Man Cited and Threatened With Arrest for Raising His Middle Finger
"If you flip people off again, you will be arrested."
Matt Agorist
July 21, 2014
Forest Thomer was flipping people off as they drove by Friday afternoon to express his freedom of speech and to garnish some attention for his Facebook page called "Art of a Mother Fucker."
Highland Heights Police officer Dave Bruener showed up and shut him down.
"You're being cited for harassment, that's what the people want," says Officer Bruener, as if 'the people's' wants out weigh the individual's rights.
Breuner then tells Thomer that if he freely expresses himself again, via 'the bird,' that he will be arrested.
Apparently Officer Breuner doesn't know that this non-verbal gesture is protected by the First Amendment.
Not only is it not illegal to flip off other people, it's fine and dandy to flip off a cop.
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In a 14-page opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled that the "ancient gesture of insult is not the basis for a reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation or impending criminal activity."
Forest is due in court in Newport Kentucky on August 1st, 2014 at 9:00 a.m.. Hopefully the court does not completely disregard Thomer's right to express himself, and throws the harassment charge out.
Obviously flipping people off will not make you many friends, but so what, you've harmed NO ONE in the act of raising your middle finger.
If someone is offended by another person's finger it does not justify that person's extortion nor kidnapping.
To be offended by what someone else says or does with their finger is your own choice, as you don’t have to care about what other people think, and nothing has happened to you. Information merely passed from their mind to yours.
To state that you are offended means that you wish the person hadn't said anything or positioned their finger in a certain manner and won’t say or do anything similar again. In other words, you actually want to stop certain information from being communicated.
You must believe that you have some sort of right to dictate not only what people can and can’t communicate, but what they can and can’t think.
To be offended is to take the first step in being a totalitarian megalomaniac.
“It’s now very common to hear people say, ‘I’m rather offended by that.’ As if that gives them certain rights. It’s actually nothing more… than a whine. ‘I find that offensive.’ It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. ‘I am offended by that.’ Well, so fucking what.”
– Stephen Fry, The Guardian, 5 June 2005
