A friend of mine is involved in an organization that puts on a weekly conference every year for teens to learn more about government called City on the Hill. During this conference they visit the California State Capital. This year, they decided to sing the national anthem and "God Bless America" in the rotunda. Sergeant-at-arms and California Highway Patrol officers (we don't have state troopers, the CHP takes on this role) entered the rotunda to stop the singing because they did not have a permit. Now, my first reaction to this was "duh, you're supposed to get a permit before singing on public property." Then I thought, why should we need the government to give us permission to sing PATRIOTIC songs on land that belongs to us, the people. I understand the need to not have groups coming in selling CDs or disturbing the peace, but it seems to me that those could be handled as separate issues. What do other Mod-Bloggers think? Should citizens be required to get a permit to sing patriotic songs in a publicly-owned place?
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Singing In Our Public Buildings
Posted by quizwedge at 2:57 PM
Labels: california, CityOnTheHill, government, patriotism, public
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
My guess is we have a misguided attempt to provide equal treatment. Remember that singing can be as easily used to disrupt (by singing loudly at the top of your lungs, over and over) as to praise or reverence something. These officers were likely following the letter of the law with this clearly patriotic assembly which bans singing in order to ensure peace and quiet for the legislature to do their work.
i.e. It was bad judgement on the part of the officers, but not malicious.
I don't know that the officers used bad judgment. The rules are there for a reason. It's not the officer's job to judge intention it's to prevent disruptions. People singing could very well insight a disruption from people that don't appreciate the songs. What if somebody is singing a patriotic song in a sarcastic manner? If we start making the law flexible based upon intention then we lessen the strength of the law and put the officers in a bad situation in which no matter what they do somebody will say that they did the wrong thing.
It's unfortunate, but that's the world we live in right now.
I disagree. Perceiving intent is essential to law enforcement's job, especially for laws which are for convenience and not social structure.
Simple example. You see a man photographing the Brooklyn Bridge. Do you interfere with him? If you determine his intent to be terrorism or crime, then yes. If you determine his intent to be artistic or tourism, then no.
I understand the difficulties in determining intent, but in life it is key to differentiating justice from law.
Post a Comment