T shirt is banned in 4 states

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priussoris @ Jun 12 2007, 07:50 PM) [snapback]460265[/snapback]</div>

I'm not a citizen of you country, so I'm not familiar with the laws of your country but as I understand that should be covered by the First Amendment of your constitution. Shouldn't it? If not, how is a ban motivated and would the ban hold up in a court of law?

 

Tenebre try to understand the US is under seige by right wing neo conservatives. Our so-called duly elected president has never played by the rule of law in his lifetime and is continuing that approach in the White House. He has suspended many of our constitutional rights and spent our treasury and worldwide political goodwill for generations to come. One person. Many of us have come to understand what the German people have always claimed happened during the second world war. The population is beaten down into submission by fear and amazement of the sheer audacity of the whole leadership. Like the Germans who claimed as a population so few actually knew about the atrocities their government performed, so it has become here in the US. People are keeping their heads down, eyes closed, and waiting for the rest of the world to rescue us from tyranny. What few rights haven't been eliminated in the name of worldwide terror are on the cutting block just waiting for an outside event to completely wipe our way of life away. These are very bad times in this country with no counter-leaders taking up the mantle of democratic preservation. Many Americans left after the last election, and if the next one goes as sour as the past two, you can expect a mass exodus from here to everywhere else. Unless the rest of the world wants to absorb US citizens fleeing their country, they had better wake up and help keep us in our own country by monitoring our election results and working to prevent further political abuses, the likes which have never been seen on this soil.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tenebre @ Jun 12 2007, 11:08 AM) [snapback]460279[/snapback]</div>

Would you want your name on a message or advertisement that you did not condone or agree with? This legislation is trying to curtail the use of the name or image of a fallen solider in advertisement without the permission of the fallen soldier’s family.

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarinJohn @ Jun 12 2007, 01:31 PM) [snapback]460292[/snapback]</div>

The original message is about 4 states that have outlawed whatever he's talking about and your take on the situation is that George Bush did it?

What a stupid arguement.

Do you ever think before pushing the post button?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Jun 12 2007, 11:45 AM) [snapback]460303[/snapback]</div>

I'd be surprised if the law made no distinction between the use of a single name vs the use of a group of names. Clearly, if the T-shirts had the name of only one soldier on them (and said soldier was not someone who'd become generally well known), a strong case could be made that such a T-shirt would violate privacy (i.e. be legally considered as libelous). But inclusion in a group of names, especially a group so large it numbers in the thousands, I believe would legally diminish any claim of invasion of privacy, which is the only claim I think could be made in this case.

Did the institutions that commissioned the Vietnam Memorial, for example, obtain permission from every affected family before putting up that monument? While the T-shirts are a commercial venture and the Vietnam Memorial was not, I believe the privacy issue as a legal issue would be the same.

I don't disagree the commercialization of a political issue could be considered offensive or in bad taste, but I doubt any privacy issues could override freedom of speech, again, because in this case what's involved is a large group of names, not a single name.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

What is the language of the law that forbids the tshirts?

Hopefully it's something specific to not allowing these guys to make a profit off the dead of the war. Same kind of thing with the laws in many towns or states that don't allow that idiot preacher and his followers to protest the funerals within a certain amount of feet..

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Jun 12 2007, 12:08 PM) [snapback]460330[/snapback]</div>

Okay... that was good for a chuckle.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarinJohn @ Jun 12 2007, 02:31 PM) [snapback]460292[/snapback]</div>

Why wait, I bet a lot of us here will gladly donate to help you leave now. How about it, anybody else willing to help this fine citizen find greener grass. (No pun intended)

 

Here is a Newsday article on the T-shirt ban. Rep. Boustany, one of the sponsors of the amendment, has this statement on his website.
I know that you can't use an individuals name or likeness for commercial purposes (many celebrities have fought these cases) but I always thought that was a civil, not criminal issue. I'm not sure how this amendment would hold up to a court challenge.
I can understand the intention to protect family members from commercial exploitation. But I suspect that the desire to not remind people of the human costs of this war might also be a motivating factor. If this law only pertains to commercial purposes, would it apply if the maker of the T-shirt gave all proceeds to charity (he says that he gives $1 from the sale of each shirt to a fund for family members of the war dead). What if someone downloaded the names and printed their own T-shirt- would that be a violation of the law?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Jun 12 2007, 08:45 PM) [snapback]460303[/snapback]</div>

True, but wouldn't a legislation like this open up a whole new can of worms? Wouldn't this ban the use of fallen soldiers in order to rise the public's opinion when it comes to continuing the war?
My point is neither for or against the war, my point is that when you start legislating what you are allowed to say, it take just one bad government to legally shut the opposition up.


OTOH, that (horrible) poster featuring the wounded soldier with the caption "WHY?" would be banned.

 

YES George Bush is Hitler and the American people are no better than the germans of the 1940's NAZIs!!!!

You guys are idiots!

What about rights of the soldiers. Many of whome support our government no mater who is in charge because thats what we do. What about our right not to have our fallen used for your bull crap agenda.

Why do you pick up a weapon and stand beside us. Spend a year in a foreign country because your government asked you to wether its a Democrat or Republican in charge.

Do that and then you can gripe

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priussoris @ Jun 12 2007, 07:50 AM) [snapback]460265[/snapback]</div>

You're whining because you can't make a few bucks without the permission of the families to use their dead children's names on your product? Whatever happened to CLASS?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sapper @ Jun 12 2007, 04:54 PM) [snapback]460394[/snapback]</div>

Last time I checked, our job is to defend democracy, not practice it. But I strongly agree with you, you make an excellent point.

Unfortunately, that means that we can't stop someone from doing something as distasteful and meaningless as using the names of those who have given everything in battle just to further their political cause.

Those names should be respected - you dishonor the dead by using them in a mere game of political Monopoly, trying to use those names to buy people for your cause.

I find that T-shirt no better than if you had used the American flag as a blanket to sleep in at night.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jun 12 2007, 03:00 PM) [snapback]460322[/snapback]</div>

The problem with your argument is that every soldier serves this country proudly, they are risking their lives for all of us, you may or may not agree with the war, but the truth of the matter is that we have a volunteer military meaning that no one was forced to enlist.
We can debate all day long about whether the war was a good decision, but that is no reason to disgrace an american that fought and lost his/her life for your rights.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(larkinmj @ Jun 12 2007, 12:49 PM) [snapback]460354[/snapback]</div>

The solider is dead and can not assert her or his rights, therefore, I think the only other way is to make it a criminal offense. In addition, unless his intentions are clear and in some type of written form I do not believe that his or her family has a right to sell or give permission for the use of their name either. Cindy Sheehan comes to mind and after I die it would displease me very much if my atheist brother used my name in any manner to deny the existance of God or His creative power.

Wildkow

 

Did all the men who died in the vietnam war give their permission to have their name etched forever on the vietnam monument? I'm sure that monument was a well intentioned attempt to memorialize the sacrifices of these casualties. Somehow I think that not every one of those killed in the vietnam war would have thought vietnam was worth their life and therefore might have felt insulted by having their name memorialized on behalf of this wasted vietnam venture. Therefore following the logic of these states, shouldn't that monument be outlawed?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Jun 12 2007, 08:53 PM) [snapback]460625[/snapback]</div>

It seems rather plain to me that the Vietnam Memorial honors the service and the life these men gave for their fellow solider and country. It does not try to make a statement of any type either in support or against the war.

Wildkow

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tenebre @ Jun 12 2007, 01:51 PM) [snapback]460392[/snapback]</div>

Legislation already exists that limits what you can say, it's been on the books for a long, long time.

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarinJohn @ Jun 12 2007, 01:31 PM) [snapback]460292[/snapback]</div>

A classic example of a mental disease known as "Bush Derangement Syndrome" (BDS). The symptoms are an irrational fear of GWB and a belief that he is responsible (and to blame) for anything the person doesn't like. This is a particularly severe case, because, not only does this person believe GWB is responsible for everything bad, he uses fantasy to create a fear of things that don't exist. It is most likely a result of associating exclusively with other victims of BDS, wherein they feed off each others fears and fantasies and lose complete touch with reality.