‘ “You shouldn’t be putting stuff like that on government property,” said Michael Poulin of Rochester when asked about a Black Lives Matter mural that popped up down the road from his house.” ‘
On the contrary, that’s exactly where it belongs. Government does not exist as a person or thing exists, but as a legal fiction in service of the public for the provision of public goods. A fiction is a form of communication. Anything said to be owned by a form of communication must also thereby be itself a form of communication. Moreover, insofar as government can be said to have property rights, all such property is de facto held in trust for the public: that is to say it is a communication about the common interests and needs of society.
The medium, in this case, clearly being the message: to wit, an artistically-expressed political communication on ‘goverment property’ by a party expressing their exclusion from the benefit of other forms of public good provided by said government: in this case, in uneven application of police violence against diverse demographic segments of the public, which under the law comprises all members thereof. As we can assert that the artist-communicator is a member of the public, we should likewise view the medium on which he or she chose to express that communication as a conscious choice: It is the address on the envelope, and necessary to ensure that the communication is delivered.
In effect, what this artist’s work represents is a communication about a violation of the public trust, issued as a directed communication to the segment of the public — government — whom the artist percieves as in need on intruction on better serving the public good. Such communication is explicitly protected under the First Amnendment: It is political speech in on property held and reserved for the public good, and it is a communication made in service of the public good.
It is not even arguable that such a communication of protest is not protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution without rendering the First Amendment utterly impotent. via Facebook
via IFTTT