[QUOTE="SaintLeonidas"][QUOTE="Laihendi"] I realize its considered a punishable offense. I'm saying it shouldn't be. You seem to believe that the law of the government is always right because the government says so. Wearing a shirt with a disagreeable opinion written on it is not harassment because it can be easily ignored. If every person who ever did something that someone else was offended by was jailed, we would all be in jail.Laihendi
You seem to have zero understanding off the intent of the shirt, what the statement was saying and the intended targets of the shirt. It was not simply an "opinion" as you claim it to be. It also does not is anyway fit in with the usual "offensive" statements someone might make. It was created hours after two officers were gunned down. It is not an opinion but a statement made solely to offend the friends, family and fellow officers of those killed; officers who were still in the town investigating the murders. Not to mention your claim that "we would all be in jail" is a laughable exaggeration. People are always making offensive statements. They aren't all jailed. It is usually very rare, and depending on the case and the backlash by those offended, most people are not jailed. In this case this moron was. He did something he knew would offend, he knew could possibly get him arrested, he broke the law. Oh well. You keep falling back on the "he broke the law" argument. I still don't think you understand me when I say there shouldn't be a law against what he did. You don't know what his motivation was, but even if he was deliberately trying to offend people, his method of expressing himself was passive and unobtrusive.And obviously I'm aware that we're not all jailed when someone is offended by us. I'm saying that no one should be jailed for doing something that someone takes offense to. Offending people is harmless and unavoidable, and when someone is offended by something it his own fault for concerning himself with the business of someone else. People who saw his shirt had the option of ignoring it.
Using your attempt at logic, if enough people on this forum found your signature (a violent man with a gun!) offensive, it would be justifiable to arrest you and send you to jail.
But it is the law. If you don't like it move to the UK and try to get it removed. But until it is, the law is the law, you break it you go to jail. Doesn't matter if you agree with the law or not, the simple fact that it is law and he did break it makes this story rather pointless.
"People who saw his shirt had the option of ignoring it" only someone with the simplest mind could think that ignoring such a thing would be so easy to those it targetted considering the context.
A context that you clearly have ignored. If he had just been wearing that shirt on any other day, even if people took offense, nothing would have happened. It is the context of the story, when he did it, where, the clear motivation behind it, that made what would normally be an "ignorable" offensive statement to clear harassment and intent to hurt, emotionally, those connected to the peole killed. Again trying to make comparisions like my thread or as someone posted earlier a "f*ck emos" t-shirt is laughable.
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