I think you're misinterpreting. The judge is saying that Shiloh using offensive, obscene, or abusive language alone is insufficient to return a guilty verdict, the wording also has to reach the threshold of "fighting words," then goes on to define what that means. The judge is not saying that offensive, obscene, abusive = fighting words.
But unfortunately the definition makes my assertion correct again considering that the jury was instructed to ignore the niggers reaction and the fact that saying nigger to a nigger will often provoke the nigger into acting like a nigger and thus nigger is a "fighting word".
I think the real problem here, one that we all seem to recognize on this board, is the special status of the word "nigger." It's uniquely positioned in the law such that a white person is supposed to understand that saying "nigger" to a black person comes with an expectation of violence. Because a violent reaction might be expected here, the implication is that there's justification to the violence. I agree the judge is very close to saying that.
No, the real problem is that we have a significant subset of the population, growing everyday, that has no impulse control. Civilised people are expected to respond to words (of any sort) with words.
We once had a provision for actual fighting words where, when offense was taken, one could directly challenge their opponent to a fight and they then had the choice or either apologising or fighting. But our law evolved even beyond that to say, in effect, "every White adult must have the fortitude and presence of mind to ignore and/or dismiss speech that offends them".
Well all that's down the toilet, for the exact same reason as always.
Based off 10 minutes of Google, 'fighting words' today basically means inviting someone to a fight or a substantial verbal threat of immediate violence. Number one on the list is still stretching to the older, broader definition.
Now as to what the law should be, anyone reacting violently to a flag burning or utterance of the nigger word should be deported to Liberia. This includes the board that ousted Papa John from his own company. The counterpoint is that we should have covenant communities ostracizing flag burning communists.
I think you're misinterpreting. The judge is saying that Shiloh using offensive, obscene, or abusive language alone is insufficient to return a guilty verdict, the wording also has to reach the threshold of "fighting words," then goes on to define what that means. The judge is not saying that offensive, obscene, abusive = fighting words.
Yes, I did misinterpret that sentence.
But unfortunately the definition makes my assertion correct again considering that the jury was instructed to ignore the niggers reaction and the fact that saying nigger to a nigger will often provoke the nigger into acting like a nigger and thus nigger is a "fighting word".
I think the real problem here, one that we all seem to recognize on this board, is the special status of the word "nigger." It's uniquely positioned in the law such that a white person is supposed to understand that saying "nigger" to a black person comes with an expectation of violence. Because a violent reaction might be expected here, the implication is that there's justification to the violence. I agree the judge is very close to saying that.
No, the real problem is that we have a significant subset of the population, growing everyday, that has no impulse control. Civilised people are expected to respond to words (of any sort) with words.
We once had a provision for actual fighting words where, when offense was taken, one could directly challenge their opponent to a fight and they then had the choice or either apologising or fighting. But our law evolved even beyond that to say, in effect, "every White adult must have the fortitude and presence of mind to ignore and/or dismiss speech that offends them".
Well all that's down the toilet, for the exact same reason as always.
Based off 10 minutes of Google, 'fighting words' today basically means inviting someone to a fight or a substantial verbal threat of immediate violence. Number one on the list is still stretching to the older, broader definition.
Now as to what the law should be, anyone reacting violently to a flag burning or utterance of the nigger word should be deported to Liberia. This includes the board that ousted Papa John from his own company. The counterpoint is that we should have covenant communities ostracizing flag burning communists.