Cordell Goosby - a convicted felon with mental health issues - is the one that shoot poor Ein Kwon. WTF?! Why was he on the streets? Thank god we got rid of that useless prosecutor.

Really despise the depiction of these encampments/squalid crime scenes as populated by "our most vulnerable" and "unhoused". Give me a break. Most are meth/fentanyl addicted criminals or mentally unstable people. The should be treated humanely (i.e. given treatment despite their objections). What is better? Letting them live horrible lives or getting treatment that could lead to a better (and longer) life?

@6 Exactly right. The people in those encampments are drug addicts and criminals. They either need compulsory treatment or jail. Letting them live in squalor isn’t humane.

@9, 10. not that this is even a first amendment issue, but hate speech is not protected under the first amendment and that's all Cameron has to offer.

the SPL could've told him to get fucked. being taxpayer funded has nothing to do with it. everything is taxpayer funded.

no surprise either of you would err on the side of Cameron though

Ugh, SLOG is continuing to misrepresent the SPL bathroom incident. No single adults can use the family bathroom in the kids-only area. If anyone is being discriminated against, it's single adults, and I'm fine with that. That SLOG continues to hold this up as anti-trans really diminishes their credibility among potential allies.

I was a 213 and we mocked the 818s. Then I moved and became a 310, and I became the laughingstock.

14,it's incitement by any other name. Which is not allowed and also clearly not enforced. People are being killed because his kind of rhetoric keeps being legitimized by our instutions.

And the aclu was wrong to defend nazis.

The 1st and 2nd amendments have become nothing more than a convenient excuse for people to embrace and promote the worst parts of themselves, to the detriment of the nation as a whole

That bitter old closet case Cameron is a tedious hateful bore, but SPL did the right thing. If they had refused, that would be the latest stupid conservative cause, and would give him the publicity he craves. As it stands, he'll have his dumb presentation, protesters will outnumber attendees four to one, and we move on.

@2. I definitely think the second should be repealed but I know that's never going to happen. First should probably be narrowed. If you are trying to deny other people the right to exist and/or have the same rights that you do, I do not think you deserve a voice in the national discourse, nor should you be entitled to one.

"Democracy includes accommodating "people who embrace and promote the worst part of themselves." Surely you can be gracious enough to agree with that in principle."

There are plenty of democracies that function just fine without the ridiculous presumption that enabling nazis and applauding the mass consumption and use of weapons are some sort of god given rights.

Well, let's definitely get rid of the 1st and 2nd Amendments, which should take care of the issues of "hate speech" and "using weapons". Sure, we'll have gotten rid of free speech and the basic right of self defense, but I can't imagine any consequences of that rebounding unexpectedly or anything.

@25. "allowing ... is not enabling."

hmm I'll have to chew on that one for a while

@23, this is a post-law world. the law varies depending on the moods of 6 unelected right-wing ideologues and their donors. such democracy.

@29 "The thought of giving politicians the power to restrict speech makes me nauseous. " then you must be sick all the time because this has never not been the case. it's just a matter of degrees.

@26 " Sure, we'll have gotten rid of free speech and the basic right of self defense,"

So if 2A were repealed, and someone broke into your home or attacked you, you would just shrug your shoulders and say "welp nothing I can do about this now!" ?

@32 As has long been understood, and in fact is helpfully explained in the Amendment itself, civilians being well supplied with the actual means of defense - arms - has always necessary for defense against threats to safety and security, such as the sadly quite plausible scenario you described.

@33, the thing is, I'm not even generally opposed to the idea of gun ownership. And I 100% support self-defense. I just think it should be really really really fucking hard to get one. 2A's original intent has been twisted into a blank check for violence from unqualified, untrained, unhinged people .

smartest thing W. ever said "it's just a goddamn piece of paper." (regarding the constitution)

@36 Sure, I suppose it could be kind of nice if only me, my friends, and people I agree with had the right to free speech and arms, which certainly can be dangerous when misused - but ultimately I think the framers of the Constitution had it right when they noticed that arguments for restricting rights are often much less trustworthy than they appear, and the right thing to do to safeguard rights is to risk it and grant them as broadly as possible to the general populace.

The motto of Friends of the Seattle Public Library reads, “My Library Has Something To Offend Everyone.” Implication being it’s a poor excuse for a library which doesn’t.

As Our Very Own Dear Divine Madame Vel-DuRay just did us the favor of a reminder, refusing to host a bigot just grants him attention he does not deserve. Better to go and mock him, as the cure for bad speech is more speech, not censorship.

I wish the murder of D'Vonne Pickett Jr had received the same public outcry as Eina Kwon. In fact, if it had then people would've been pointing the finger at SCC in October 2022.

The SPL is guilty of not censoring the people the event organizers would like them to censor. They can't because, being a government entity, they're bound by the First Amendment.

New guy seems like he'll be a fountain of thoughtful, intellectual discourse for the blog! Hopefully people don't report his profile to be banned, that'd be a real drag.

@50 I'll agree with you that guns are too expensive!

@55 What other rights do you think we should subject to onerous obstacles? Perhaps we could adopt the UK's authoritarian speech codes that frequently see comedians imprisoned for jokes that defy the Current Thing, whatever it is? It's funny how there's always an increasing appetite to roll back rights - it can only make us safer...

When will senseless gun violence end, al-fucking-ready??

Area Code (564)? Bleh is right!
Who remembers when Washington State had only two area codes--(206) for ALL of Western Washington, and (509) for ALL of Eastern Washington?

YIKES---!!!!---about the massive caterpillar invasion of Guemes Island!! Where are the birds and spiders?

@56: Yeah, why should we choose to become a dismal hellhole, like the UK or Scandinavia, when we could instead become the paradise that is Mississippi or Texas?

@58 Do you think giving away rights will somehow give you all the benefits of generous welfare states (which certainly have their own problems), or is necessary to prevent whatever you think the problems (rural poverty?) with those states are?

@59: No, I’m just having fun with your screaming leap from what Sir Toby wrote @55, to whatever jackbooted fascism you’re imagining goes on in the UK.

“…whatever you think the problems (rural poverty?) with those states are?”

Would you feel great sending a child to school in places like Uvalde?

@60 It's sort of funny to see the kind of early 2000's Europhilia just because you don't really see that anymore, but I'm afraid if you do a little study on the subject you will find that the UK is absolutely more authoritarian on free speech etc and it isn't even close.

Murder isn't a Texas specific problem. My issues with schools in Uvalde would be more the local police departments sitting around and playing with keys for an hour during an attack - this "stay undefended, sit around and wait for the police" system you want to export to the whole country.

@61: It’s not just Europe; Japan has tight legal controls on weapons to the extent Swiss Army knives are illegal to carry in public, yet it seemed like a nice enough place otherwise.

My point was that plenty of places which don’t completely satisfy every last detail of whatever Checklist of Total Freedom you’re running can still be good places to live. Try your “don’t like more authoritarian” against, “my child returns home safely from school every day,” and see which gets chosen more often.

The delusion that guns keep Americans free — not to mention safe! — is a fantasy, and like most fantasies imposed for political reasons, not a harmless one.

Funny thing about area code 564. It was supposed to be introduced in 2001, but the WA state utilities commission instead said "no, we have way too much number wastage because we give out numbers in blocks of 10,000 and thousands of them never get used." Shortly thereafter, the phone system started giving numbers or in blocks of 1,000, and clawing back thousands blocks from companies that weren't using them.

So thanks to the state utilities commission standing up, 564 was delayed a good 22 years.

On the other hand, its introduction has led to the end of 7 digit dialing in Seattle, one of the last metros left to still have it.

@62 I can definitely see what people will choose - they choose to flee the safe paradise of strict gun control imposed on civilians in Mexico to the tune of about 200,000 people a month, into the dangerous wasteland of American gun rights.