Judge rules the arrest of a citizen during a local meeting illegal
The first amendment is such an inconvenient thing: A judge has dismissed criminal charges filed against a man who was arrested 40 seconds into his five minute allotted speaking period during a local council meeting when he asked the selectmen to resign.
“The arrest of (Clay) is found by the court to be a violation of (Clay’s) First Amendment right of free speech,” [the judge] Carroll wrote. The arrest amounted to “content-based censorship as the defendant was acting within the very rules promulgated by the (selectmen) as well within his constitutional rights under the U.S. and N.H. Constitutions,” Carroll wrote. Clay “complied with the board’s own protocol, established by the board for public input.”
I have embedded the video of the incident below the fold. Watch it. Essentially, the council didn’t like what Clay was saying and decided to shut him up. Granted, he was being very harsh, but tough, that is what free speech is all about. Note also that though they tell him they have ended the public input session, after he is arrested they then resume public input.
Everyone of these elected officials should be out of office. They have no understanding that their role as elected officials is to be the servant of the people, not their overlords. When a citizen is unhappy, you listen to them, and address their concerns as quickly as possible. As the least, you let the citizen air his or her complaints fully, and loudly, and then if you find they do not have merit, move on.
These thugs clearly do not understand these basic aspects of American culture.
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The first amendment is such an inconvenient thing: A judge has dismissed criminal charges filed against a man who was arrested 40 seconds into his five minute allotted speaking period during a local council meeting when he asked the selectmen to resign.
“The arrest of (Clay) is found by the court to be a violation of (Clay’s) First Amendment right of free speech,” [the judge] Carroll wrote. The arrest amounted to “content-based censorship as the defendant was acting within the very rules promulgated by the (selectmen) as well within his constitutional rights under the U.S. and N.H. Constitutions,” Carroll wrote. Clay “complied with the board’s own protocol, established by the board for public input.”
I have embedded the video of the incident below the fold. Watch it. Essentially, the council didn’t like what Clay was saying and decided to shut him up. Granted, he was being very harsh, but tough, that is what free speech is all about. Note also that though they tell him they have ended the public input session, after he is arrested they then resume public input.
Everyone of these elected officials should be out of office. They have no understanding that their role as elected officials is to be the servant of the people, not their overlords. When a citizen is unhappy, you listen to them, and address their concerns as quickly as possible. As the least, you let the citizen air his or her complaints fully, and loudly, and then if you find they do not have merit, move on.
These thugs clearly do not understand these basic aspects of American culture.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either. IMPORTANT! If you donate enough to get a book, please email me separately to tell me which book you want and the address to mail it to.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Well played Mr. Clay.
“Am I under arrest?”
“You will be if you don’t listen to me.”
Mr. Clay resumes his harangue while the peace officer make a short cellphone call.
“Now you are under arrest.”
“OK.”
Mr. Clay walks out with officer.
Live Free or Die used to be a wonderful, but quaint motto. Never thought it would soon become a binary choice in my lifetime.
Government officials are drunk with power and running rampant at all levels across the country. Case in point: the steward of the small town in California whose salary was revealed to be more than a half-million dollars a year. It has become not only necessary to throw out the miscreants wholesale, it has also become mandatory for a free people. “When in the course of human events…”
“content-based censorship as the defendant was acting within the very rules promulgated by the (selectmen) as well within his constitutional rights under the U.S. and N.H. Constitutions,”
“These thugs clearly do not understand these basic aspects of American culture.”
Oh! But they do!
They do, and have no intention of tolerating it. Thus is a country “fundamentally transformed”, one town at a time, ….if we let them.
The council managed to prove Mr. Clay’s point in a most dramatic way.
Clay asked the council to resign because of “the continued violation of the citizen’s rights, here in Alton.” No sooner were those words out of his mouth, but the council ironically and publicly violated that citizen’s rights.
No wonder Clay believed the council should resign en masse. Likely, everyone else now believes so, too. At this point, resignation is the only honorable thing for these dishonorable amateurs to do.