The nice thing about this thread is that so many closed-minded anti-freedom totalitarians self-identify.
How can anyone justify the position that calling a dead person some names and making a vid to ridicule them is a CRIMINAL offense and deserves incarceration ? If I do the same to Dick Nixon should I be jailed ?
If the family is actually harmed then they have a cause for CIVIL action. To make it a criminal matter is amazingly backward - knuckle-dragging.
The only sense in which "freedom" is a meaningful concept is that we allow others the right to do what we would not do, what we find objectionable, what we find offensive. We need to assert rights only to do unpopular things. So IMO anyone unwilling to accept that this guy was rude yet within his rights is anti-freedom. As with the porn/mail topic we always have some population of small-minded anti-freedom people who want to enforce their views on others to the detriment of legitimate freedoms. Totalitarians,
To make this a criminal rather than a civil matter is to claim the act is harmful to society at large - and not just to the individual/family, I don't see that at all. The guy didn't foment a riot nor scream fire in a crowded theater. It's just offensive speech, categorically similar to the stuff on this forum. No general harm at all.
What is next in the prissy overly-sensitive totalitarian regime some here prefer ? Shall we jail people who use the wrong Indian/Native_American/First_Nation term ? Shall we lock people up if they believe that inoculations cause autism. Why not tax and jail people who reject evolution, or maybe the death penalty for rejecting global warming ? Clearly many find these ideas objectionable too.
No - speech should be protected. The only exceptions are speech that cause harm directly.
