Attacking Free Speech

Bush was back in New Orleans for another political photo opportunity, as he made more promises of financial help for New orleans. But of course, Bush said "Congress should allocate" money for rebuilding here, and gave no indication he would lobby his party members in Congress to do it. Bush has made repeated promises for help here and honored few of them. That is his usual method of government- promise at the time of an incident and hope the people will either forget the promise or not pay attention to whether it is honored. We expect virtually nothing from Bush, and we get that.
There is a proposal in my state's legislature to do a very undemocratic thing- ban protests in front of funerals. This is weird proposal on first glance, yet four other state sin the U.S. have already passed this law. It simply makes it a crime to picket or demonstrate at funerals, a reaction to protests by crazy right wing Christian groups who show up at military funerals across the U.S. and claim the war in Iraq and the death of Americans is the result of "the nation's tolerance of gays and lesbians.
Too, the protesters say that hurricanes and mine disasters are "divine retribution for the nation's stance on gays". Clearly, the proposal attacks a small groups of crazies, who if left to their own devices would soon self distruct. yet, those at funeral s who have been affected have lobbied for this law. The question brought about by such an undemocratic law is, Can free speech be halted because it offends others? In this country it should not. Thus far the law has not been adjudicated in those 4 states that have it, but the idea that anyone would attack free speech (even if it is crazy free speech) is a reflection of the deterioration of freedoms and dissent here since George Bush was elected in 2000.
In time the law will be challenged in court, and probably ruled unconstitutional. Yet I find it frightening that we have such laws here. Pre Bush it would have been unthinkable. It's not as if protesters are showing up ay Uncle Harry's funeral. They appear at military funerals.
When is a person robbing a bank and when not? That was the question of the day in Williston, North Dakota after a man wearing a ski mask walked into a bank and demanded money, then told the tellers "just kidding". Ryan Wright, 20, isn't laughing now, and has surrendered to police. He now awaits charges that could put him in a jail cell for 5 years. The Judge who set bail for Ryan set his bail at $1000 given that he is more a jokester robber than a menacing one. Judge David Nelson also ordered Ryan to stay away from alcohol and bars (Yep! They think he was drunk when he made his almost robbery attempt).
The tellers at the bank that Ryan "maybe" attempted to rob say that Ryan was good-natured and had no weapon. In fact, he went about his banking business after his remark about robbery, oblivious to the fright he caused the tellers in the bank. This does seem to me to be a case of the booze doing the joking, and I do think Ryan will avoid jail. Seems to me someone ought to tell Ryan to do his robbery at the bars he frequents.
They will probably be as drunk as he and won't pay much attention anyway.