The SHOCKING Truth About Government Limits on Free Speech

Ben McClintock interviews Laura bean about a real-world instance questioning our assumed rights. They explore the limits to freedom of speech during a public protest and the broader politics surrounding free expression. Does the bill of rights truly guarantee our human rights and freedom in public spaces? St. George Utah seems to say “The First Amendment doesn’t apply here.”

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TRANSCRIPT

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We're literally being told right now that we cannot have a sign. Do you feel free to speak at a public park, at a public event? So with us today we have Laura Bean and I just was watching one of your YouTube videos. You did this, you're at a park in St. George, Utah, if I remember correctly. Yeah. And they just shut you down. You had a sign on you and you were just asking people what they thought about free speech. And all of a sudden they kicked you out. So I wanted to talk to you about that. But before we talk to you about that, just real quick, I made a little short clip of your longer video.

Your original is not that long, a couple of minutes. But just for this interview I wanted to just do a short version real quick and then I'll link the full version in the video and then we'll go over that. We're just asking people, do you feel free to speak? I do. I love it. Yeah, I like free speech. Are there certain topics that you feel more strongly about in the market about signing a poster? No. Just long winded.

We're literally being told right now that we cannot have a sign. Do you feel free to speak at a public park at a public event? I cannot believe this is actually happening. I'm just going to stay right here on the public sidewalk. The farmers market has reserved this area. If you're not here with the farmers market, just as long as you're outside the farm. I'm going to stay in the public areas where the public are invited. This one's not public. This is a sidewalk. This is the farmers market.

This is a public sidewalk. How's it going? You're trespassing the farmers market, so you need to leave. Well, I'm only going to leave under threat of arrest. You want to be arrested? No, no, I will leave under threat of arrest. You need to leave or else you'll be cited for arrest. Okay, and what's your name? Stan Thompson. Are you threatening to arrest me as well if I don't leave?

Laura, you need to leave. No. You going to leave or not? Well, yeah, under threat of arrest, I will leave. Okay, go. Okay, so I just thought that was just crazy that you're at a public place, a public park, at an event that's open to the public, and you're doing nothing more than holding a sign that says, "Do you feel free to speak?" And somehow the farmers market people – I always thought the farmers market was put on by the city. Are they claiming that it was a private enterprise that was putting it on?

I mean, it just seems weird that they would say you can't hold a sign. What if you were just saying – you were holding a sign saying, "Advertising a photography business," or, "Hey, check out my fruit stand over there." So just kind of give us some background of what led you to being there. What kind of led – did you see what happened to lead people to call to have you removed from the park? And then what's happened since then? What's going on? Sure. I mean, I've been meaning to do kind of what you do, do a podcast. I really love watching First Amendment auditing videos and man on the street type videos, Charlie Kirk videos, you know.

And I've been inspired to do that myself. And so I've just been kind of afraid, afraid to do that. And once Charlie – wow, that whole thing when he was assassinated for – because people didn't like what he said, that really – that really touched me and hurt me in a deep way. It was really, really hard to see that. It affected me, and it caused me to want to do what I feel inspired to do. And then I heard about this public event, and down here it was called Dixie Days. It was put on by the city. This actually was a city event. So this was a little unique.

So the city and the government event in a public park at a city event. Yeah, 100 percent. Okay. Yes. So the normal farmer's market, according to the city's own rules, is different because they claim they have their own – basically private property rights when they have the permit. But on this occasion, it was put on by the city, all the advertisement shows that is done through St. George City. So my friend and I, we got a good camera, got a little sign to – it was just going to interview people. That's it. I was just going to ask people, ironically, about the freedom of speech.

And I was doing it in a public place at a public event where there'd be people. That's it. And so my sign was held in my left hand, I believe, and it said, "Do you feel free to speak?" I prayed about it. I prayed about what to say on my sign, and that's what I came up with. That's what I felt like I was inspired to say. And we were walking around the park just having conversations and recording them. And then, well, the first thing that happened, I don't know if you saw it in the video, but a really angry woman that was a vendor came up and screamed at us saying, "We're not allowed to have signs or posters, especially about political things," and just really upset. Free speech is political?

Well, she said, "You can't have anything political." And my friend was like – How is free speech political? Which party is that? Exactly. And it wasn't – the irony is it wasn't political at all, but even if it was, that should be okay too. Well, sure. Yeah, it should be, but it wasn't. So it's like she's just wrong both ways. She was completely wrong. So she was really the only like hyper part of the whole thing, her and her daughter.

But then the farmers market administrators came over and let me know, "You're not supposed to have a sign. You're not supposed to have a sign at the farmers market." And I'm like, "What? What are you talking about?" And so I was like, "Okay, fine. I'll just go to the public sidewalk because I know I can be on a public sidewalk." It's a public sidewalk. If you haven't studied that, any of the viewers haven't studied the precedent that has been set on public sidewalks, I've done – it's not my first rodeo. I've done many a vaccine rally, and we always make sure to be on the public sidewalk. We make sure to be out of everyone's way and not cause a disturbance because I know that's the law.

So I got on the public sidewalk, walked around the public sidewalk interviewing people still just walking. And by the way, it is the only public sidewalk in that part of the park. Somebody was saying it was just a special sidewalk in the interior, and no, it is the only sidewalk. That's like these free speech zones that they come up with. I'm like, "The First Amendment doesn't give a zone. It says that Congress can't make any restrictions, let alone have a zone." Correct. And that's – when all was said and done, that's what the city attorney led me to believe, that they have a – basically, he pointed out – I know I'm skipping ahead. He pointed out which code that I could read, which city ordinance I could read that I did wrong, that I disobeyed. And I read the whole code, and they recently updated it, September 2025, which I find interesting.

Is that before or after your event? Same time. I don't know. Oh, okay. It's like this simultaneous guy. It pretty much – it seems like it. And it was clear this was written by the attorneys, maybe just him, and not the city council members because they didn't know jack. They don't know crap. I asked them about this, and they were all like, "I know there's a thing in the codes that says something about not protesting." And I am like, "What?" And so I read the code, and it said nothing about that. It didn't say anything about not having a sign.

It didn't say anything about not being allowed to protest unless I missed something. It did refer to a free speech zone. Yeah, you're right. Insane. It did refer to an area being the free speech zone. Anyway, so when I was on the public sidewalk, one of the officers – I think his name was Sam Despain – came over and said, "The farmers market is asking you to leave because you have a sign." Who's the farmers market? And I said, "Respectfully, I'm on the public –" Is there a Mr. or Mrs. Farmers Market?

Who's that? I know their first names is Kat and Ashley. That's all I know. But if it's a city event, doesn't that mean the city's asking you to leave? Yeah. Yeah, but they don't know. They're like this. They don't know. Nobody's in charge. Nobody knows the laws.

Nobody knows what they're doing, clearly. But what they've been told – and the officers were very bold. They were very emboldened. You can tell they've had conversations about this because this isn't the first time I've had this kind of interaction, actually, with these ladies. And you can tell they've been trained what to say. They're just obeying orders on the rules that they're supposed to follow, which is whomever has a permit at that special event gets to make whatever rules they want. So if I was black and they didn't want black people there, they could kick me out. So this gets to the crux of the issue, I believe. You have these picnic tables and barbecues at parks, and you'll have a family reserve it for a birthday party, and they just want it private for their family.

That makes sense. Right. That's reasonable. You're just reserving an area for a certain amount of time. But this is, like you said, this is totally different. This isn't a private family having a birthday party or a barbecue. Exactly. This is the city putting on a farmer's market in a public place. Even if it wasn't the city putting it on, it's a public event where the public is invited on public property. It's not a private event, and they can't claim it's a private event when they invite the public.

Right. So, yes, it's a big deal that the city put it on, but also it shouldn't matter at the same time because it's a public event. Right. So that's the interesting thing that has happened. Okay, so let me rewind. So he asked me to leave. I respectively declined because I know I have the right to stay on a public sidewalk as long as I'm not disturbing, acting disorderly. Yeah, you're not out there swearing or stripping down or doing lewd things. I mean, even if I was swearing, that is freedom of speech. Sure.

But yes, I was not. But you can imagine people being upset by it. Sure, sure. And if my poster said something lewd or, I don't know, pornographic, I can understand that. But my sign didn't have anything like that. So then five minutes later or so, two more officers came over, and I really should have asked for their supervisor. But in the moment, you know, when the adrenaline's going and you have these officers that can kill you if you do make a wrong move, it's unnerving and it's scary. And they're willing to put a woman who's standing on a sidewalk with a poster in shackles and a cage. They're willing to do that, these people. It's really terrifying.

It's really terrifying. And they would have no discussion. But I continued to clarify, I will only leave under threat of arrest. I will only leave under threat of arrest. And they concurred, yes, you will leave under threat of arrest. And I got them to admit that they would be willing to arrest me if I didn't leave. Wow. So I left. And the crux of the matter is what I was talking about before is it went from I was disobeying city code, which I wasn't because there's nothing in the city code that says anything like that, to, oh, now it's -- you're trespassing because they get to make whatever rules they want to make. So if you were black or Jewish or wore a purple shirt and they had special rules that you couldn't be any of those things or wear a purple shirt, then they could use the power, the tool of tyranny, their officers with guns, to have somebody put in jail and arrested for disobeying their special rules and not wanting to leave a public place.

Right. Because somehow this turns magically private and they have magical private property rights for the few hours that they have that event. And again, going back to the idea of it being a private event, every single lawyer -- and the lawyer knows he's wrong about the sidewalk, by the way. You can tell he's like, that's a tricky one. And city counselors, everybody I've discussed this with, he always uses the private event story as, well, let's pretend you're having a party. Let's pretend you're having a wedding. Let's pretend you're having a birthday party. No, you can't keep talking about this being a private event. That's not -- that's apples and oranges. Right.

This was a public event. And it's not like -- Sorry, go ahead. At the end of the day, the officers were in the wrong. The city is in the wrong. That's all there is to it. So let's just kind of play devil's advocate, right? Sure. You're at this public event that is a farmer's market. And at the farmer's market, there's individuals with their individual booths where they're selling their fruits, their art, all kinds of different things at a farmer's market, right?

Yeah. So in this situation, were they claiming that you were blocking the ability for someone to engage in business because you were in front of their booth and stopping people from getting in their booth? They weren't even saying that. All they were saying is that I was holding a sign and I wasn't supposed to hold a sign. You weren't supposed to hold a sign. That's it. They weren't even saying that I was protesting. Like the big argument is all the city councilors and city attorney was like, "Well, clearly you were protesting, Laura, and you're not allowed to protest in these certain areas." And even the claimant who made the phone call to the police did not claim that I was protesting. Right.

So that argument just totally was dissolved, and that's why the attorney changed, moved the goalposts the next conversation he had with me. Isn't that amazing how they're allowed to do that? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They can just change the rules as it goes along. And you know what? You know what they're using? They're using a Supreme Court case, New Hampshire versus Cox, I believe. Maybe it's New Jersey. That essentially says the government has time, place, and manner.

They can control certain things, time, place, and manner. But I wish I had it on me right now, but in the actual verbiage, it says to create that time, place, and manner and have them kind of overrule your Bill of Rights, your 10 Amendment Bill of Rights liberties. It has to be a very important – it basically has to be incredibly necessary. Right. And there is nothing to necessitate – in fact, you know what I kept asking? Both – so now the same issue has come up in the county with their county building as well. So same exact issue. Both in the county and the city, when there's a public event on public property – shoot, I just lost my thought. Well, and that's the thing that they try to do, but the First Amendment is very clear that it says Congress shall make no law. Now, of course, you have a strict interpretation that says, well, that only applies to the general government and doesn't apply to the states or the cities.

But the state of Utah, its constitution says that it is in compliance with the constitution. And so in the state of Utah specifically, we have established that the Bill of Rights, Congress shall make no law, meaning that no city or state shall make a law that can abridge your freedom of speech. And so, again, those limits would be lewdness, doing things in front of children that aren't appropriate. But in general, especially because this was the opposite of lewdness, it was a simple sign about how do you feel about speech. It wasn't like saying this is how I feel about speech. It was simply asking a question. And there was no way, shape, or form that that could be interpreted to be something that the government would even have any sort of interest in limiting. And you can tell they were very careful to say or rather not say that it had anything to do with the content of my sign, because that's a clear violation. I mean, that's like obvious. So is what happened to me. It's pretty obvious to me as well.

But the same thing happened in the county building, by the way, just at the Charlie Charlie Kirk event two nights ago, Monday night. Yeah, my friend was standing in front of the building on a sorry, sitting on a bench with his wife. And he had a sign that said something about honoring Charlie Kirk and that he wouldn't have liked the speakers that are at the event. And the officers threatened to arrest him if he didn't walk away 40 feet. But again, he was on public property sidewalk near the entrance. And they make the same claim. And the claim is silence because they know that that 40 feet will make it harder for individuals that are going to the event. It's a power move. Yeah. At that point, it's a power move. We want you to move 40 feet. You know what to the same thing happened to me at the Republican convention back in May. We were handing out flyers on a public sidewalk. Here we go in front of you, you were the convention was being held. And the head of the Republican Party, six, the sheriff, the Utah County sheriff on me and my friend that were passing out flyers.

And he did the same move. You have to move. It was probably 50, 50 feet to that end of the sidewalk. Yeah. And Utah County Sheriff, he's no friend of liberty, even though it's a more conservative area of Utah. It was under his leadership that the sheriff's department did a no knock raid on my home on you in an attempt to kill me. He is. I'm just going to say I think he's evil. I think he's so evil. I could just feel it in his demeanor. Not that it matters, but it really what really makes me upset and disappointed is I've not received one. Sorry that that happened, Laura. I'm a I'm a Republican Party chair in my precinct. I was there as a delegate. No, no apology. No, like we shouldn't have done that. We should be the party of free speech. No, no. They they wanted to make sure that I knew that I was being checked and that they had they have more power than I do. And I needed to move the 40, 50 feet off the sidewalk and 40, 50 feet.

That's like such a minimal distance. It's insane. It's insane. It's literally insane. Like you said, it's a power move as opposed to actually doing anything. It's just them being a bully. Yeah, yeah. And we can't stand for this, you guys. If someone as small and mousy as me can stand up to these bullies, anybody can do it. I'm I'm nobody. I'm nothing. I'm I barely know the few things I've learned from like watching videos on First Amendment auditing and stuff. That's all. It doesn't take a lot of strength, of knowledge, of power to just say no to a bully. And we need to do that. There needs to be thousands of me's. Oh, yeah. We all need to be being willing to pay that price. I mean, it's it's not even that big of a price, but it's you know, if the founding fathers were willing to do what they did, we can be threatened to, you know, be told to move 50 feet. Yeah, yeah. And the thing that illustrates to me is that we have a lot of people out there saying that that, you know, the the the bad apples in the police, they're the exceptions to the rule.

But when we see the implementation of tyranny, there is never a cop that actually defies an illegal order or an immoral order and says, you know what, I'm not going to do that. And we need to be willing to do that every single time you have the police saying, well, that's you know, I want to keep my job. That's that's for the courts to decide. I'm just here to follow orders. The tyranny wouldn't exist without tyranny enforcers. Yeah, they clearly feel very secure in obeying the orders of from above from the city. The police department is doing an internal investigation on themselves. So fun when people investigate themselves for me. I'm grateful. Turning the report to the police department and say, right, I didn't do anything wrong. Right. I'm innocent.

I investigated myself and I'm innocent. But I do appreciate that they're taking my my letters seriously because I have sent letters to both the police department and the city council. City council hasn't really responded, actually. I'm having a hard time getting a hold of anybody on the city council. They're just so busy. I've only been able to talk to the city attorney, you know, I guess. I did send a cease and desist letter or order to the city attorney. I feel like that's ground zero. Right there is the city attorney because everyone defers to the attorneys, the attorneys or the lawyers run everything managers and city attorneys. They get to be the no one's mentioned. Well, just in general, maybe not in this case, but in general cases, what they always like to do is to pawn it off on somebody that's not elected.

Like, oh, there's nothing we can do about it. It was the attorneys. It was this out of the other. And that's that's their department. Sorry, I can do to help you out. Well, and, you know, one thing I'd like to mention, too, is, OK, Biden administration shut down and basically told Twitter and Facebook, you know, Metta, what who to censor, how to censor vaccine misinformation, all that stuff. The city is doing the same thing here. The attorney doesn't want to believe in my claim that this is all being done from the mayor. I believe it's the mayor. But really, it's the whole city council. She is on record. This this farmer's market has been in a scandal situation many, many times in the past. This isn't a new thing. This farmer's market has a lot of issues. And when I was there maybe two or two years ago, plus the mayor made a very, very strong point to the whole crowd.

Our farmer's market will never be a place of controversy. We don't want political things happening in our farmer's market. It needs to be a neutral zone. That was the edict. That's what she basically told the farmer's market to adhere to and to apply to. And so they're basically letting these private organizations do the dirty work of the city because the city knows that it can't violate people's First Amendment. But it does violate people's First Amendment when they tell these private organizations how to behave and who to kick out of what kind of people to kick out of their events. So that's to me, that's scary. So and they like these types of so you're like you weren't even protesting, which I think is just just amazing. It was simply a sign that was asking a question. And you were talking to people and, you know, and you're asking them a question. And you weren't like from the video, you weren't like pushing your mic or the camera in somebody's face. It was just like somebody wanted to walk by and answer your question that could do so.

But the other thing is that this is clearly the government's attack on free speech, and it's a continued attack on free speech. If folks remember in the state of Utah, I think other places as well, during the fake pandemic, the height of the fake pandemic, 2020, 2021, people were going to government officials homes because they knew that just writing them a sternly written letter wasn't going to do anything. They wanted to, as Thomas Jefferson says, when the government fears the people, there is liberty. And so they went to their homes to not they didn't even go as far as what the colonists did. They just got in front of these guys houses and said, we don't like what you're doing. Please stop. And the state legislature, so the unified legislature with conservative so-called heroes voting for these bills, said that you were not allowed to protest in front of government officials homes. And that is still in the books today. And so they have no problems with. I mean, it's totally illegal. And so what we need to do in like with your case, what people need to do is we need to win, especially when they say not to when they say you don't have free speech here.

Here's this zone for you. We have to say no. We nullify and we interpose and we stand between the tyrant and those that are being abused by the tyrant. And we say this far and no further. And we're going to go on the offense and we're going to take this back. You do not have any rights as a government official. It's the people that have rights. We have we have delegated the job for you to do it, but you cannot you don't have rights as a government official. You have the rights and we are going to defend them against those that would want to take them away. And so it's really, really important that folks like, you know, see your story and know about the history of what's been done in other areas, either to stand up for freedom or how governments have really done a crackdown against free speech. And and it's not in this isn't like people disturbing a meeting, disrupting anything, stopping commerce. This is simply people voicing their opinions in a respectful manner, in a way that doesn't disturb any of those things. And so we people need to stand up, look at what people have done in the history.

So just real quick, as we wrap things up, Laura, what what is what are the next steps with what you're doing with this? Is there is this situation kind of dead and you're just going to move on to the next speech audit or what's going on? No, I'm like a dog gripping down on its bone or something. There's no way I'm letting this go. I can't. I can't. So, I mean, I'm doing steps every week. I'm trying to handle it diplomatically, but it does seem like the powers that be do not want a discussion. All they ever want to do is justify and obey the attorney, whomever that attorney might be. So it's clear this needs to be pushed. And so what's the next step? I think for what there needs to be several next steps. There needs to be like a hundred or more of me showing up to a farmer's market anywhere in town with a sign about this big. Just a sign that says anything. God loves me. I don't know. And just walk, walk through the farmer's market with a little sign.

Just anybody can do that. I know that that might seem cheesy, but I think these little moves. I just watched Truth and Treason yesterday. All that kid did was make little pamphlets. That's it. And it was like some bold, like treasonous thing, apparently, that he did that got him killed. Why were they afraid of it? Right. It shows their weakness. And I think that's great. To me, that's that same thing that you bring out is it shows their fear. So if you've got a little sign that says, what do you feel about speech? You just hold it out there and somebody comes up to you and tries to throw you. There it's showing them the tyranny. And so it might seem small what you're doing. Yeah. But the response shows you how big a problem that the powers that shouldn't be have with free speech. And I just want to interject one more thing, because I just remembered this.

I have to keep asking myself because they seem to be sticking their neck out to violate first and basic civil rights. And I keep asking, why? Why? Why are they doing this? These are people that claim the Constitution. We love the Constitution. No, you don't know the freak. You don't. So I just nobody can answer that question. Nobody. So one one. Another thing I'm doing, I'm doing several FOIA requests or in Utah, we call them grammar requests. I've already got the body cam and the incident number and police officers names. I'm going to file a claim against their bonds. Of course, their surety bonds. But I'm going to ask in a FOIA request, how show me all the incidences in the last 10 years where an individual has disturbed an event. And it was it was a really big problem that they, I don't know, were protesting at a private birthday party or something. I need to figure out how to word that. Yeah. How many times has this happened in St. George, Utah, to the point that they need to violate our civil liberties?

I'm going to guess it's not that many. I'm going to guess it's near zero. But we'll find out. We'll find out to see how just how many incidences like like something crazy like that it took to violate people's civil liberties. Because we we live in a supposedly so conservative and free speech type place, but we don't. The people say they're free speech, but I guess we'll find out if they really are. So. Go to a public place, especially farmers markets, especially anything city government, quasi government. Go inside the buildings, have a sign video record, just stress test. That's my ask. Please stress test the First Amendment. Stress test the Second Amendment. Carry open carry. Yep. Everywhere you go. That'd be another one. But my specific focus is the First Amendment. So I would ask people that please, in your way, please stress test the First Amendment. Then I am clearly going to need to sue the city.

I don't see any other option at this point because diplomatically nothing is being done. So so I I'm probably going to need to file a lawsuit. And it's sad. It's sad that it takes that kind of effort. Well, I think, you know, when you have to do that, you don't have to sue when you have everybody standing up and just claiming their rights. And so I think it's important, like you said, to have more people doing this, because if we had more people doing this, then there was nothing that they could do to stop you. And I think that's exactly important. And how how how we start that movement. I don't know. That's tricky because it is it is hard to get people as you I'm sure know it is hard to get the people that have the right heart, that have the right education, understand the issue to actually show up when it when it matters. Yep. But that's what we hope to do. We've done it before. We opened up restaurants that were shut down during the fake pandemic. We had people show up to the state capitol when they said you couldn't have meetings with more than 10 people. And there's been people winning lawsuit after lawsuit, by the way, on those cases that were clear violations.

And we don't need that because we just took our rights and we don't we don't need to beg them. We don't need to ask the criminal to see if his buddy criminal violated our rights. We just the most effective and the quickest way and the cheapest way is to just exercise our rights. So I really appreciate you being willing to do that and you sharing your story with us. Please keep us posted and we'll have you on again as this progresses. Also, our viewers, please make sure that you are following what we're doing here and to be able to get the updates as things happen. So make sure you don't miss anything by subscribing to this and sharing these videos so that more people can have the courage to stand up and do the right thing. So thank you, Laura. Appreciate your time. Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Dan. We'll see you all next time.