SCOTUS Declines to Review First Amendment Mass Protest Rights Case
truthout.org
truthout.org
It’s not an accident that the people most outraged about “cancel culture” are far more wealthy than the average Joe. Most people aren’t walking around with the illusion that they can speak out about important things and keep their healthcare.
Free Speech is not a law, it is a concept. The idea is to be able to say what you want, including and especially about powerful groups and people. It doesn’t matter if that group is the Chinese government or Chuck E Cheese. While it is true that Freedom of Speech doesn’t mean freedom of consequences, we still get to decide what those consequences should be.
One solution is to make political opinion a protected class alongside sex, race, and religious belief.
The original sin was linking all basic needs to employment in the first place. Why should whether a child has access to healthcare depend on how upstanding and wealthy his dad is? We don’t say that about grade school.
This is a contentious one. Disabled people often are less able to do many jobs specifically because of their condition. On the other hand, political opinion is almost never relevant to one's ability to actually do a job.
>The original sin was linking all basic needs to employment in the first place. Why should whether a child has access to healthcare depend on how upstanding and wealthy his dad is? We don’t say that about grade school.
Where are these critical needs supposed to come from, if not from the fruits of someone's labor? Do you think other people owe you something for merely existing? People who get wealthy tend to get that way by providing for other people's needs and desires, and that is why they and their children are able to pay for their own needs. We do live in a society that affords even the poorest people certain benefits for free, like free school. But even in that case, poor people pay a substantial portion of the cost for those "free" benefits through their taxes. Health care is just too expensive to give to everyone for free. It would require taxation roughly equal to the cost of insurance premiums to be extracted from everyone, and then the government would still act like it's doing you a favor.
I don’t see the problem. Insurance companies aren’t charities, they exist to make a profit. How do insurance companies make profits? By paying out less than they charge. In other words, by ripping you off. Government can provide these services at cost. The evidence for this is: every other developed country.
It’s not an accident that Canadians live longer than Americans. Canadians get healthcare, Americans get propaganda and excuses for why it’s not possible. And propaganda doesn’t help you when you’re sick.
Insurance is a service, basically holding and investing your money and absorbing unknown risks, and processing payments. The government can't actually do it cheaper except by utilizing salary-controlled labor and other tricks.
>The evidence for this is: every other developed country.
This only happens in the West, and the West (with the exception of a few oil-rich countries) is financially screwed.
>It’s not an accident that Canadians live longer than Americans. Canadians get healthcare, Americans get propaganda and excuses for why it’s not possible. And propaganda doesn’t help you when you’re sick.
Canadians constantly complain about their system. It is very difficult to get appointments and their healthcare system is increasingly offering/suggesting euthanasia as a cure for various ills, even simple depression. No thanks.
> Canadians constantly complain about their system
Everyone complains. That’s part of democracy. Americans complain about our health care system too.
What matters is outcomes, and Canadians live longer than Americans. The fact of the matter is the US government can’t figure out how to get healthcare to people, so instead sells them excuses and propaganda for why not fixing the problem is actually acceptable.
Have you accounted for billions in extra taxes? I'm sure their system wastes plenty as well as ours. Not all insurance profits are "waste" either man. A lot of that "waste" profit funds individual retirement plans through the stock market.
>What matters is outcomes, and Canadians live longer than Americans.
You have yet to prove that they live longer specifically because of their healthcare, ir longer in general. Maybe they just aren't as fat, or the cold weather helps.
>The fact of the matter is the US government can’t figure out how to get healthcare to people, so instead sells them excuses and propaganda for why not fixing the problem is actually acceptable.
It's not their job to get healthcare to people. The US government does do healthcare in some cases but in general it is an individual problem and not the duty of the government. You can argue about whether it should be (with someone else!) but the government is not obligated to solve all your problems.
The issue in this case isn't whether Mr. McKesson is actually liable for the conduct that injured the police officer. It's whether or not the police officer even has a valid claim that Mr. McKesson could be liable if all the facts claimed are true, which is very much in dispute. The actual facts of the case haven't even been established yet.
This is a case about what we call a standard Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) Motion to Dismiss. First-year law school stuff.
I don't think it's worth reading too much into this case. Yeah, it's the Fifth Circuit, which is packed with idiot judges hand-picked by the Federalist Society. But as to its importance in the grand scheme of things, the "truthout" website is making a mountain out of molehill IMO. As ideologically extreme publications do.
Another commenter pointed at the Scotus blog which I think is a far fairer (if much drier) report.
For example, it would place the organisers of Charlotsville in a similar predicament, except that it's not in one of the states mentioned.
Also, to be clear, they haven't said he -is- liable, just that the case can proceed. It still has to be evaluated on merit. (at least at the lower court level.)
Underlying all of this is the root issue that all to often protests, on both sides of the spectrum, contain violence and property destruction. All too often without any consequences.
Does this create a chilling effect on protests? Absolutely. Will it mean more accountability for violence and destruction? Possibly. Would this encourage organisers to emphasise to followers the importance of -peaceful- protest? Maybe. (Will it incentivize false-flag activities? Probably.)
I lean on the side of this being "bad" overall, but its a very nuanced issue.
It's not precedent
"Because the Supreme Court may turn down cases “for many reasons,” Sotomayor stressed, the denial of review in Mckesson’s case “expresses no review about the merits of” his claim"