as well.  SwampBubbles is owned by Chris Meyers, who ran for the Toledo School Board in 2007.  A few years ago Chris tried to limit free speech on SwampBubbles by installing a profanity filter, which was not well received by the users but did serve to illustrate an important point.  Chris owns the site and he can allow or prohibit content as he sees fit - there is no freedom of speech involved at all.  Moreover, the US Government in its infinite wisdom has chosen to hold providers harmless, meaning no one can sue Chris over this little faux pas and have any hope of winning.  So what, you say?  So this.

I find it frustrating and disheartening that the government and a significant number of the populace will approve of the official limitation of one amendment and not another.  These people will zealously prohibit a peaceful, law abiding citizen from owning a modern weapon that has never been used to harm them, their friends, their family or their property and yet will tolerate noise that deprives them of enjoying their own home by awakening them in the middle of the night.  By tolerating this kind of abuse, they are giving their tacit approval to continue the noise pollution.  Likewise with the written word, by allowing this kind of inflammatory racist speech to exist unchallenged, tacit approval is given by the owner of the site.

My hope is that Chris deletes the comment and the account, then tracks down the alleged perpetrator and bans them from the site.  He'll likely delete the comment.  Likewise, it is my hope that police start (or continue) to bust a few boom cars and issue citations for noise ordinance violations, but they probably won't.  According to the Toledo Blade, we've had 24 shootings just in the month of June and chief Mike Navarre has declared war:

Police Declare War on Gun Violence
Toledo Police Chief Mike Navarre calls for a task force aimed at getting guns off the streets...

Emphasis mine.