We have yet another disturbing incident of interference with the First Amendment rights of Americans with whom someone disagrees politically. In this nauseating spectacle, the perpetrator is, of course, a Democrat—and he’s from the government.
For Pennsylvania State Representative Brian Sims (D), this wasn’t stepping over the line; he’d long ago leaped over the line and routinely operates far beyond it. He has a history of radical pro-abortion, pro-leftist, whateverist “activism,” largely condoned and even commended by his Democratic Party colleagues.
Recently, Rep. Sims spouted his slavering drivel on a video he broadcasted of himself on Periscope, harassing Christian women and girls protesting against abortion outside a Philadelphia Planned Parenthood (PP) clinic. His harassment of an elder woman, three young girls, and the mother of two of the girls was nothing less than chilling—especially perpetrated by a government official.
Likeminded ghouls posted their encouragement of Rep. Sims’ actions throughout the live broadcast. “Live” also means malevolent locals could have responded to the scene, placing those women and girls in more danger. Sims announces the location several times while shilling for PP: “Just five dollars…”
In the video, Rep. Sims says the elder woman was “shaming people for something they have a constitutional right to do.” So, he considers women and teen girl protesters praying to be “shaming” others, while he apparently doesn’t see his own diatribe of projection and obnoxious video recording as an attempt to shame others. Hell, he literally repeats the word “shame” endlessly, during his rant. How un-self-aware can a person be?
Several times Rep. Sims appears to run out of steam but, like toddlers do when they “fake-cry,” he reinvigorates himself and his chorus of “fake-sobs” i.e., bullying, ranting all over again.
The bully, Rep. Sims, wasn’t just exercising a counter-protest, as would be his right. No, he engaged in an overt act that threatened to put these teenaged girls in danger. Rep. Sims’ aggressive manner alone was intimidating. A reasonable person would easily believe the elder woman and young girls feared for their safety. To them, they just saw what appeared to be a mentally unstable man with a cellphone video-recording them and shouting nonsense.
Pennsylvania attorney Marc Scaringi, on the Scaringi Law’s podcast “Lunch Break,” discusses the legal aspects of Rep. Sims’ alleged harassment of the pro-life demonstrators. Please, click on the link above if you want a more comprehensive explanation.
For the elements most applicable to this incident, I refer to the Pennsylvania Code Section 2709. “A person commits the crime of harassment when, with intent to harass, annoy or alarm another, the person: (2) follows the other person in or about a public place or places; (3) engages in a course of conduct or repeatedly commits acts which serve no legitimate purpose.”
I think we can agree Rep. Sims intended to, at the very least, annoy the elder woman with his repeated taunting even after she asked him to stop. Rep. Sims will argue his speech was, ironically, constitutionally-protected free speech. And there is a First Amendment exception in the law.
However, in a Pennsylvania First Amendment precedent case that traveled all the way up to the state’s Supreme Court, each court consistently ruled that the First Amendment protects speech and not actions while speaking. Rep. Sims was doing more than talking. According to the statute, it appears he could be guilty of committing harassment—for all he knew, against his constituents. By following the woman to (at a minimum) “annoy” her, he is committing an act, not conducting political speech. Had he positioned himself at the PP entrance and simply uttered his opposing speech, as long as it was political, he would have been under constitutional protections.
Further, his offer of $100 in exchange for personal information about the girls, including their residences, so he could “dox” them, could place the girls in real danger. Couldn’t some partisan nut take doxing by an elected official as tacit approval to take actions against these girls? He’d also expressed a desire to know the elder woman’s address, so protesters could protest outside her home.
For example, in March, a pro-abortion thug assaulted an 85-year-old pro-life protester, knocking him down, kicking him repeatedly, and stealing his sign. And an abortion rights activist assaulted a pro-life activist on the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill campus. The out-of-control leftist punched the anti-abortion activist student in the face and stomach several times while screaming and swearing at him. Police arrested her and said she’ d be charged with misdemeanor assault.
Back to doxing. Doxing is the act of making public a person’s private information (documents/docs) to harass (which could also encourage or facilitate violence) them. According to LifeZette.com, Planned Parenthood officials issued a flaccid rebuke of Rep. Sims’ methods but stated they supported him as “a ‘champion’ on pro-choice issues.”
While many of Rep. Sims’ actions were reprehensible, some of them were also incomprehensible. For example, the congressman’s obsession with the protesters’ race. As a part of his harassment tactics, aside from incessantly repeating the word “shame,” he accused the elder woman of being “extremely racist.” And he repeatedly referred to the pro-life demonstrators as “white.” In fact, he called the elder woman an “old white lady,” which, by the way, is also extremely rude. Incidentally, as Ashley Garecht, mother of two of the girls, pointed out to Tucker Carlson during an interview on his TV show: one of the teen girls was not white.
Normal people just don’t act like Rep. Sims was acting, do they? But Rep. Sims is not normal, is he? Nope. He’s morally superior to the rest of us. Apparently, he even has the power to discern the morality of an elder woman and a mom, her two daughters, and their friend (referring to them as “pseudo-Christians”), simply because they don’t think like he does.
It’s obvious that Rep. Sims is a much better person than we are. He’s so much more ethical and moral than the rest of us. I mean…he’s certainly not the type of man who would, for example, offer a hundred bucks to anyone who could provide him with the personal information of three teenaged girls. Oh, wait…yes, he is.
