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thatnameagain t1_ivq73qa wrote

Based on these responses I assume the majority of you didn't read the article.

  1. He should not have been swarmed with a Swat team for this or arrested. Simply informing him he had violated the law and asking him to remove the post would have been sufficient and saved everyone a huge headache.
  2. He wasn't arrested because of anything related to COVID misinformation
  3. He was arrested because the tenor of his post made it sound like police were literally shooting people on sight right then and there, and obviously this creates a potential for a violent "response" by others. This absolutely crossed the line into incitement, albeit unintentionally. It's not a free speech issue.
  4. The real issue here is Louisiana's draconian pro-police laws - "Under the state’s law, it’s legal to execute an arrest without a warrant as long as there’s a reasonable basis for believing an offense has been committed"
  5. If your takeaway from this is "Big government doesn't let us have no freedom of speech" instead of "The police have way too much power to do what they want and that undermines the legitimacy of law and hurts our rights" then you missed the point.
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WlmWilberforce t1_ivrhfrx wrote

>If your takeaway from this is "Big government doesn't let us have no freedom of speech" instead of "The police have way too much power to do what they want and that undermines the legitimacy of law and hurts our rights" then you missed the point.

These two things are definitely not in conflict.

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thatnameagain t1_ivsaknk wrote

They're not in conflict in abstract principle, but they are in the sense of the article.

State-level laws ands state's rights are often cited by conservatives as the proper alternative to "big-government" (i.e. federal government). This was a state law that brought the police down on him even though the main issue is that the police chose to handle it like thugs instead of rational people.

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peterkeats t1_ivvfwpg wrote

His post:

> SHARE SHARE SHARE ! ! ! ! JUST IN: RAPIDES PARISH SHERIFFS OFFICE HAVE ISSUED THE ORDER, IF DEPUTIES COME INTO CONTACT WITH ‘THE INFECTED’ SHOOT ON SIGHT….Lord have mercy on us all. #Covid9teen #weneedyoubradpitt

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