RetroFed
“Clapping is a First Amendment right:” an interview with the person arrested for clapping at a data center meeting
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MicroWaveLast Wednesday, Lux Claridge planned to speak out against a proposed 1,000 acre data center in their town of Emporia, Kansas. They left in handcuffs after a city commissioner ordered them arrested for clapping.
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My whole point is that if someone is clapping or booing or otherwise reacting to a person speaking and they’re not actively disrupting the speaker it shouldn’t be a problem.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect people to not react or be silent when talking about stuff that impacts them directly and as long as it’s not very clearly outright hate speech or disrupting a speaker then it should be okay.
Rules of decorum are fine and all but when they’re used as a cudgel to silence expression from constituents at a town hall that’s bad.
It’s not about interrupting the speaker, it’s about the procedure. Boring legal stuff. Refer to funny anecdote I shared from Calgary (I realize Canada and US may do some things differently).
At the risk of being called a bootlicker, they weren’t just saying stuff and clapping, they were interrupting official meetings and asked to be dragged out.
Is this an abuse of power? Probably. How many people have been asked to leave or arrested for supporting the commissioners agenda? If this guy was disruptive (he did refuse to leave), did that deserve arrest? I don’t think so
I’m not gonna call you a bootlicker but I will say that the boring legal stuff is just words on a page. The procedure is just made up, and I think it’s mostly made up to not help us.
Anyways doesn’t matter, have a good day.
Shut up bootlicker.
It is weaponized decorum.